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Today, Canada ratified the Minamata Convention on Mercury. There are now 41 countries that have ratified the convention, including Canada, and 128 that have signed it since it was completed. 

Through this ratification, the Canadian federal government has formally met various requirements stipulated within the convention to track and reduce transboundary mercury pollution. Like other UN legal agreements—including the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and Montreal Protocol—the requirements under the convention comprise domestic strategies to manage mercury emissions, point source release, exposure, remediation of contaminated sites and other matters. 

This brief summarizes the state of knowledge on mercury management in Canada based on recent reports, as well as decades of research at the IISD-Experimental Lake Area (IISD-ELA).