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Canadians have been exposed to potentially toxic chemicals

For decades, North Bay, Ontario's water supply has harboured chemicals associated with liver and developmental issues, cancer and complications with pregnancy. It's far from the only city with that problem.

The public information session's focus was PFAS, a kind of artificial, potentially toxic chemicals that have crept into countless corners of daily life, and of which many persist in the land, water and human body alike for years. As that foam has been released during emergencies, or in the years of firefighter training that the airport grounds hosted in the 1970s, '80s and '90s, it has seeped into the soil and into Lee's Creek, a waterway connected to Trout Lake, across a small bay from the local water treatment plant. This February, the City of North Bay announced plans to begin remediation of the PFAS contamination at Jack Garland Airport this year, paid for with nearly $20 million in federal funding from the Department of National Defence.

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