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NORTHWEST TERRITORIES
Debate was heated on Wednesday during the Canadian Medical Association's annual general meeting after two NWT physicians presented two motions requesting better and more accessible data on the environmental effects of the Alberta oil sands on human health.

Dr. Courtney Howard, emergency physician at Stanton Territorial Hospital and member of the Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment, addressed heated debate at the Canadian Medical Association over the quality and availability of information on the effects of oilsands on the environment and people's health. - Lyndsay Herman/NNSL photo

"We're used to going to medical databases and looking for how to treat pneumonia and it's right there," said Dr. Courtney Howard, a board member of the Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment and an emergency physician at Stanton Territorial Hospital. "Environmental determinants of health aren't published in the same way necessarily.

"They're difficult to find ... which is why our second motion had to do with public transparency and accessibility of data ... just so that all eyes can see data and we can have the best chance of doing something sensible that is good for the health of all Canadians."

Dr. Ewan Affleck, a newly-elected member of the CMA board of directors and an NWT general practitioner, said patient populations, community leaders and various other people are concerned about how environmental factors such as oils sands development are affecting their health.

"There has been so much hysteria, it has been an emotional issue, it has been politicized and, even for us as physicians, we don't really know what's real after a while," he said.

The first motion supported the creation of a "federal-provincial/territorial partnership" to monitor the environmental and adverse health effects of the oil sands and the second called for data gathered by industry and the government on health and environmental effects of the oil sands to be timely and easily available to the public.

No delegate rose to the microphone in opposition to the request for better and more accessible data but debate erupted after a delegate physician from Alberta questioned the motion's focus on the oil sands. The delegate moved that council change the motion's wording to include all environmental resource extraction projects, such as mining and fracking. Another delegate rose to say he had invested in the oil sands and supported the motion because he wanted to know he had not invested in something harmful to human health. The amendment ultimately passed for both motions, but only after a long and heated debate.

Dr. Howard defended the original motion saying it was in align with a joint environmental provincial-federal panel already focusing on the oil sands. Although concerned expanding the focus to all extraction activities will dilute the intent, Howard said she is hopeful the motion will attain the same results.

"I just wanted to highlight that (the Canadian government) had taken a step forward and actually use it as a way to get past the rhetoric," she said.

"I hope this can be the start of having productive, fact-based discussion about it because clearly emotions run high and that's not the best way to find the best solution for Albertans, Northerners, or anybody else's health."

Both Howard and Affleck said they were surprised by the debate around the two motions.

Dr. Anna Reid, president of the Canadian Medical Association and emergency physician, said she was not surprised by the delegates' reactions.

"I think the motion that was first presented was a motion about a specific project and it's a project that has been discussed a lot politically and in the media," said Reid, "so I would expect it to be something that would receive healthy debate as such things do amongst our general membership."

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