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Thick, oily black soot is settling on homes across east Hamilton, and it's getting worse. Families are wiping it off their windows, porches and kids' toys with no idea what it is.

Add your name Read the demands

Hamilton deserves clean air.

Marit Stiles and the Ontario NDP will fight for it.

Wipe the soot →
475
complaints to the ministry in nine days
3 yrs
since new air standards were promised
0
test results released to the public
--days
:
--hours
:
--minutes
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since black soot blanketed east Hamilton over the July 4 weekend.

The ministry took its samples. Families are still waiting for answers.

What's happening

Something is landing on east Hamilton. Nobody will say what.

For weeks, residents across east Hamilton have been finding a thick black grime coating their houses. Some scrub their homes clean only to find them covered again within days. One neighbour describes her house as perpetually gray.

The Ministry of the Environment has collected samples and sent them to a laboratory. It has made no commitment to share the results with the people breathing this air. And the updated air standards the Ford government promised Hamilton's industrial sector in 2023 still don't exist.

Residents keep asking a simple question: what are we and our kids breathing in? They deserve an answer.

Marit Stiles
“No family should have to scrub soot off their front porch while their government looks the other way.”
Marit StilesLeader of the Ontario NDP

How we got here

Three years of broken promises

  • June 30, 2023

    The old rules expire

    Special emission arrangements for Hamilton's largest industrial sites come to an end. The Ford government promises new sector-wide air standards to take their place.

  • 2023 to 2026

    The standards never arrive

    Three years pass. The promised air standards are never finalized, and Hamilton's biggest industrial sites keep operating under an outdated framework.

  • July 2026

    The soot gets worse

    Over the July 4 weekend, a thick layer of black soot blankets homes, cars and yards across east Hamilton, the worst wave residents can remember. They file 475 complaints to the ministry in nine days.

  • Today

    Still no answers

    The ministry has samples at a lab, but no commitment to release the findings. And the Ford government has never assessed what industrial air pollution is doing to the health of the people who live beside it.

The community is leading

This fight started with neighbours

Before anyone at Queen's Park was paying attention, east Hamilton residents were documenting the soot, comparing notes and demanding answers. That community organizing is the heart of this fight, and it deserves its own home.

Stay tuned for StopTheSoot.ca, a neighbour-led community initiative to collect stories and photos from residents and build local momentum, created by east Hamilton neighbours working alongside Environment Hamilton. When it launches, that's where the community's stories will live.

The community's stories will have their own home soon.

StopTheSoot.ca · Coming soon

The petition

Two demands. Both of them reasonable.

1

Release the results

Immediately release the full results of the ministry's soot testing to the public. Residents deserve to know what is coating their homes and whether it is safe to breathe.

2

Finalize the standards

Commit to a firm timeline to finalize the industrial air standards the Ford government promised in 2023, and hold to it.

Add your name

Make it impossible to ignore.

Every signature makes it harder for Queen's Park to look away. Add your name, then send this to a neighbour.

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