Encadrement du bruit environnemental au Canada

Environmental noise-both a quality of life and a public health issue-is regulated by and at different levels of government that vary throughout the world. In Canada, the federal, provincial and municipal governments (as well as other regional and local entities) share responsibilities for regulating noise from different sources, like transportation, leisure, industry or construction. The present review covers policies and regulations developed since the 1970s by different levels of government and shows a fragmented and uneven portrait that varies by provinces, as well as a multiplicity of stakeholders and measures that should be better integrated and harmonized. The current approach to noise, often focused on a posteriori redress and on controlling noise levels, is insufficient to address the wide variety of noise issues. We argue that it could be widened and enriched by (i) a qualitative analysis of the various sensibilities of different people to types of noise and their context, and (ii) planning tools that would integrate sound considerations in the early stages of land development and management practices. Thus improved, noise regulations would better equip different Canadian governmental actors to respond to the high economic and social costs of this environmental pollutant and to the desire to reduce inequalities in population noise exposures.