History

As a result of this meeting, and after informal consultations with other groups, municipalities and provinces, Minister Stewart agreed to work with her Cabinet colleagues to formally create a Clean Air Day (CAD) -- a day that would build on, and give focus to, a solid tradition of clean air related activities already organized across the country. Some of these key activities were:

• BC Clean Air Day, which has been held on the Wednesday of Environment Week since 1992 and has involved significant numbers of partners at the municipal level;
• Pollution Probe’s June Clean Air Commute Campaign in Ontario cities;
• Transport 2000’s May 15 International Clean Air Day activities in Montreal;
• And the New Brunswick Lung Association’s Clean Air Month.

With formal Cabinet approval, Clean Air Day was finally declared as the Wednesday of Environment Week, and was officially launched on June 2, 1999. (Environment Week is the first week in June that includes June 5th, World Environment Day.)

The goal of CAD is to increase public awareness and action on two key environmental priorities, clean air and climate change. And by utilizing a collaborative, decentralized approach, CAD has become the focal point for a wide variety of like-minded environmental, health and transportation activities all across the country.

To help guide its growth, CAD has relied on a few key principles, including:

• CAD should be seen as an individual day of action, as well as a focal point in longer term activities;
• CAD should ultimately encourage concrete, long-term actions by Canadians.
• CAD is an opportunity for everyone -- all levels of government (federal, provincial and municipal), industry, non-governmental organizations, and individual Canadians -- to share their commitment towards action on clean air and climate change;

For example, in 2003 the Government of Canada launched the One-Tonne Challenge, a program to encourage individual Canadian families to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions by 1000 kg per year. Greenhouse gas emissions are linked to climate change -- and action on climate change is also a goal of Clean Air Day. Therefore CAD is a natural focal point for this program's public education and outreach.

And since 2000, the Canadian Urban Transportation Association (CUTA), in partnership with Environment Canada, has delivered a sustainable transportation campaign through municipal transit companies across Canada. These local events link sustainable transportation with cleaner air and reduced risks of climate change; they can be one day long or several months long -- but they always use CAD as a focal point, and thus create the momentum of a nationwide event.

And naturally, the Commuter Challenge is another event closely connected to Clean Air Day. Across Canada, dozens of communities, hundreds of organizations and tens of thousands of people participate in a Web based sustainable transportation challenge. The Commuter Challenge is a chance to reevaluate your commuter habits, to try something new, to be more active or to renew your commitment to the choices you've already made. Clean Air Day, always celebrated on a Wednesday, is the natural mid-point and highlight of this weeklong event.

Clean Air Day is all these things, actions both large and small, actions by groups and by individual Canadians. Clean Air Day, as part of Environment Week, is also a celebration; it's a chance to promote and celebrate all activities that nurture our environmental legacy. Together, our actions can make a difference, and we can create a cleaner, healthier world.