Almost exactly a year ago, the worst wildfires in Canada’s recorded history were blazing across the country, causing the evacuation of 59,000 people in British Columbia, triggering a province-wide state of emergency and sending patients to emergency rooms with asthma exacerbations and heart attacks from wildfire smoke. This summer, however, the bigger story may be the emergency rooms themselves. Almost 200 ER closures have been announced in northern BC alone this year, depriving communities of life-saving care when they need it most.
Some healthcare leaders point to systemic underinvestment in primary care and pandemic-related burnout as key reasons for these widespread closures. While this is undoubtedly true, in some towns another major factor is at play. The expansion of B.C.’s liquefied natural gas (LNG) industry is fuelling impacts across the province that increase healthcare system costs and reduce access to care – and if we value high-quality healthcare, it must end now.
In B.C., almost all “natural” gas is extracted via a highly polluting and water-intensive technique called hydraulic fracturing, commonly known as “fracking,” to crack the earth open and access methane gas deposits. Research shows that fracking pollutes the land, water and air with chemicals linked to serious health risks, whether through flaring, gas leaks or leaks of fracking fluid. Comprehensive scientific reviews, including damning studies from Canada, have been published in recent years, overwhelmingly pointing to its myriad health harms, including associations with childhood leukemia, asthma, heart disease and poor pregnancy outcomes. Due to its environmental and health risks, fracking bans or moratoria are currently in place in four other provinces in Canada.
Unsurprisingly, stories I have been told by physicians who live in or have left the Peace Region, where the majority of fracking occurs, reflect this research. At least seven doctors have quietly closed their practices and moved their families away from Dawson Creek – where fracking is rampant – seeking healthier communities. Each one specifically cited their concerns about rare diseases, tumours and deadly cancers diagnosed in their own patients, colleagues, friends and family members, and a school system with low academic standards due to a boom-and-bust economy based on oil and gas.
In a town that typically requires at least 15 family physicians to provide primary care and staff the emergency department, this represents almost half the workforce. This compounds access-to-care issues due to already high turnover in internationally recruited staff, who leave for larger cities after their contracts are up. On account of their fears about social and professional risks should they speak out against the powerful oil and gas industry, most of them remain silent.
On a broader level, our healthcare system is also paying a steep price as the fossil fuel industry grows. Last year’s wildfires blanketed communities with smoke that incurred health costs in Ontario alone of $1.28 billion in only five days. In 2021, the Western Canada heat dome killed 619 people in B.C. – the worst weather-related mass casualty event in Canada’s history.
Meanwhile, 57 fossil fuel companies are releasing 80% of our carbon pollution, and two of the top-10 polluters, Shell and PetroChina, are partners in the $40-billion LNG Canada project in Kitimat. If we continue to approve new LNG infrastructure and fail to lower our emissions, climate change will cost the Canadian healthcare system an estimated additional $110 billion per year within the next 25 years.
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Research also points to high social costs of the LNG industry. Though proponents emphasize the industry’s economic benefits, they are often overstated and unequally distributed. Influxes of workers can significantly worsen housing affordability, substance abuse, domestic violence and sexually transmitted infections. Broken connections to the land and between neighbours worsen mental health issues and residents’ sense of place and belonging. Mental illness already costs the B.C. economy more than $6 billion annually. Through harmful impacts on local communities, and by driving climate change that worsens the rising epidemic of eco-anxiety, the LNG industry in B.C. is contributing to significant social and mental health costs.
That is why, this month, more than 300 physicians and nurses signed an open letter calling on the provincial government to choose a healthier future, where its climate commitments are met and communities and health systems are protected. The industry must not be allowed to expand until a comprehensive and independent health-impact assessment of LNG and fracking in B.C. is completed, similar to the $12-million Ottawa-funded study of Alberta’s oil sands recently announced. While it continues to operate, regulations and monitoring to reduce air and water pollution must be strengthened. The province must guarantee good and sustainable jobs in the clean-energy economy for workers and Indigenous communities affected by LNG production. Demand for fracked gas must also be curtailed by enacting policy to end natural gas tie-ins and to retrofit existing buildings to phase out fossil fuel heating.
Though the problem is vast, the solutions are many – and when they are enacted, our health and healthcare systems across B.C., and Canada, will be the benefactors.
Melissa Lem is a Vancouver family physician, president of the Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment and a clinical assistant professor at the University of British Columbia.
