Proceedings of the Standing Senate Committee on
Energy, the Environment and Natural Resources
Issue 10 - Evidence - December 14, 2006
OTTAWA, Thursday, December 14, 2006
The Standing Senate Committee on Energy, the Environment and Natural Resources, to which was referred Bill S-205, to amend the Food and Drugs Act (clean drinking water), met this day at 8:05 a.m. to give consideration to the bill.
Senator Ethel Cochrane (Deputy Chairman) in the chair.
[English]
The Deputy Chairman: Good morning. It is my privilege to welcome you today.
This morning we will be examining Bill S-205, which seeks to amend the Food and Drugs Act by adding clean drinking water as an objective, so that the federal agency already mandated to regulate drinking water in bottles, ice cubes and soft drinks would regulate community drinking water as well.
Appearing before us this morning are John Cooper, from Health Canada, and Elin O'Shea, from Justice Canada.
My name is Ethel Cochrane. I am a senator from Newfoundland and Labrador. I am the chair this morning because Senator Banks is away. I want to introduce members of the committee. We have Senator Milne from Ontario, Senator Adams from Nunavut, the sponsor for our bill, Senator Grafstein from Ontario and Senator Spivak from Manitoba.
John Cooper, Director, Water, Air and Climate Change Bureau, Healthy Environments and Consumer Safety Branch, Health Canada: I would like to thank the committee for inviting Health Canada to attend today. It is important that we have this opportunity. I am here to try to answer your questions as best as I can and to be as frank and straightforward as possible.
We consider our current efforts to protect drinking water to be the best approach; however, we do recognize and acknowledge that we face significant challenges in providing safe drinking water to all Canadians. To be clear, it is not a perfect situation.
Like Senator Grafstein, the government believes that safe drinking water should not be limited to the enforcement of guidelines and standards, but also needs to include the protection of our sources of drinking water from pollution. That is very important. The recent situation in the Greater Vancouver Regional District clearly brings the safety of drinking water to the fore and warrants a good discussion and analysis of the facts.
The question before us is to determine whether the quality of water is best protected through the creation of a new federal regulatory regime, as proposed in Bill S-205, or by strengthening and supporting the current collaborative approach in which provinces and territories exercise primary responsibility for drinking water.
Historically, collaboration, in respect of federal, provincial and territorial traditional roles, and the practical approach of ensuring action is taken by those best positioned to deliver, have been the mainstay of Canada's efforts to provide safe drinking water.
The federal government has a distinct role in drinking water safety, which includes science and research and the development of guidelines to be used by provinces and territories as a basis for establishing their own regulatory requirements.
Provinces are responsible for establishing licensing and regulatory regimes and for enforcing drinking water standards based on these guidelines. The guidelines are developed collaboratively with provincial and territorial representatives and they are adopted and applied in all jurisdictions, through a regulatory or a permitting regime. Municipalities, in turn, manage the infrastructure to deliver drinking water. This approach ensures national consistency and recognizes the regional and local priorities that can best be addressed at the provincial and territorial level. It is a model that serves us well, where responsibilities are clear and duplication is avoided.
Bill S-205 proposes that drinking water be regulated federally through the application of national water quality requirements and federal inspection and enforcement of drinking water operations.
In considering the future of Bill S-205, it is important to the note the following points. Every province and territory has established drinking water quality requirements, a regulatory regime, that protects human health. Every province and territory has in place systems to assess, authorize, inspect, and enforce drinking water operations and systems. Every province and territory is directly informed of the adverse water quality test results and has procedures to respond. Essentially, Bill S-205 would duplicate these efforts of provinces and territories to manage drinking water effectively.
We are not in the same situation as five to six years ago after Walkerton. Significant progress has been made and that needs to be factored into the discussions I hope we will have today.
This same bill was first introduced in 2001, largely in response to the tragedy of Walkerton and Justice O'Connor's subsequent findings and recommendations. In his report on the Walkerton inquiry, Justice O'Connor provided valuable recommendations on all aspects of drinking water and source water protection, which is key, including government oversight and responsibilities. It is important to note that Justice O'Connor specifically recommended that the provincial government continue to be the government responsible for setting legally binding drinking water quality standards.
Over the past five years, all orders of government have recognized the importance of the findings from the Walkerton and North Battleford inquiries and have taken action to ensure that such incidents do not occur in the future. They have put in place comprehensive safeguards that Bill S-205 would merely duplicate. This supports maintaining the existing federal-provincial-territorial collaborative approach that respects historical roles and takes into account local and regional priorities and capacity. Since 2001, all provincial governments have strengthened their legislative regulatory or policy regimes to protect drinking water.
These actions by federal, provincial and territorial governments have not been limited to drinking water quality standards, which alone cannot ensure the safety of drinking water, as we know. All governments nationally and internationally are adopting the multi-barrier or source-to-tap approaches. This global approach focuses as a first step on source water protection, and the importance of source protection is in Bill S-205.
The federal, provincial and territorial governments are adopting watershed-based approaches to prevent pollution of source waters — a key recommendation of the Walkerton inquiry. Land use decisions and policies are being made with a view to ensuring the protection of our lakes, rivers and aquifers, which serve as sources of drinking water. It is important to note that while we are undertaking actions to protect sources of drinking water, we are not there yet. Much more needs to be done because a great deal of pollution occurs of these primary sources of drinking water.
An important distinction needs to be made between what the provinces and territories are doing and what Bill S-205 proposes. Health Canada's view is that decisions on watershed and source water protection should not be taken centrally in Ottawa. Those decisions need to be made locally by the communities and stakeholders and overseen and supported by the provincial and territorial governments. Authorities in the area of the watershed are best equipped to understand the balance between environmental, economic and health priorities and to make decisions that ensure the well-being of residents, taking a population-based approach to protect their health.
Of course, the multi-barrier, source-to-tap approach means more than source water protection. Other key components include effective treatment, maintenance of water quality in the distribution system, including regular testing, operator training, infrastructure renewal, and a scientifically-based set of guidelines used as enforcement standards for the protection of drinking water from environmental and other contaminants. It is a complex system but with multiple barriers, if one barrier fails, there is another barrier to ensure the safety of drinking water. It is quite a costly process to ensure that the full set of barriers is in place. These significant undertakings will serve to protect the health of Canadians from unsafe drinking water.
Without downplaying the importance of safe drinking water and the significance of the events at Walkerton, it needs to be understood that outbreaks of illness caused by contaminated drinking water are rare in Canada. A real-time alert system was established two years ago and is operated by the Public Health Agency of Canada, which collects information on outbreaks or incidents of enteric illness across the country. In that two-year period, there have been no outbreaks or instances of enteric illness linked to drinking water contamination.
That paints a fairly rosy picture of our drinking water but I would suggest that it does not likely capture the individual events of enteric or gastrointestinal illness that are not reported, so those incidents are not picked up by the system. Clearly, the burden of illness related to drinking water is not significant. However, we still need to do more, to pay attention and to work to ensure the safety of drinking water in the future, because there are many challenges.
As members of the committee are aware, we still face boil-water advisories in all parts of this country. Most notably was the advisory applying to the Greater Vancouver Regional District that affected between one and two million people over a period of two weeks. That is serious and unfortunate but could not have been avoided by the provisions of Bill S-205. A new treatment plant that includes filtration was already being developed and will come on line in 2009. It does show that provincial and municipal governments are taking the safety of drinking water much more seriously now than perhaps they did prior to Walkerton. They are making the right decisions to safeguard our drinking water supplies.
It is important to understand boil-water advisories because we have many of them across the country. Senator Grafstein and Senator Adams and others have pointed out this issue in Newfoundland and Labrador and elsewhere in the North across the country. We could have as many as 1,500 boil-water advisories across the country at any one time. These boil-water advisories generally have a negative connotation, and well they should have because it indicates a problem with our drinking water. However, we have to look at it in terms of what they do — they are a preventative measure in that they advise people that the drinking water potentially is unsafe and contains a contaminant either because of a treatment problem or an operator problem. Advisories are put in place to protect the health of Canadians and are a useful tool, but we should not have as many as we do.
It is also important to note that for the most part these advisories are in small communities of fewer than 5,000 people, where there is a range of different concerns to be aware of. Small communities of varying populations require different solutions and options. Generally, it is in small communities of 5,000 people or fewer, including First Nations communities, that 99 per cent of the boil-water advisories occur.
One of the most critical initiatives in which Health Canada is involved is the development of a national alert and communications system for boil-water advisories and drinking-water advisories. The real-time alert system that we are building with the Public Health Agency of Canada will ensure that enteric illnesses, chemical spills or leaks, and outbreaks of water-borne illness are picked up instantly and reported to public health officers so that immediate action can be taken in response. A national alert and communication system will provide us with a much better understanding of the issues surrounding the safety of drinking water across the country and the scope and magnitude of boil-water advisories. Boil-water advisories can be put in place for many reasons. If we know those reasons, then we will be able to target our actions collaboratively with the provinces and territories to adjust these issues. I admit that it is no easy challenge.
There has been much discussion about the safe-water challenges faced in small communities, whether in the North, on First Nations reserves or in other rural and remote communities. Health Canada is focusing its action now on trying to bring solutions and best management practices. Senator Grafstein mentioned two weeks ago the options that may be available in Finland, Norway and other countries for dealing with the safety of drinking water in small northern communities.
We have formed a consortium of regulators — provincial, territorial and federal — with academia and with the industry, which is very important to bring to the table. In order to determine the best solutions, the best management practices to bring to small communities, those people need to be engaged. We are working with them to develop best management practices that we can apply to small systems, in collaboration with the communities.
We are also working with the World Health Organization on a network to ensure the safety of drinking water and small community water supplies. Their focus tends to be on the developing world but, equally, developed countries we face instances and issues of unsafe drinking water. We are working nationally and internationally on this issue. We think it is important to focus resources to address problems, rather than just bringing regulations to the table.
As you know, Minister Prentice tabled the report from the expert panel on regulatory regimes and options for managing drinking water on First Nations' lands. The government is committed to dealing expeditiously with this issue of serious concern to all Canadians.
My point today is twofold. First, the challenges of the past are being addressed — maybe not as fast as we would like them to be, but we have to recognize the initiatives, actions and efforts deployed since Walkerton to ensure the safety of drinking water. Second, new and emerging challenges that we face are best served by the current collaborative approach. We depend on the provinces and territories to give us the information we can use to identify where the problems are, who has been exposed to what, and what is getting into the source water. It is a very effective system.
Within the system, federal, provincial, territorial and Aboriginal partners have acted — and continue to act — without raising issues of constitutional authority, and without incurring the significant costs of an increased federal role in inspection and enforcement that would overlay existing provincial and territorial regimes.
Bill S-205 raises questions on how it could be put into practice. It would bring federal oversight to watershed management and land use decisions that could impact source water quality when provinces and territories are already active in this area. The application of Bill S-205 would cause significant disruption to a collaborative system that has shown itself to be effective and responsive. Bill S-205 would lead to duplication. More importantly, it would put at risk the cooperative and collaborative approach where roles are based on those best positioned to act.
The Deputy Chairman: I had suggested that Senator Grafstein begin, but he has informed me he would rather wait until later, which is fine.
Senator Grafstein: It is traditional for standing committee members to proceed first. I do not want to change the convention. The convention is that additional members follow other members. That is the practice we follow in our committee. I would just defer to the convention and ask others who are interested to proceed.
Senator Milne: I would suggest that when somebody comes in with a private members bill, they normally defend it before us.
Senator Grafstein: I am in the hands of the committee. I am ready to go.
Senator Angus: I should say, Senator Milne, that Senator Grafstein did come before us last week and gave a very eloquent defence of his bill. We also are prepared now to put him on the metal even further. He promised on national TV to buy me a dinner with a nice bottle of wine.
Senator Milne: Not a clean bottle of water?
Senator Grafstein: All under $100.
The Deputy Chairman: Mr. Cooper, now you know what our committee is like exactly.
I must tell you that Senator Angus has joined us. When I gave the introductions, he was not here. He is from Montreal and a is member of this committee.
I will begin questioning with Senator Spivak.
Senator Spivak: You say, on page 3, that land use decisions and policies are being made with a view to ensuring the protections of rivers, lakes and aquifers, which serve as sources of drinking water. Where is the documentation for that? In my opinion, and in the opinion of many others, logging practices and all sorts of other practices threaten water sources. Certainly, within provincial boundaries, there is not enough oversight or ability to really check that out.
In fact, in my own province of Manitoba, a huge area in a pristine area was given over to logging with almost no recommendations or oversight as to what could go on there. Therefore, I am wondering what evidence you have for that statement.
Mr. Cooper: You are quite right that there are many ongoing practices that threaten the quality of our water in aquifers, lakes and rivers. The evidence I would put forward is that source water protection is now clearly recognized as one of the most important barriers to ensuring the safety of drinking water.
For example, Alberta has come out with its Water for Life strategy, in which it deals with source water protection. The provincial government plans to establish watershed management committees for its major watershed so that decisions on land use can be taken collectively and with all the stakeholders involved.
Quebec has also come out with a policy to set up watershed management councils. Ontario has legislation to put in place watershed protection plans across the province. Within the next five to seven years, they are all required to have watershed protection plans.
This is not a new idea but it is a relatively reasoned one. It is a very complicated approach to protecting drinking water, if you consider all the potential land uses — development, forest practices, farming — and the diverse stakeholders within a watershed. For example, the Saskatchewan River goes across the Prairies and everyone contributes their own part to potential pollution.
Senator Spivak: Lake Winnipeg.
Mr. Cooper: That is another good example. The watersheds are large. The impacts are diverse and many. Protecting the watersheds will not be easy. The approach generally is to set up community-based watershed councils so that decisions are made locally, but also to support those decisions by regulations, whether they are federal — like the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, which deals with municipal waste water and pollution, and the Fisheries Act — or individual provincial regulations. One of the greatest challenges all governments across Canada face is source water protection. Any land use potentially can contribute to contaminating the source water.
Senator Spivak: You recognize that development decisions are taken many times — have been and will continue to be — that do not take that into account. Coal bed methane in Alberta could threaten the entire water system but they are going ahead with it. It seems like there is a schizophrenic approach.
What are the legal teeth to constrain development where development threatens the water sources? Frankly, I do not think the present regime is very strong.
I know it is necessary to have local people on the ground — they know their watersheds. However, having strong federal laws that can be used to take offenders to court is more effective than this idea that development proceeds on the one hand while we are trying to protect water sources on the other hand.
Mr. Cooper: That is a very good point. We do have some federal levers, as do provinces: namely, the Canadian Environmental Protection Act and the Fisheries Act.
Senator Spivak: In my province, more observed in the breach than in the observance.
Mr. Cooper: There are also the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act and the provincial environmental assessment acts, where all those considerations of the impacts on sources and quality of drinking water are expected to be included. We are engaged in many environmental assessments of development projects across the country with respect to safe drinking water and we conduct studies to look at the potential risks associated with those projects.
That is not to say that governments do not make decisions that are contrary to protecting lakes, rivers and aquifers. I think we do have a way to go still in that area. Source water protection is a great challenge. I do not think one sweeping law can actually protect it, considering all the input from long-range transport of airborne pollutants or mercury or contaminants being deposited in the Great Lakes. There are so many sources of pollution of our waterways.
Senator Spivak: Yes, into the Great Lakes — raw sewage.
Mr. Cooper: Yes.
Senator Angus: First, Mr. Cooper, I could not help but get the sense that you are not in favour of this bill.
Mr. Cooper: That is correct.
Senator Angus: I think the reasons you gave were fairly cogent. Without being overly general, it is your view that the bill would duplicate the regime that is already in place. Is that correct?
Mr. Cooper: That is one of the key points. The other is that we believe the system is currently working quite well. Unlike bottled water, drinking water is local in nature. The diversity of drinking water across the country is significant. We do not have the same drinking water anywhere across the country. For the various elements that are in drinking water and the potential pollution, we have very different treatment systems that must be applied in different situations. It is a cost-capacity issue. There are tremendous challenges. We can adjust to the challenges associated with drinking water much more effectively if we do it collaboratively with provinces, territories and municipalities.
Senator Angus: Are there any constitutional or jurisdictional reasons that you feel justified rejecting this legislation, or would you concede, as Senator Grafstein asserts, that it is within the federal powers to have a law like this?
Elin O'Shea, Counsel, Constitutional and Administrative Law Section, Justice Canada: Although arguments can be made to the contrary, in my view, it is likely that Parliament does have authority from division of powers respective to enact a bill pursuant to the criminal law power.
Senator Angus: As Senator Grafstein says, that is important.
Did either of you have an occasion to read the transcript of Senator Grafstein's testimony, in particular the recent one?
Mr. Cooper: I was actually here.
Senator Angus: You were here in the room?
Mr. Cooper: Yes.
Senator Angus: Senator Grafstein is a frugal man — as we all are trying to be in this day and age when there are so many demands on the public purse. He would not want to duplicate.
I found one of the points he made to be quite persuasive. A number of years have gone by and he has been quite diligent. I do not want to say nagging, but he has been on this case in a very aggressive way, because he believes there is a gap. Furthermore, some measure of federal oversight is needed, with a view to bringing together the regimes, as diverse as they may be. He starts from the premise that the feds are in the game already with respect to their mandate for the Aboriginal communities and the native supplies of water. I believe that is one of the arguments.
You have already referred to bottled water. Other than the natural-flow sources, you are already in the field, are you not?
Mr. Cooper: That is correct.
Senator Angus: Are you able to put a number on the additional cost for the infrastructure that would be required? Have you costed out what would be involved to complete what Senator Grafstein is trying to accomplish with this bill?
Mr. Cooper: We have not costed it out, although we could in general provide some of our concerns. Senator Grafstein indicated at the hearing last week that it was a matter of oversight and spot-checking. If we regulated drinking water under the Food and Drugs Act, there would be associated responsibilities for accountability, transparency, and demonstrating that we are actually doing an effective job.
The management and regulation of food and the regulation of drinking water are completely different areas. The regulation of drinking water deals with different treatment, different parameters, and different concerns. The variety of different water-quality issues and treatment types across the country are such that the expertise needed to enforce or to monitor compliance under a Food and Drugs Act for water would be significant. There is that responsibility. If you take responsibility for drinking water, you cannot simply check occasionally to see if it is working. You have a legislative responsibility to do more than that.
Concerning the infrastructure costs, there have been estimates that replacing Canada's water treatment plants or upgrading them and their distribution systems would cost in the range of $40 billion to $80 billion over the next 20 years. That is a significant amount of money. Montreal is a prime candidate in terms of distribution system.
Senator Grafstein mentioned that while we do regulate food, we do not provide money to Kellogg's or other manufacturers to upgrade their factories. I would like to point out that drinking water is not the same as a business that produces a product for sale internationally or nationally. These products go through a distribution system; they are labelled, stored, and dispersed widely. Drinking water on the other hand is local. Any costs associated with drinking water are generally associated with its delivery and treatment. In other words, consumers pay for the services, but water is not a profit-based industry. The approaches to water and food are different.
If the federal government were to take on an oversight role, it might have significant responsibilities for ensuring that the infrastructure is up to speed.
Senator Angus: That is the overriding goal, is it?
Mr. Cooper: Yes. The federal government should be engaged in infrastructure support; I am not saying it should not. Presently, we have a collaborative three-way split where we work infrastructure programs. We have not costed it out, but we think the costs would be significant, particularly in the areas of enforcement and compliance.
Senator Angus: If there are big costs involved, that would seem to persuade me that your oversight is necessary, but we will come back to that.
I want to congratulate you. Your paper was excellent, and when you spoke you added as you went along in a very helpful way.
What I got out of your paper was that, in a perfect world, everything would be fine and we would not need our colleague's private bill. He has asserted, and I think quite wisely, that our quest for perfection has the counterproductive or dilatory effect of driving out the good. We are not living in a perfect world. The situation is different in each provincial jurisdiction, but we were told that in some areas the infrastructure is reaching a point where it needs to be renewed, upgraded or replaced.
Senator Spivak: Winnipeg.
Senator Angus: We heard of Manitoba. We just heard a reference to Montreal, in the province of Quebec. I find myself on the fence. Your explanation is a very good one. You have stressed the improvements since Walkerton, but Walkerton did happen. The recent situation in British Columbia did happen, despite the best-laid plans of mice and men.
I am persuaded by both of you, but what might carry the day for the good senator is that a little ounce of prevention is sometimes worth a pound of cure. You would be looking over the shoulders of the regional people who have the real authority; you would have the hammer and not have to invest the money unless there was a flagrant falling behind in terms of delivering safe water, and then under this bill you would have the power to move in and get them on the stick.
That really is not a question, but I would invite either of you to comment. That is my dilemma now. I learned about this bill six months ago. I am influenced by my colleague Senator Spivak, who is not unknown to bring private bills to fill lacunae where they exist. I have been persuaded that this is not a frivolous exercise. We have been doing a study in this committee on water generally in Canada, east and west. We have been struck by the regional disparities. I would appreciate your elaborating what harm would be done by bringing in this bill.
Mr. Cooper: I would like to reinforce the fact that we all agree that this is not a frivolous exercise. Senator Grafstein has drawn attention to the importance of drinking water. Senator Banks has been an active member on the Pollution Probe policy circuit regarding a water policy. It is important to continue to draw attention to water.
You mentioned the oversight role, the hammer and looking over shoulders. Perhaps this is not the best analogy, but I would rather walk hand in hand with the provinces and territories than look over their shoulders, because we do have a very collaborative system. We depend on them to provide information on what is in the drinking water and where the problems are. We work together on an ongoing basis; we meet twice a year face-to-face for three days.
Senator Angus: Do you do that with all the provinces?
Mr. Cooper: We do that with all the provinces and territories. We go through the priorities in terms of guidelines that need to be developed and updated. By consensus, everyone supports those and goes back and implements them.
You can always have another system to do oversight, and you can always say that having checks and balances is a good thing. I would suggest, though, that if it is a matter of putting resources somewhere, we know that there are significant challenges where we can work together to find solutions where it is not a regulatory matter. If there is an exceedance of a chemical contaminant, we want to look at the associated risks. We do not necessarily want to shut the water down if it is a marginal risk based on exposure over a lifetime.
We work with provinces because they are hands-on. They have the expertise related to their treatment systems and they manage locally many systems.
Ours has been a model of collaboration. In the last 10 years or so, the U.S. and the U.K. have had as many instances of water-borne outbreaks and deaths, such as in Milwaukee in 1993 with 400,000 people ill from cryptosporidium. As Senator Grafstein has pointed out, they have a federal oversight system.
It is not the regulatory regime or the backup regulatory regime that will protect people; it is the actions that we decide collectively within Canada that need to be addressed, whether it is the fact that we have to use tanker trucks in the North to provide communities in Nunavut and elsewhere in the territories with water, or the fact that source water is being impacted. We should focus our attention on source water protection, dealing with the small communities. I am not talking about discussions at conferences; I am talking about taking the best management practices to the communities and testing them out, and getting the industry to focus on the Canadian market, instead of on the international market, and bring some solutions.
You can have the backstops, but there is a certain amount of resources available. There is excellent federal-provincial-territorial collaboration. We are not there yet in terms of ensuring safety of drinking water for all Canadians, but it is certainly the objective of all governments and a priority of all citizens to ensure that their drinking water is safe. We feel we are on the right course in identifying and addressing problems rather than always coming back to establishing another regulatory regime, which would in fact duplicate the current regime.
Senator Angus: Are there effective national standards in place already under the regime that you do administer?
Mr. Cooper: Yes. It has been mentioned before that the guidelines for Canadian drinking water quality are voluntary, but the federal-provincial-territorial committee has a senior committee of health and environment that formally adopts the guidelines. Those guidelines are taken back to the provinces and put into legislation or regulation as binding, enforceable standards for drinking water in seven provinces. The other provinces and territories use site-specific permits and licences for water treatment plants. Where they apply those same guidelines as standards, they are required to meet them. The guidelines are developed nationally. They are enforced provincially and territorially.
Senator Angus: As appropriate.
Mr. Cooper: Certainly.
Senator Angus: I understand.
Mr. Cooper: In the U.S., where they have maximum contaminant levels, it is not always appropriate. If they have 80 chemical contaminants, they have to measure for 80 chemical contaminants, even if they do not have those particular contaminants in their source drinking water. Here they figure out what is in the source water and they apply those standards to their drinking water so we can keep the costs of monitoring down.
Senator Angus: If Minister Clement were to call you Monday morning and say, "Mr. Cooper, here is a new bill; I want you to ensure that we implement it properly," I understand you to be saying that that would have a negative effect on what you are already doing and would interfere with your current good work.
Mr. Cooper: Yes. The federation is a wonderful thing, but only when it works well. I admit that prior to Walkerton it did not work that well. Walkerton was a wake-up call. North Battleford was another one. Vancouver has served to wake us up even further.
Senator Angus: I live in North Hatley in Magog, and for both Lake Massawippi and Lake Memphremagog, we are having to boil the water because there is blue-green algae. There are deeper and more profound causes that are related to matters that Senator Spivak and I are particularly interested in, and there are other kinds of environmental abuse that have created this algae. Most residents in the city of Sherbrooke get their water from those lakes and in the winter the residents around the lakes take their water right out of the lakes. We have been told not to do that this winter, so we will have a lot of dry mouths.
Mr. Cooper: I understand the concern, and it is unacceptable. This issue is best addressed locally because these are land-use decisions, whether with respect to spreading fertilizers or waste water affluent. Various factors come together to cause those bacteria.
Senator Angus: These issues are complex. We do not want to mess the matter up. If this bill makes sense, as Senator Grafstein asserts, that you can accommodate, I will probably end up voting for it, but at the moment, I am on the fence. I appreciate your evidence. I will consider it and listen carefully.
Senator Milne: Mr. Cooper, you say that the current regime is working well, but did you say that 1,500 towns are presently under a boil-water order?
Mr. Cooper: Last year about this time, we did a survey with the provinces and territories to assess how many boil-water advisories were in place; I believe we found 1,765 boil-water advisories in seven provinces. Many of those are seasonal campgrounds or small situations; all of them are essentially small communities. Certainly, to us, that is unacceptable, and that is why we trying not only to collect information on boil-water advisories and why they are occurring and have a real-time system to track and monitor, but we are also trying to solve some of the problems. We do not want to see those advisories continue.
Senator Milne: That is precisely my point. Obviously, the system is not working; if you have 1,700 advisories in seven provinces, probably the average is about 2,000 advisories right now, all the time, across Canada.
Mr. Cooper: It could be that high, yes.
Senator Milne: Therefore, the system is not working. Has anything been done at the federal level to ensure that the provinces are enforcing Justice O'Connor's recommendations?
Mr. Cooper: As I said, we work with the provinces and territories in looking at all the recommendations, so we can share information between jurisdictions on best management practices.
I would point out that regulating does not solve the problem of boil-water advisories. Boil-water advisories are a protective measure put in place because a problem has been detected. Many small communities can just chlorinate to disinfect their drinking water. If there is a high turbidity in the water, then they may have to put introduce a boil-water advisory.
The system with operators is a significant challenge. If you have a town of 100 or 200 people, the operators tends to have many jobs. They are not dedicated to that particular responsibility. We are not going to solve the problem just by regulating. We need to bring solutions. Fining or throwing people in jail because they have an exceedance or a boil-water advisory will not solve the problem of a resource need for infrastructure, for the right treatment and for the right training and certification of operators. Now all provinces require certification of operators. One territory and one province are in the process of moving towards requiring certification of operators.
There are so many issues involved. For example, there is also a question of distribution systems. Ottawa has a sophisticated treatment system at Britannia and Lemieux Island, which goes through flocculation, coagulation and sedimentation. We cannot apply the same large scale municipal treatment to small communities.
Senator Milne: I am well aware of that. I am particularly concerned about small communities. I am concerned about our Aboriginal reserves. How many of our Aboriginal reserves are now on a boil-water order?
Mr. Cooper: I do not have those statistics. I believe I heard 75, but that may have been at the last committee hearing. Someone mentioned 91, so the number might have gone up.
Clearly Mr. Prentice, the Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development, has made it a priority to address that issue. The expert panel review has been tabled, and one of its preconditions is that one can bring in a regulatory regime. The panel has various options. However, it said that unless the resource, capacity and training issues are addressed, the regulations will do no good. Both have to be adjusted at the same time.
Senator Milne: That is it precisely. The resource issue is a real problem. You mentioned aquifers. Most of the smaller communities and Aboriginal reserves draw their water from aquifers, and the aquifers in Canada have not been completely mapped. We do not know where they are, and we do not know what the routes are. We have heard evidence before this committee to tell us that. Again, it is a federal problem, in that money has been withdrawn from the agricultural services that were mapping the aquifers.
It is definitely a matter of resources, but I feel that we have a federal responsibility first to map the aquifers and second to make certain that the drinking water on our Aboriginal reserves is potable. I am concerned when I hear you talking about walking hand in hand with the provinces. That is good and has been doing probably a good job until now, but it is not a good enough job.
Mr. Cooper: I would agree with you. It is not a good enough job. I certainly agree that we need better information on our groundwater resources as almost 30 per cent of Canadians depend on groundwater for their potable water supplies. It is a key resource. We are concerned about its availability and quality, and we need to spend more time on resources to better understand it. I would not be here unless I thought we needed to do more to protect drinking water. It is a key concern. Federally, we are concerned about the quality of drinking water. The First Nations reserves need to be addressed as a priority. We believe that our collaborative approach is effective in moving forward — not that we have achieved everything we need to achieve, but it is the best way to move forward to protect our drinking water.
Senator Milne: You are telling me that the hand-in-hand approach that you have been using is probably as effective as it can be given the resources you have right now.
Mr. Cooper: Yes, but more resources would always help, whether federal or provincial, to address drinking water issues. We need to focus on the small systems and the ones under boil-water advisories. However, that does not speak to the need for a regulatory regime, because all countries, including the U.S. and in Europe, are facing the same issues and same challenges. This situation is not unique to Canada.
Senator Milne: How many of our reserves, for which the feds have a direct responsibility, are constantly on a boil-water advisory?
Mr. Cooper: You would have to get that information from Indian and Northern Affairs Canada, or I could get it for you.
Senator Milne: Could you get that for us, please?
Mr. Cooper: Certainly. Those reserves are identified as the highest risk and where action has been taken.
Senator Milne: We hope that is the case.
Mr. Cooper: We are all concerned and want to see improvement. A lot of money has been spent since 2003 and before, and we need to rectify that situation.
Senator Adams: There was a water problem in Rankin Inlet in Nunavut last year. Somehow bacteria got into their waterline system. If it happened once, it will happen again. People do not trust tap water anymore.
In Nunavut and the territories, Public Works and Government Services Canada looks after maintenance of the water system. The municipality provides us a water bill every month. Living in the Arctic, we figure we live with the best water in the world. Nowadays, everything is operated by a system, from the water delivery to the reservoir. However, we have a problem now.
I was saying to the committee that especially because there are elders present in every community up North, we do not want to have drinking water come from water delivery or to have a water and sewer system in place in the community, especially since we do not trust the water anymore. There is too much chlorine.
In Nunavut, there are 26 communities hooked into the same water and sewer system. Rankin Inlet, Iqaluit and Resolute Bay have separate water and sewer systems.
My friend lives 10 kilometres from Rankin Inlet. Every two or three days, they go out and check his net. They will bring a water tank along in order to bring back drinking water to make fresh tea. If you try to make tea or coffee with the water from the water system, it comes out black. The only way I can clear my tea is to put lemon in it. That will clear it up a little.
At Rankin Inlet, we have fish in the lake that is two kilometres from where we live. The skin of the fish is discoloured because the chlorinated water from the system goes back into the lake. The fishes' skin is clear now because there is so much water going into the lake. That is the kind of system in place.
Oftentimes we find the fish in the rivers, and sometimes they make it all the way to the lake. Sometimes they get stuck in the pond and then it freezes over. Therefore, many Arctic char have died because of a lack of oxygen in those ponds.
We have a reservoir that delivers water for people to drink in the community during the winter. Sometimes that reservoir accumulates 5 or 6 feet of ice on the top. We are talking about drinking water advisories when that happens.
We have a water advisory board. If anything like that happens, people end up going to the nursing station in either hospital — we now have a hospital in Rankin Inlet. I do not know how often the water coming from the tap is tested. The only time people must visit the nursing station in the hospital is if they have diarrhea or are vomiting.
The only thing I know about the people testing the water in the community is that they issue advisories that have nothing to do with the community itself. However, the people you are talking about may be different from Indian Affairs.
We have water board surface rights. One needs a water licence to go through the mining process as a result of the water that may drain out in the future. That is all we have. We have the water board and surface rights for mining and oil and gas up in Nunavut and the territories.
Do the drinking water advisories come from the health department? Do medical doctors or scientists determine the best water to drink? I would like to find out more about that.
Mr. Cooper: Are you asking who issues the boil-water advisories?
Senator Adams: Yes.
Mr. Cooper: Generally the medical officer of health, the chief health officer, issues advisories because it is a health issue.
The boil-water advisories are issued when there is a detection of E. coli or a potential fecal contamination of drinking water that could cause enteric illness.
The warning is issued locally. Usually there is a regional officer of health as well as a local one, depending on the size of the community. That is the basis for issuing the advisory.
Senator Adams: When you mention population, you start off with figures of 5,000 or 10,000. Where I come from, some communities have fewer than 200 people. Are the advisories issued by population?
Mr. Cooper: No. If contamination of drinking water is detected through microbiological contaminants, no matter the size of the community, a boil-water advisory will be issued because it is very risky.
Clearly, it is unacceptable not to better adjust the small community situation in Canada. Other countries around the world are facing the same issue. It is obvious that we need to do more in that respect.
In areas where there is permafrost, we have significant challenges. There are fewer options in terms of ensuring there is a supply of drinking water during the winter. Unless we focus our efforts on trying to address those issues, regulations by themselves will not sort that problem out.
Not only communities in the North but many other communities may be under a boil-water advisory for one or two years because they have not invested in treatment or in an operator who is trained to alleviate the problem.
Given the costs incurred by a community while being under a boil-water advisory, or by Vancouver's being under a boil-water advisory for two weeks, for example, I am sure many millions of dollars are lost.
I do not want to simplify to say it is a matter of culture, but people must respect the value of water. It is not just a matter of being able to regulate it. If you are a small community with a population of 3,000 or 4,000 or 5,000 or 200, if you can recognize that drinking water is safe, that is part of the solution. Paying the value for the provision of water is important.
For small communities, that is a big challenge. That is where we must find better solutions.
Senator Adams: Regarding what happened in Walkerton, Indian and Northern Affairs Canada has a department to look after the reservoirs and everything on the reserves. However, we are not living on reserve up in Nunavut. Is it different? We do not have anything to do with Indian and Northern Affairs Canada. Do they have engineers in that department who are responsible for the water system in the reserve area?
Mr. Cooper: Indian and Northern Affairs Canada works with the Department of Public Works and Government Services. With the bands, Indian and Northern Affairs manages the design, construction and maintenance of the water treatment systems on reserves. They work with other departments, certainly with Health Canada and others.
Senator Milne: With perhaps 200 people, a small community like Rankin Inlet in Nunavut, where they are living on permafrost and have tailing ponds that may be draining into their community water supply and reservoir, who is responsible for testing that water and ensuring that there are no contaminants?
There is ice on top and underneath during the winter. Who is in the small community to test and determine whether there is bacterial and perhaps chemical contamination in the water?
Mr. Cooper: The Ministry of Health or Ministry of Environment in the territories would be responsible for ensuring the testing and looking at the potential contamination from mining ponds, tailing ponds and so on.
I admit this is something we need to do a better job at collectively.
Senator Adams: How many companies are producing bottled water in Canada?
Mr. Cooper: I would say the same number that produces beer. It seems to be a growing industry.
I believe the latest statistics indicated that Canada actually imports more foreign bottled water than it produces or exports itself. There are many companies; certainly the larger ones tend to be foreign.
I am not an expert on bottled water.
Senator Adams: In Rankin Inlet, bottled water costs as much as a bottle of coke, and these companies are making money. We must boil water because we do not trust any pond close to our area. We must go two or three miles out to get water.
The companies that are making money producing bottled water are not paying for the water. Those profitable companies start lobbying the government not to pass the bill because it will affect their company. That is why I asked how many people are producing bottled water between Canada and other countries.
Mr. Cooper: We are proponents of drinking tap water as opposed to buying bottled water. Bottled water is not a solution. It must be used at certain times, certainly.
Senator Spivak: You already have guidelines. If you had national standards and also worked collaboratively, I do not know why there is the big contradiction there.
Obviously the federal government has responsibility for science and research, and it should be directing that activity that towards water sources.
If bulk water is part of the Food and Drugs Act, will that have any impact on the NAFTA situation?
Mr. Cooper: This committee may remember that the International Boundary Waters Treaty Act was amended three or four years ago by Foreign Affairs and International Trade Canada and Environment Canada, which prohibited the bulk removal of water from the Great Lakes basin and several other international basins.
Because you are prohibiting the bulk removal of water from one watershed to another, you are putting a prohibition in place before something could potentially become a good. Therefore it is not subject to NAFTA.
It is based on the protection of the watershed and the water in the watershed.
Senator Spivak: You already have bottled water, which is taken from water sources, right?
Mr. Cooper: That is correct.
Senator Spivak: Then it is a good.
Mr. Cooper: That is correct.
Senator Spivak: If water becomes a commodity under the Food and Drugs Act, will that be enough to protect it?
Ms. O'Shea: I am sorry, I have no expertise on NAFTA.
Senator Spivak: That is fine.
Mr. Cooper: It is a good question and should be looked into. That water is not sold for profit as a product. It is really the delivery, the service and the treatment you are paying for, and not the actual water as a product. It would need to be looked at in the context of NAFTA.
Senator Grafstein: Mr. Cooper, thank you for your very candid information; this has been very helpful. I want to thank Ms. O'Shea as well, because it has been a five-year quest. Finally we have on the record something that I thought was clear-cut. The federal government does have the power to exercise jurisdiction with respect to this bill. I thank you for that.
I have had three problems to overcome in this bill. I want to address each one.
First, the constitutional power has been addressed. I want to thank you for that. It has taken five years for me to be able to get that short statement on the record.
Second is the cost. I want to deal with that today.
Third, I want to deal with the collaborative issue that Mr. Cooper talked about. Then I want to talk about the federal power.
I would like to start with an anecdote. It is related to the competition between your department and the Department of Fisheries and Oceans. The fisheries department confronted the same problem you confronted: they tried to work collaboratively with the province to make sure that fish could swim in unpolluted water and could live.
They came to the conclusion that they had to exercise the federal power in order to make sure as best they could that freshwater fish were free of pollution. Because Senator Adams lives, eats and survives on the land to a great measure, he understands this issue better than most.
Harry Truman used to say that the federal power sometimes can be a positive force to compel the provinces to do the job they were supposed to do under the Constitution which they failed to do.
I understand the collaborative nature. I compliment you on how well you have been working with the provinces. However, as Senator Milne has said, it is not satisfactory.
What will we do when confronted with a national tragedy or scandal? Let me tell you about another conflict and I will get into my questions.
You have given us sketchy costs here. The question of costs is my second barrier. You have given us the costs of $40 billion over 20 years. Was it estimated at $40 billion?
Mr. Cooper: A range of $40 billion to $80 billion.
Senator Grafstein: Let us use the higher figure of $80 billion over a 40-year period. That is $2 billion a year. To what extent is your department responsible for public health in this country? What is its annual budget?
Mr. Cooper: To be perfectly honest, I am not sure.
Senator Grafstein: Do you accept that it is in the billions of dollars?
Mr. Cooper: Yes.
Senator Grafstein: The federal government is responsible for funding public health. Therefore, the taxpayer has to pay for the public health of each individual. Has your department done an analysis of the cost to the public health system for people who have suffered from bad drinking water? Do you keep track of that?
We are looking at costs. This is a zero-sum game. We have to look at the cost of enforcement. As the chairman and others have said, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.
I have not been able to total the costs in five years of trying. What is the total cost on an annual basis to the taxpayer for people drinking bad drinking water? What is the cost over a longer period, because in some instances, in Walkerton for example, people will suffer for a lifetime. You have raised cost as an issue, and it is a fair question, but let us deal with all the costs.
Mr. Cooper: We are trying to get a good handle on the burden of illness caused by bad drinking water. In many cases of enteric illness or gastrointestinal illness, the source is unknown. It could be from food, person-to-person contact, drinking water or other things. As I said, the public health agency has managed over the last two years a real-time alert system that monitors enteric illnesses. Instances of enteric illness have to be reported into the system. We had issues, for example, with some lettuce and other food products coming from the United States.
In the last two years the agency has monitored 168 cases, outbreaks or incidences of enteric illness, none of which has been linked to a drinking water source. That is not to say that drinking water, on occasion, does not make people sick, but the preponderance of evidence is that it is not drinking water that gives people the enteric illness. It is more likely to be food, person-to-person contact, travel and that sort of thing.
Senator Spivak: Hospitals make people sick.
Mr. Cooper: Yes.
This is a very important question and our federal-provincial-territorial committee is focused on a population health-based approach to determine what is making people sick. We are focusing our attention on adjusting those issues. However, I cannot give you a number for the costs.
Senator Grafstein: Would the department or any arm of it have done estimates of this cost?
I struggled with this issue several years ago when I started this rather lengthy quest. The only thing I could do was call upon Professor Schindler. He and I did some estimates on the back of an envelope. You have heard my evidence with respect to that, and you may have heard Professor Schindler's evidence some years ago, although he may not have given it here. He presented at a conference we held in an Aboriginal community in the North three years ago.
His estimate was, at a minimum, between $1 billion and $2 billion a year. He based that estimate on a number of outbreaks. There was an outbreak in Vancouver, as a result of which 17,000 people were sick and went to hospital. I will return to the Vancouver case, which is not yet finished.
We did some logarithms. We assumed that the Ministry of Health did not want to get at those numbers because, if they appeared, the Minister of Health would be obliged to deal with this issue on a federal basis.
You might reconsider this question. I should have put you on notice about this. There are people in your department who do estimates based on very sophisticated models. I will give you some information based on what you told us this morning, upon which you might start this mathematical model.
The information is out of your own testimony. You have said that there are between 1,500 and 1,780 boil-water advisories. Although these are rough numbers, you said that those 1,500 advisories were for communities of 5,000 people. Without adding to that Aboriginal communities, which are clearly and unassailably worse, that is 750,000 people who have suffered from a boil water advisory. There has to be some way to determine how much it would cost the public health system if those people were sick.
I am not asking you to respond to that now.
Mr. Cooper: I would like to.
Senator Grafstein: Please go ahead.
Mr. Cooper: These are estimates. First, Health Canada is always looking for data on health care costs. That is a driver in determining where to put the money to ensure good spending of taxpayers' dollars to protect public health.
We have much better data on hospitalizations related to smog, asthma and things of that nature. Drinking water is a much more confusing issue. We do not have data indicating how many people are getting sick. It is not reported. Most people, when they have an incident of gastrointestinal illness, do not go to a doctor or to the hospital. Those illnesses are tremendously underreported.
With regard to boil-water advisories you put two statistics together. I said there are between 1,500 and 2,000 boil water advisories in place at any one time. These are generally very small communities. Then I talked about small drinking water systems. That refers to any population under 5,000, those being the areas we need to target.
Boil-water advisories for small drinking water systems tend to be at the lower range of the under-5,000 population level. They are usually campgrounds and very small communities of a 100 to 200 people, although they are sometimes larger. We have examples of communities of 1,000 to 1,500 under boil-water advisories.
The idea that 750,000 people are impacted is an exaggeration. I do not believe I could come back to you with data on this from Health Canada experts.
As I said, we have a real-time alert system that monitors this as well as possible, and over the two years it has been in place we have not found any incidence related to drinking water.
In 2000, we did an epidemiological study on the turbidity of Vancouver drinking water, the source and the reservoirs, and the impacts on enteric illness, and we found a definite link.
In addition to that link there would be certain hospitalizations or doctor visits. It was a one-time study. As a result of that study, the City of Vancouver decided to put in a filtration plant, which will be up in two years.
We do individual studies, but we do not monitor everyone's drinking water in terms of how many people are getting sick, because there are too many other factors.
There were no reported incidences of enteric illness associated with Kashechewan, although there was scabies, which is spread by mites and hand-to-hand contact. That does not necessarily mean there were none, but we had no confirmed reports. However, it is important.
The boil-water advisory was put in place to protect them, and it worked. However, that is not acceptable. We need to address boil-water advisories.
The numbers you are asking for are not available. Even the United States, which has more money, cannot give us statistics. They can give us instances where there has been an outbreak and hospitalizations and deaths. It is same with the European Union. We work with these people all the time to try to get data to understand better the health impacts because it helps us if we understand what is happening.
I am sorry; we do not have the information. We wish we did. It is not that easy to get.
Senator Grafstein: Let me help you. I would ask you to ask your sister department, Indian and Northern Affairs Canada. Now, what is the evidence we have there? We have clear evidence from the government in the last four or five weeks that 500 communities had bad drinking water. My own number based on my own anecdotal research was somewhere between 150 and 200, and that was in collaboration with Senator Watt and Senator Adams and others. I am trying to collect anecdotal information and I am frustrated, but my files keep getting bigger.
Check with Indian and Northern Affairs Canada; see what their health costs are, and see how that works here. This bill is meant to apply an equality test to every Canadian, whether an Aboriginal, someone living in a small community or someone living in Toronto or Vancouver.
Let me help you some more. We have had situations now in Walkerton, North Battleford, Moncton, Charlottetown, and now Vancouver. You might reflect on this and search with the ministries, and I am sure that you will come up with a number. I think with all due respect to the committee, the committee should search. If the department cannot do this, we should go to public health officers. As I understand it, there are two types of health; there is public health that is responsible for the public health questions, and then there is health as it applies to people who actually get sick in the system. I do not want to confuse the two, but I understand there are two regimes that overlap. Let us deal with Vancouver, and let us deal with the questions of cost and of collaboration.
The Department of Health advised the health officials of the Greater Vancouver Regional District, in 1997, that there was a problem with turbidity in their water. The local officials chose to ignore that. The provincial authorities chose to ignore that. The department went further than that. They issued a report in the year 2000, and that report in effect said turbidity in the water has a chemical effect that deteriorates the ability of chlorine or other chemicals to cleanse the water so that it is healthy.
The problem for the Department of Health, your department, is that you issue another advisory and your advisory, from another arm of your department, is that in order to be a healthy Canadian you have to drink eight glasses of water a day. We have heard that Senator Adams has problems drinking eight glasses of water of day in his community. If he did, I do not think he would be showing up to the Senate very often.
Senator Angus: His hair would be black again, though.
Senator Grafstein: His teeth might not be with him.
Having said all that, here is Vancouver. The department issues a report in the year 2000. That report is ignored. The local authorities require another outbreak before they finally — it remains to be seen how far into the future — come to the conclusion that they agree with the Department of Health that turbidity is a problem. That did not happen in the year 2000.
Sometime after the year 2000, the provincial authorities or the local authorities decided to invest in a plant. However, it was not as you said, Mr. Cooper. That is not my evidence. That is based on a delayed question that I received in the Senate from your department just a few days ago. It is on the record. It is on the Hansard. I asked that question of the Leader of the Government in the Senate. I read the answer to it and it was a turbid answer.
Senator Angus: You mean you actually got an answer?
Senator Grafstein: I actually got an answer, but it was turbid, like the water.
My response is: Examine that report. Look at the time frame. When you come to this committee and say the collaboration is working, I have a sense that it is not. Others do not quite share that sense as fully as I do, because I have been at this a long time. I would ask you to examine that, and if the Department of Health cannot do this work let us hear what the United States does.
I understand the complexity of the problem, Mr. Cooper. I am not diminishing the complexity of the problem. I will leave this for a moment and turn to a couple of other issues.
Senator Angus: Could I also make an observation? From what I have been hearing, Mr. Cooper is bending over backwards to give us full answers and to cooperate with us all in finding the right way forward. I have great respect for my colleague, the sponsor of this bill, but sometimes, I think he would agree, he rambles regarding what we are asking the witness to research. One part of the request was to phone colleagues in the Indian and Northern Affairs Canada and to check with others. I think we have to be reasonable as a committee in what we ask this witness to do or we will lose our own credibility.
No criticism, but I think Senator Grafstein would agree I am making a good point.
Senator Grafstein: There are two ways of going about it. He can go back to the department and then come back and say he does not have an answer. We would then ask the Department of Indian Affairs to come forward and give us their costs. We then ask outside witnesses to see if they can come up with a formula. I am not being unfair to Mr. Cooper. I understand his problem. He has only what he has. He can only present what he has. I have a sense — and I will give further examples of this — that there are costs available. They are anecdotal, they are not systemic, but our problem is that we want to coagulate all those costs to deal with the issues he has raised quite properly about the cost to the taxpayer if we embark on this regulatory regime. I am just trying at least to adduce evidence to suggest that we should not just look at the costs of the regulatory regime; we should look at the costs to the system of not having a fail-safe check.
Mr. Cooper: As I said before, it is very important for us to understand the health impacts, the health costs related to drinking water and chemical contaminants, anything. That is what drives what we do. Public health certainly drives it, but we need to understand the costs. This information, as I said, is not available.
Regarding figuring out the health care costs of the 500 communities you report under boil-water advisories, you need to understand that those communities boil their water and hence are not officially supposed to be getting enteric illnesses so they would not necessarily be incurring health care costs. Are they incurring other costs? Certainly, they are incurring significant costs. Under a boil-water advisory is a very bad situation to be in, but I am not sure you could tie health care costs directly to situation. If you are boiling water, you are not drinking unsafe water.
On the issue of Vancouver, I apologize if I misled the committee. My understanding was that the study that was conducted by Health Canada was used in making the determination subsequently to build the filtration system at Capilano. The study done to try to identify the risks and it was used as part of the decision-making process, which took a few years. I am sorry, I was not aware that it actually did take that time.
Senator Grafstein: Time is important.
Senator Spivak: I have a question concerning costs. I wanted to make a small statement.
I do not think we should spend a lot of time worrying about the costs because, first, the costs are sketchy and, second, we should not care. Why should we not care? Because it is question of government choice; it is not a question of whether it costs too much. For example, for $2 billion a year, the government could just decide not to give us an extra point off the GST.
My only question is whether this is the right remedy. That is all. We have a report from Mr. Stern in London saying what the costs might be if we do not go ahead with climate change, but the problem is the choice of governments, not the costs.
When governments want to do something, they do not care about the costs and they spend billions of our money. Let us not go down that path of discussion. I think it is counterproductive.
The Deputy Chairman: You have expressed your opinion. Thank you, senator.
Senator Angus: We should point out that elections for senators have not started yet.
Senator Grafstein: Obviously, I appreciate what Senator Spivak has said. The reason I do this is because the issue of costs has been another barrier placed before me in terms of convincing my colleagues in the Senate that this is an appropriate prophylactic for our public health.
Senator Spivak: I understand why you are doing it.
Senator Grafstein: Let me deal with the third area and then I will resign. Again, I do not mean to be critical of Mr. Cooper. I am critical of the system.
I want to deal with the issue of collaboration. I have tried to give an example of how collaboration was not working in Vancouver without what I consider to be public pressure. As soon as that report was issued, the local authorities should have moved and they did not. That was my concern. The collaborative efforts there did not work as effectively as we would all have liked.
Having said that, I want to deal with the other question you mentioned regarding collaboration, Mr. Cooper. You said that one problem, which I understand, is the regional differences and the various sources of water that impose different regulatory guidelines. You said that some people get their water sources in some regions in one way and in other regions in other ways; therefore, the guideline has to be sensitive to regional differences. Am I correct about your evidence on that?
Mr. Cooper: No. The guidelines are standard. There is one set and they are applied. What I said is that the quality of source water will vary from the Prairies to Atlantic Canada to the North and will require different treatment systems based on what is getting into the water. Water that comes out of the tap will have different levels of things, but below the guideline values. There is that diversity in terms of quality. It is not one uniform type of water to which everyone has access.
Senator Grafstein: Then I understand that. As that applies to the Aboriginal communities, boiled water does not even do the trick, because there are some systemic chemicals in the water and boiling water will not remove those chemicals. Do you agree with that?
Mr. Cooper: Absolutely.
Senator Grafstein: Again, this is based on the information I received from Senator Adams and others, and direct information we have received over time. I am not a scientist, but my understanding is that in certain Aboriginal communities, they could have all the boil-water advisories they want, but it still would not remove the systemic chemicals in the system.
Mr. Cooper: That is correct.
Senator Grafstein: The toxic chemicals.
Mr. Cooper: Yes. When you have a chemical contaminant, maybe a carcinogen, you need to treat the water in a more effective way. If it is an immediate concern, you have to stop the distribution of water. You cannot boil water to get rid of chemical contaminants.
First Nations drinking water is the one area that is not regulated in Canada. That is why what the government is proposing to do is the right thing, which is to sort this one out. They have also said you cannot just do it by regulation. You have to bring in the necessary infrastructure, training, certification and source-water protection; you have to look at the full picture.
Senator Grafstein: This is a passing point. There is a companion piece to this proposed legislation that I introduced this year, which is watershed bill. I am delighted that the province of Ontario has now introduced a parallel piece of legislation. It does not solve the problem, but if it takes the federal power to goad the various provinces to move forward, that accomplishes a purpose as well. That bill is on the Order Paper and I hope that, with the consent of my colleagues, we can bring it to this committee. Then we can look at the watershed question separate and distinct from the regulatory downstream that we are talking about today. I was urged to do that by others, to say you should come up with a total solution and that is the answer.
I will conclude with this. I want to talk about the American experience. Again, I have examined the problems as they apply to Aboriginals in Sweden, Norway, Denmark and other countries. Frankly, it would be very useful for this committee to be aware of the work that other countries have done to purify the water for their Aboriginal communities in the far North. They are ahead of us in many of those countries.
As you will know, Mr. Cooper, the Americans had the same problem we did. They had a collaborative system in place; each state had their own regulatory regime. The federal health department tried to exert its powers. Congress came to a conclusion back in 1974, and they passed and implemented an act that contained what I thought was very salutary provision, and that was the ability for any American at any time to punch up their telephone code in a system and find out the weekly water advisory in their community.
Has the department considered doing that? You are almost there.
Mr. Cooper: Can I answer both your points? The first one was about Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden.
Senator Grafstein: I should say some are ahead — not all.
Mr. Cooper: Some are ahead. We do work with other countries because we do want to understand what they are doing that may be beneficial to Canada. However, we need to make the distinction that Finland, Sweden and only very few parts of Norway have any permafrost. It is not the same situation. They do not have that issue so their solutions will not apply here. That said, we do look to the international community to try to solve these issues.
In the U.S., the Safe Drinking Water Act of 1974 is one approach that seems to work well. They had the same issues we do. You are quite right; they have set up a number of very useful systems, including watershed-based information as well as the quality of drinking water based on local information. I would say that all provinces and territories do make information on the quality of drinking water locally available upon request. There are several that are moving it into electronic systems.
Unfortunately, Canada lags a bit behind, but we are moving in that direction. Public accountability and reporting were key recommendations coming out of the Walkerton inquiry and also the North Battleford inquiry. Canadians expect and deserve to know the quality of their drinking water.
Regular reporting to ministries of the quality of drinking water is done on an annual, a semi-annual and a monthly basis. However, reporting to the public is recognized as a priority. Right now, the majority of reports are by request, but we are moving to an easier system where people could punch in and get the quality of drinking water — much as we are trying to get the information on boil-water advisories and trying to become part of the electronic highway, so to speak. It is certainly a good practice and a direction we need to take.
Senator Grafstein: We have neglected Newfoundland, one of my favourite provinces.
Senator Angus: Do you mean Newfoundland and Labrador?
Senator Grafstein: Newfoundland and Labrador. Thank you for the correction, Senator Angus. As always, my astute colleague corrects me properly.
Can you give us the situation with respect to boil-water advisories in that province as of the last year — just that province alone?
Mr. Cooper: There are anywhere from 250 to 300 boil-water advisories in place. We deal with the Newfoundland government quite often on these issues and also with Transport Canada and Infrastructure Canada. They have a rural infrastructure fund to try to help the small communities because most of the boil-water advisories are in the outports where people are moving away; they are very small towns that are disappearing. The decision to invest money in treatment options is difficult. There are boil-water advisories in so many places and quite often it is a matter of an operator not being full time or of a technical problem, such as filtration or the chlorinator not working. There are issues. From the beginning, we see the small system as the fundamental issue that needs to be addressed in Canada.
Senator Grafstein: Do you have the boil-water advisory statistics in Quebec from last year?
Mr. Cooper: I am sorry. Offhand, I really do not know.
Senator Grafstein: Could you provide that to the committee?
Mr. Cooper: Yes.
Senator Angus: Let us have one sheet with each province with the number.
The Deputy Chairman: Yes, all of the provinces. Could you do that?
Senator Spivak: What is the reason for the boil-water advisories in these small communities? Is it because their groundwater has been contaminated? I know there are problems with operators and chlorine not being there, but if the water was pure, you would not need them.
Mr. Cooper: If you are talking about groundwater and it is a confined aquifer that is protected, then there should be no problem. There would not be a boil-water advisory. Most of these situations are where there is some influence of surface water getting into the groundwater or contamination of the aquifer. If there is contamination by chemicals, there will not be a boil-water advisory. They will have to use point of entry, point of use devices to eliminate the contaminants. There is a diversity of reasons that cause a decrease in the quality of drinking water and that is what we have to focus on. I do not think regulations are necessarily the best approach.
The Deputy Chairman: We have to conclude, because some of our members have other committees.
Mr. Cooper, you have been extremely helpful and I want to thank you because you have covered a lot of territory. You have been very cooperative. Ms. O'Shea, I am sorry you did not have the opportunity to speak more, but Mr. Cooper had so much information for our colleagues.
The committee adjourned.