This article was written by the Canadian Press and was published in the Globe & Mail on June 22, 2024.
The B.C. government has filed a class-action lawsuit against manufacturers of socalled “forever chemicals,” involved in what it calls widespread contamination of drinking-water systems.
Attorney-General Niki Sharma says the province is the first Canadian jurisdiction to sue makers of perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances, known as PFAS chemicals.
B.C. has filed similar classaction lawsuits in the past, targeting tobacco manufacturers in 1998 and opioid makers in 2018 to recover health care costs associated with those substances.
Ms. Sharma says in a statement that the province is filing the lawsuit to “ensure that companies that created the problem, and profited from these chemicals, pay their fair share.”
The lawsuit targets 12 companies that include firms associated with the chemical giants 3M, DuPont and BASF.
It says the defendants knew that when their products were used as directed, “toxic PFAS chemicals would be released, would contaminate the environment for centuries, and would pose significant threats to human health.”
According to the U.S. National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, exposure to PFAS products may lead to childhood obesity, weakened immune systems and certain types of cancer.