ABSTRACT. This paper examines the integration of human health considerations into environmental impact assessment (EIA) in the Canadian North. Emphasis is placed on the northern mining sector, where more land has been staked in the past decade than in the previous 50 years combined. Using information from interviews with northern EIA and health practitioners and reviews of selected project documents, we examined three principal mining case studies, northern Saskatchewan uranium mining operations, the Ekati diamond project, and the Voisey's Bay mine/mill project, to determine whether and how health considerations in EIA have evolved and the current nature and scope of health integration. Results suggest that despite the recognized link between environment and health and the number of high-profile megaprojects in Canada's North, human health, particularly social health, has not been given adequate treatment in northern EIA. Health considerations in EIA have typically been limited to physical health impacts triggered directly by project-induced environmental change, while social and other health determinants have been either not considered at all, or limited to those aspects of health and well-being that the project proponent directly controlled, namely employment opportunities and worker health and safety. In recent years, we have been seeing improvements in the scope of health in EIA to reflect a broader range of health determinants, including traditional land use and culture. However, there is still a need to adopt impact mitigation and enhancement measures that are sensitive to northern society, to monitor and follow up actual health impacts after project approval, and to ensure that mitigation and enhancement measures are effective.Key words: health, integration, environmental impact assessment, mining, Canada, North RÉSUMÉ. Dans cet article, on se penche sur l'intégration des considérations en matière de santé humaine dans le cadre de l'évaluation des incidences environnementales dans le Nord canadien. On met l'accent sur le secteur minier du Nord, où plus de terres ont été jalonnées ces dix dernières années que pendant les 50 années précédentes. À la lumière des commentaires obtenus en entrevues avec des spécialistes des évaluations environnementales et de la santé du Nord ainsi que de l'examen de certains documents de projets, on a examiné trois études de cas principales portant sur l'exploitation minière -soit les exploitations d'uranium du nord de la Saskatchewan, le projet de diamants Ekati, et le projet de mine et d'usine de la baie Voisey -afin de déterminer si et comment les considérations en matière de santé dans le cadre de l'évaluation des incidences environnementales ont évolué ainsi que la nature et l'étendue actuelle de l'intégration de la santé. Les résultats indiquent que malgré le lien manifeste entre l'environnement et la santé ainsi que le nombre de mégaprojets de haut calibre entrepris dans le Nord canadien, la santé humaine, et plus particulièrement la santé sociale, n'est pas traitée adé...

The need to address the human health implications of northern development is well founded, and the role of health determinants in environmental impact assessment is increasingly recognised; however, there is limited understanding of the nature of health determinants and current practices in northern project assessment and decision making. This paper reports on a study of the nature and use of health determinants in Canadian northern environmental impact assessment, and discusses the key challenges to, and opportunities for, improved practice. Four themes emerged from this study. First, the consideration of health is limited to physical environments and the physical determinants of health, with limited attention to broader social and cultural health determinants. Second, when health is considered in northern project impact assessments such considerations rarely carry forward to post-project approval monitoring of health determinants and evaluation of health impact management programmes. Third, while there is general consensus that health determinants should be an integral part of northern impact assessment, there exist different expectations of the role of health determinants in project evaluation and decision making due in large part to different understandings and interpretations of health. Finally, a broader conceptualisation of health and health determinants in northern environmental impact assessment is required; one that takes into consideration northern cultures and knowledge systems, and is adaptive to local context, geography and life cycles.

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In 1996, the Geneva‐based International Organization for Standardization released its ISO 14001 guidelines for environmental management systems (EMSs). By implementing an EMS, an organization is better situated to manage the environmental effects of its operations which, in turn, should lead to better environmental performance. However, research on EMS performance has only recently begun to emerge, and the relation between EMSs and genuine improvement in environmental performance has not been clearly established, particularly for organizations such as Parks Canada, whose principal mandate is to protect the natural environment. While EMSs are gaining recognition amongst parks as a systematic approach for dealing with the environmental aspects of park operations, there has been very little investigation as to the effectiveness of EMSs in improving the environmental performance of park operations. This paper presents the results of a case study of the effectiveness of Riding Mountain National Park's (RMNP's) EMS and its contribution to environmental improvement. The results confirm EMS experience elsewhere in that RMNP's EMS has been only moderately successful at best and that there exists no clear link between the EMS and the environmental improvement of park operations.