The start of the school year has some advocates calling for more indoor air quality controls

By Tommy Osborne

Air Quality

Start of school year has advocates calling for improved air filtration

Sep 5, 2024 | 3:41 PM

PRINCE GEORGE – The first week of the 2024-25 school year is underway, meaning hallways and classrooms are once again packed with hundreds of students. With that in mind, several advocates are calling for more action to improve indoor air quality.

“Because of the airborne particulates, we’re seeing more and more respiratory problems with our youth, with our kids, and our seniors, so it’s very important that we start to think about indoor air quality and monitoring it. It’s about putting in robust filtration systems,” said SMART Canada’s Director of Canadian Affairs Chris Paswisty.

SMART Canada says there are currently no provincial or federal laws that mandate monitoring, measuring, and reporting air quality levels, and Paswisty is advocating to see legislation put in place to ensure high quality, clean, indoor air for students.

“Respiratory problems seem to be more prevalent, especially when young children are in school and their lungs are still developing, that’s where we’re seeing the most complications,” Paswisty said.

These calls for improved air quality come during a year that is seeing the worst reported air quality in the country. For the first time in its six year history, the World Air Quality Report reports Canada was the most polluted country in North America, with the continent’s 13 most polluted cities being in the country.

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“Some of the things that we could be doing is making clean air spaces within the schools, because there’s a lot of schools that have mechanical systems that aren’t running 24/7. And I think that’s where school boards and governments have to start looking at: how do we control the air and make sure it’s clean and filtered for the individuals,” Paswisty said.

Wildfire smoke plays a huge role in why Canada’s air quality was so poor, which Prince George certainly is no stranger to. The combination of wanting to keep windows closed to prevent wildfire smoke from entering a building, but also wanting to have clean air circulation, has Paswisty believing more needs to be done.

“Even when you’re breathing the air or looking at it, if you can’t see something, there could still be something that’s harmful within it.” he said.

While many schools and other buildings have made moves to modernize air filtration, most notably with things like investments into HEPA filters, Paswisty hopes legislation is put into place to further modernize these air filtration systems and create consistency.

“As we close up the buildings and as Canada shifts towards net zero and starts to retrofit buildings right across Canada, and the more efficiency that we get of the buildings, the more important it is that we have indoor air quality, fresh air, and that we get that fresh air into the buildings,” he said.

“At the end of the day, we need to have healthy buildings to have healthy communities and healthy citizens.”

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