Proceedings of the Standing Senate Committee on
Energy, the Environment and Natural Resources
Issue 7 - Evidence - April 17, 2008
OTTAWA, Thursday, April 17, 2008
The Standing Senate Committee on Energy, the Environment and Natural Resources, to which was referred Bill S- 206, An Act to amend the Food and Drugs Act (clean drinking water), met this day at 8:39 a.m. to give consideration to the bill.
Senator Tommy Banks (Chair) in the chair.
[English]
The Chair: I call the meeting to order. We will be hearing from three groups of witnesses this morning: First is the sponsor of this bill, Bill S-206, and by two subsequent panels I will introduce at the time.
I need to report to you that Senator Nolin and I appeared before the Budgets Subcommittee yesterday. I expect and hope that the subcommittee will report to the full Standing Committee on Internal Economy, Budgets and Administration with an amended budget this morning. If that happens, I will be able to report the budget to the floor of the Senate for debate this afternoon. I hope that will be the case so we can proceed with arrangements for our forthcoming travel.
For those viewing or reading this, I would like to introduce the members of the committee here presently. To my immediate right is Senator Pierre Claude Nolin, from the Province of Quebec; on his right is Senator Ethel Cochrane, representing Newfoundland and Labrador; on my left, from Alberta, is Senator Grant Mitchell.
The first witness we have before us this morning is Senator Jerahmiel Grafstein, who is not only the sponsor of this bill but its author.
Bill S-206 is the reiteration of a bill having to do with moving drinking water into the Food and Drugs Act in Canada. This bill, that is, one exactly like it, has been passed by this committee and passed by the Senate before. It fell off the Order Paper at the dissolution of Parliament. I think this is probably its fourth iteration. We are more than grazingly familiar with its intent and with its content.
Senator Grafstein, I welcome you this morning. Thank you for being here so early. I invite you to speak to us about the bill as briefly yet as fully as you can.
Hon. Jerahmiel S. Grafstein, sponsor of the bill: Thank you for your patriotic patience on this matter. This has been an extraordinary experience for me. I have learned more about water than I care to know. The good news is that since I started this rather lonely quest, I sense a rising interest in the communities at large about not only drinking water in our taps but also the whole question of the quality of drinking water. As you know, I have another bill that is before the Senate to deal with the upstream problem. I consider this to be the downstream problem.
I have received various criticisms of the bill from the start that: that there were constitutional problems, which there are not; there were provincial problems, which there are not; there are complex money problems, which there are not. All the problems have resolved themselves into the most recent criticism which is that the bill does not go far enough. It should be more powerful and have more funding.
I have another bill before the Senate dealing with the question of how to fund municipalities to get at drinking water problems in a more effective way. They are part and parcel of three problems: the downstream problems, the upstream problem — the sources, and the funding for municipalities to improve their water facilities. Through a series of three bills, I have tried essentially to address each problem.
Let me deal with the downstream problem, which is water. I want to thank Senator Cochrane, who I think has echoed arguments I have heard before from government officials. They are the most recent and directed criticisms of the bill. I will try to deal with her arguments as I assume this is one of the hurdles I have to overcome to get this committee to give its approval.
As you pointed out, this was approved by the Senate, came to this committee where it was approved I think nearly unanimously on at least on one occasion, went to the other place and died on the Order Paper. This is a re-dux.
I would like to be able to say that since I started this quest, drinking water in Canada has improved at the taps. In some respects, it has. I think Senator Cochrane has pointed that out. There have been some modest improvements, but there are some glaring inequities.
On one hand, you have Health Canada suggesting that every Canadian should drink eight glasses of drinking water a day. That is what one voice of government says. I call this the two faces of Eve. We hear one face of Eve that says here are the good things you should do, and on the other hand, we find that there is inequality of drinking water at the other end across Canada.
If we have a Charter and believe in equality of rights, certainly we should have equality of access to clean drinking water, which is the source of life. There is a great irony when people come forward and argue that this is not an important health issue, an important issue of equality.
We have inequality of access to clean drinking water in this country. It is not me saying this now. I will present to you very briefly the evidence that has come out in the last two months to support that contention.
We have water, water everywhere, except through the taps. When I go to a restaurant, I am often presented with a big bottle of fancy water from Fiji, Italy, France or now from Eastern Europe. They bring Fiji rainwater to Canada to serve on the table. The bottled water business has grown exponentially. It started at $2 billion or $3 billion several years ago and the latest numbers are over $6 billion and growing at the rate of 20 per cent compounded every year. More people are now drinking bottled water than tap water.
Now, when go to a restaurant, I always ask for ``Chateau de Tap.'' Give it to me from the tap. The drinking water that comes out of the tap, for example in my home city of Toronto is better in most instances than the bottled water they sell at from $4 to $8 per bottle. There is an incongruity here when Canada, that has the most capacious water supply in the world is now not able to provide it for its citizens.
What is the most recent evidence of that? The most recent evidence was last week. I have not done a complete study of this, but based on periodical research, for the first time the Canadian Medical Association has issued a report on water. This conflicts with the evidence provided by Senator Cochrane, which I am sure was supplied by the government, in terms of the question of boil water advisories.
Senator Cochrane made the interesting argument that boil water advisories, in a way, are good things because they are really vaccinations. Truthfully, they are not vaccinations. They are only warnings. They do not cure anything, but say to people: Boil your water because it is dangerous to drink the water that you get in your house.
That is not a vaccination. That does not prevent you from catching something, but we do not know. There is no medical evidence to suggest the linkage between people that drank that bad water until there is a boil advisory and thereafter. There is no evidence to correlate that. It is only recently that people have begun to track boil water advisories.
When we started this, there was no evidence of boil water advisories. There was only anecdotal evidence that we collected from municipalities. No one kept track. Certainly Health Canada never kept track. No one has put together the whole picture of water and the consequences of water. I have always made the argument, and you will hear later on I hope from Dr. Schindler and others, that there is a huge health problem in this country created by bad drinking water. If somehow we were able to provide prophylactics for clean drinking water, we would reduce the costs to the health system. This is not a zero-sum game. We have not been able to bring those two numbers together.
I hope, Mr. Chair that you will call Health Canada and find out why their numbers are so sketchy. They are responsible for public health in this country.
I have told you why in my submission. The reason why Health Canada in this country and other departments of health do not keep track is because if they kept track, they would have to do something about it. You keep track and suddenly, statistically, you would have to do something about it.
Only recently has the Canadian Medical Association come up with statistics about the number of boil water advisories. I do not believe this is accurate, but it is better than most I have seen. I will give this to the committee as a document. It appeared in the April 7 issue of the Canadian Medical Association Journal.
I will summarize the data. Here are the boil advisories province by province as of March 31, 2008: British Columbia, 530; Alberta, 13; Saskatchewan, 126; Manitoba 59. I do not think that is accurate for Alberta. My numbers show more than that, but they are anecdotal.
Ontario, my province, was the reason I got into this. My province was the cause of the whole so-called reform amongst the provinces following the Walkerton situation where, you will recall, there was an outbreak. The whole system had broken down. The provinces and municipalities had not done their job. People to this day are suffering from the health consequences created by that problem.
In Ontario, after all of its efforts and all of its powerful interests — and by the way, it is not just one government, but a number of governments — in March of this year, there were 679 boil water advisories. That is scandalous.
In Quebec, there were 61. Quebec, Senator Nolin, does not keep track of these.
Senator Nolin: We are liars.
Senator Grafstein: I did not suggest Quebec is lying. I am suggesting their statistics are no better than the other provinces.
This has gone between the sheets, so to speak. The reason for that, quite frankly, is that there is no constituency for water in this country. There is a constituency for oil. There is a constituency for lumber and automobiles, but what is the constituency for green drinking water? There is not a consumer constituency. However, I must say that it is growing.
Some people here will indicate that they are suddenly becoming alert to the problem because, without having this information given to them by government, they cannot keep track of this.
Again, area by area, little by little, the picture is brought together, and it is not good.
To continue, in New Brunswick there were two boil water advisories and in Nova Scotia there were 67. In Prince Edward Island there were none. Prince Edward Island has done a pretty good job, I understand. In Newfoundland there were 228. Remember that to this day a good number of communities in Newfoundland have no clean drinking water. Many of the outports have to rely on boiled water for all of their household needs. In the rich little province of Newfoundland oil is coming out of the water, but they cannot get drinking water at the taps.
Imagine a large family having to boil their water every day for drinking, cleaning and washing dishes. This is Canada in the 21st century. We are one of the richest countries in the world and we have not been able to provide clean drinking water to some of our smaller communities.
The Chair: I will interrupt briefly. In Quebec, for example, the number was 61. Does that mean that there are boil water advisories in 61 different places or that there have been 61 boil water advisories issued, some of which may have been repeat advisories in the same place at different times?
Senator Grafstein: I do not know that, but you might call the Canadian Medical Association to get those numbers.
The Chair: Thank you. We will.
Senator Grafstein: The number for the Yukon was 0, but I do not believe that number. The number for the Northwest Territories was 1 and for Nunavut it was 0. I do not believe those numbers. I am sorry that Senator Adams is not here. Yesterday he brought me a filter that he uses in his household, and the filter is full of mud and chemicals. It is disgusting. He wanted to show me what he has to live with every day. That is a senator who sits in this chamber.
This is a horrendous situation.
I have been sending testimony out to a number of people, some of whom are here. One expert emailed me a letter, and I hope that he will provide his own evidence. He said that the argument about boil water advisories is not a fair argument against this bill because some of those boil water advisories have been in place for five years. That is not a vaccination; that is an endemic problem. We have to go behind the boil water advisories and call the CMA, Health Canada and the Auditor General and look at this situation.
Senator Cochrane made an argument very eloquently. Senator Cochrane, this is not personal; I simply want to deal with your argument. She said, metaphorically, ``Aha, Senator Grafstein, we got you.''
Senator Cochrane: You are putting words in my mouth.
Senator Grafstein: No, I am putting words in my mouth.
Senator Cochrane used the American experience to show that the system in the United States, even though they have federal oversight which I am suggesting for Canada, is flawed because there are boil water advisories there. The difference is that they have two institutions dedicated to keeping this on track. The reason there are more boil water advisories in the United States than in Canada is because they track them more effectively and more efficiently with more resources. They have two entities doing that. The federal government and the Center for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta do it.
They are better funded, and therefore they find more problems. It does not mean that the situation is worse; it means that they get at the problems more quickly. I hope you will call people from the American federal authority to tell us of their experience, because I think Senator Cochrane is right. In order for me to suggest to the committee that we should take a federal regulatory model lightly formulated on ideas from the United States, we must test it. Senator Cochrane raised a serious question, and I hope the committee will address it. I am sure that in the end you will conclude that federal oversight is important.
The rationale for this bill is to put oversight and criminal teeth into the regulatory process. Whether the oversight is in Health Canada, at the provincial level or at the municipal level, an official will be more aware that they have tougher oversight. This is not unlike what the federal government brought in with its accountability bill. I welcome the accountability bill. It says that people must be more accountable for public funds. I welcome that. This is a federal accountability bill said a different way.
Let us look at what is going on now and the so-called voluntary federal guidelines. The federal guidelines do not work. The Auditor General will deal with that. The Auditor General's office made a report that proves that they do not work. They are a loose collection of so-called scientific ideas that have never been fully enforced and are way behind. They do not work, and that is because we do not focus attention on them.
The learned senator brought to my attention the situation in Australia. I am familiar with that, but that situation is entirely different. There are a number of monstrous water companies in Australia. Australia had a huge endemic problem and they put together huge water companies that have a federal connection with a huge amount of research and resources at the centre. It is a different system, but their construct is different. Ours is very fragmented. Theirs is unified and almost in oligopic shape. There is a difference.
Finally, senators, I hope you will call upon the Canadian Medical Association about the people across the country who have suffered from bad water, such as in Battleford and Vancouver. In Vancouver, 17,000 people got sick and no one has computed the costs of that. The same happened in Moncton and Winnipeg. We have problems all across the country. I hope you will call Health Canada to tell us what the cost has been to Canada of slipping this stuff under the carpet.
In conclusion, my work on this began when Senator Watt and Senator Adams told me what was happening with water in their communities. It was, it is, and it will continue to be, unless there is change, a scandal.
Again, to be fair to Senator Cochrane, she mentioned that 85 Aboriginal communities do not have clean drinking water. That is not a big number, but it is a huge problem for those who live in those communities. However, that number is incorrect. According to the Canadian Medical Association the number is 93.
I am not suggesting there is malicious intent by the federal government. I think there is omission and irresponsibility. This bill came about because of the efforts of the Aboriginal community, who, after all these years and all the money thrown at the problem, still do not have equal access to clean drinking water.
I will leave you with a last story that upsets me whenever I tell it.
Several years ago, in pursuit of discovering the facts, Mr. Mills, a former member of Parliament, and I helped organize a water conference on a reservation in Northern Ontario. A woman from Grassy Narrows told this story, which I tell repeatedly. Each time I tell it, it upsets me, and I hope it will upset you and the officials here.
She said that in order for her to have a baby, she had to leave her reservation for two or three years to cleanse her womb because she was concerned that the chemicals in the water would deform her baby. Imagine that. Imagine what an Aboriginal person in this country has to do to be satisfied that they will not give birth to a deformed child.
I become upset whenever I think of that. Whenever I think I am not working hard enough on this file, I remind myself of that story. I hope that story sits with you, senators, when you go forward with your work.
Thank you for your patience in listening to my repeated rants. However, I am not finished.
The Chair: Thank you. Since you referred to Senator Cochrane, I will invite her to ask the first and probably only question, given the time constraints.
Senator Cochrane: I think I must correct you, Senator Grafstein. You said that I said a warning and advisory to boil tap water is a vaccination. I did not say that. It was the analogy that I used.
Senator Grafstein: I withdraw that.
Senator Cochrane: There is a difference. I used the advisory to various people from across the country to emphasize that the warning on boiling water is similar to a vaccination for a disease. I want the record to be corrected, please.
Senator Grafstein: I withdraw any implication about that. I leaped to the conclusion. She is quite right; she used that as an analogy. Therefore, I withdraw that.
Senator Cochrane: When did you get your statistics from Newfoundland? Did you say there were 226 boil water advisories?
Senator Grafstein: The most recent statistics I received was from the Canadian Medical Association Journal, which is available on the web. It was publicized last week.
Senator Cochrane: I appreciate that. You have done an awful lot of work on this issue, and I appreciate that. We all know we have problems right across this country and this was mainly brought forward when we had the problem in Ontario.
Senator Grafstein: In North Battleford, as well.
Senator Cochrane: In North Battleford, yes. We were upset because we did not know how and why it happened.
After all of that, since you put this forward, did you not consult with the provinces or the municipal authorities or anyone like that?
Senator Grafstein: Yes.
Senator Cochrane: You did?
Senator Grafstein: Yes.
Senator Cochrane: What were the municipal reactions?
Senator Grafstein: I will start with my City of Toronto. We have a problem in Toronto that is different than others. We get our water from the middle of the lake. It is very good. Based on chemical analysis, it is better than most bottled water in this country. The problem is: The system is over 100 years old and one-third of the water leaks. Torontonians pay so much for water and one-third of it never sees the light of day.
Toronto is my city; I am from metro Toronto. It has been my argument that the city has never seen fit to put in its budget sufficient capital replenishment to renovate that system and keep it modernized. That is the same right across the country.
The real question is capital funding. One of the arguments against my bill, when I raised is that although the city says, ``If you raise this, this is good,'' they still have to find the money. Prime Minister Jean Chrétien made this argument to me, saying, ``If you get us into this, all of a sudden we will have to take responsibility for water in this country.'' I said, ``Yes!''
We have to come up with ways of funding, and I have come up with a formula that I think will deal with it. I have suggested to the Senate that we should have interest-free bonds go to fixing the water system in Toronto. By the way, we underpay for water in this country. Tap water costs less than bottled water. There is room in the consumer market for effectively raising the cost of water. There are many ways to deal with the problem.
Yes, I consulted with the province; I talked to the public health officers in Vancouver when there was an outbreak. The person who happens to be a public health officer there — I do not want to say this — is distantly related to me. I talked to people in Halifax. I certainly talked to people in Winnipeg. I have talked to endless Aboriginal leaders. I do not think there has been a major Aboriginal leader I have not talked to in the last eight or nine years about this.
Frankly, it is me. I do not have a research staff. This is all me. Whenever I go across the country, I do it. Three months ago, I was invited to go to Winnipeg to speak to a new burgeoning group concerning about watershed and water in their community. I spoke to them. That included provincial, federal and municipal officials as well as citizens. Next month, I am going to Calgary to speak on the question of funding. The municipalities are interesting in funding.
I am doing my best but I am a ``lonely soldier.'' However, it is like reversing Niagara Falls or pushing water upstream.
Senator Cochrane: Senator, I do not think you are a lonely soldier. We are all concerned about water and the water that people in Canada drink. We all want our people to be safe. You are not a lone soldier. I want you to be cognizant of that fact.
Senator Grafstein: I appreciate that.
Senator Cochrane: There have been some good things done. In January, 2008 Indian and Northern Affairs Minister Chuck Strahl said that, at that time, there were 193 high-risk systems in the First Nation communities. It has been reduced to 85. You say 93. Even that has been reduced by 100.
Then, when the plan of action was launched in January, 21 priority communities were high-risk systems. Now there are only six. That is progress.
Senator Grafstein: Where do you get those facts?
Senator Cochrane: I am getting them from various groups and the minister's office as well.
Senator Grafstein: I do not quarrel with that. However, whenever I hear statistics from the government, I question them. I will give you the perfect example: Just this morning regarding Canada-U.S. relations, I heard from the federal government that everything is going well at the border. Now I find situations at the border are worse than they were. I question government statistics. By the way I am not criticizing this government; I am saying governments. I am not questioning the veracity of Minister Strahl. I question how, what and where they get those statistics in the department.
By the way, that is not me saying it. I will tell you who says it: The Auditor General says it.
Senator Nolin: We will invite them to testify.
Senator Cochrane: Indian and Northern Affairs Minister Strahl is concerned.
Senator Grafstein: Good. Mr. Chrétien and every ministry I have ever come across are as well. The issue is that, on the ground, the situation is not much improved.
The Chair: We must proceed to the next witnesses. I am sorry about the constraint of time this morning, senators.
Senator Grafstein, before you leave, would you briefly put on the record and explain to us exactly what will happen at the pointy end of the stick, under this bill, if it were to become law? How would the effect of this bill, on the ground, in Saskatoon, have an effect on the quality of the water that comes out of the tap there?
Senator Grafstein: It will have an effect in three ways. This committee has done a tremendous job by publicizing the issue to make more Canadians more aware of what they can and cannot do about something that they have taken for granted: Water. That is the first thing.
Second — and this has been the case that has been unchallenged since Confederation — you bring the reason why the Fathers of Confederation put the criminal power in the hands of the federal government to provide equality of penalties across the country. Let us take a look at what would have happened in Saskatchewan or in Walkerton. By the way, this would have been an enforceable standard across the country, spot-checked by the federal officials. This would force the officials to do what they were hired to do in the first place: Fulfill their mandate. As soon as the criminal law is brought into play, people behave differently.
I am not looking for a major bureaucracy that will overwhelm the country. However, it will focus the attention of the federal government, focus the research in the federal government and focus the oversight in the federal government.
I do not in any way, shape or form question Indian and Northern Affairs Minister Strahl. He is a decent, honourable man. I am not questioning his veracity. However, even he, supervising his department, cannot get out to deal with this. He needs accountability, and this, to my mind, would bring accountability. Even the debate amongst the provinces would bring accountability.
The Chair: What is the third element?
Senator Grafstein: The third element, quite frankly, is to make people aware of their rights.
In the United States, they do have a system. The system is that if they want to find out what is happening with the water in their community, for example, boil water advisories, they have to dial up their area code number, and all of a sudden, it is computerized, and they, at least, can find out what is going on. It gives the citizen the right to know. The most important part of what we do in Ottawa is to give our citizens the right to know, and the right, if they know something, to do something about it. That is the essence of the Charter Rights and Freedoms.
The Chair: Thank you very much, senator. I apologize again for the shortness of time. You have given us some good ideas of people we will want to ask to come before us.
Senator Grafstein: I hope I will be allowed to come back for a brief summary.
The Chair: You certainly will.
Senator Grafstein: Thank you, Senator Cochrane, for joining me in this debate. It has been helpful to me.
Senator Cochrane: You are welcome.
The Chair: We are in the process of being joined by Mr. Ronald Thompson, who is the interim commissioner, but he has been far more than an Interim Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development in the Office of the Auditor General. We are being joined by Mr. Jerome Berthelette, who is a principal in the Office of the Auditor General, and by Mr. David Normand, the Audit Professional Leader. Welcome back, gentlemen. We are delighted when you are able to accept our invitations to talk to us. We find your testimony always valuable, informative and educating.
Mr. Thompson, you have the floor, sir.
Ronald Thompson, FCA, Interim Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development, Office of the Auditor General of Canada: Thank you very much, senator. We are delighted to be here this morning to discuss the results of two audits we tabled back in 2005. Both of these audits deal with drinking water and human health. Chapter 5 addresses drinking water in First Nations communities, and chapter 4 looks at federal responsibilities for the safety of drinking water in other parts of Canada. As you mentioned, senator, I am joined by Jerome Berthelette and David Normand who were heavily involved in chapters 5 and 4 respectively.
In both of these chapters, we made a number of recommendations to responsible departments and agencies. Their responses are included the text. For the most part, government officials agreed with the recommendations and made a number of commitments in response to the issues we raised. For ease of reference, our various recommendations and the government's responses are summarized in an appendix at the end of each chapter.
[Translation]
Mr. Chair, I should point out that we completed our detailed audit work for this report in June 2005. Our ability to comment on developments since then is limited.
We are presently conducting a follow up audit of Chapter 4 — Safety of Drinking Water: Federal Responsibilities — that will determine whether departments have made satisfactory progress in following through on their commitments in response to our recommendations. We have also decided to expand the scope of our audit work to include bottled water. We expect to present the results of this audit to Parliament next February. We will follow up on drinking water in First Nations communities a little later because the issues raised in that chapter will take more time for officials to address.
In May of 2007, Mr. Berthelette and I appeared before the Standing Senate Committee on Aboriginal Peoples to discuss Chapter 5 — Safety of Drinking Water in First Nations. At that time, senior officials from Indian and Northern Affairs Canada also gave testimony, and indicated that action was either underway or planned for many of the issues we raised in our 2005 chapter. The Committee issued a report in June of 2007 following its hearings.
[English]
With your permission, Mr. Chair, I would like to offer some brief remarks now about both our 2005 audits, beginning with chapter 5. This audit examined whether programs and funding from Indian and Northern Affairs Canada, or INAC, and Health Canada had helped First Nations communities provide residents with access to safe drinking water. We found that residents of First Nations did not benefit from a level of protection comparable to that enjoyed by Canadians who live off reserves. That was due in large part to the fact that First Nations, unlike other communities, had no laws and regulations governing the provision of drinking water.
Both INAC and Health Canada have stated that provincial jurisdiction over drinking water does not extend to reserves. Consequently, they have attempted to ensure access to safe drinking water in First Nations communities through policies, administrative guidelines and funding arrangements with First Nations. However, this approach meant that important elements for providing safe drinking water were missing. We believe that until a regulatory regime is established that is comparable with the one that is in place in the provinces, INAC and Health Canada cannot ensure that First Nations people living on reserves will have continuing access to safe drinking water.
We also found that INAC had no comprehensive list of codes and standards applicable to the design and construction of water systems and that there were many deficiencies in the design and construction of water systems. We found that INAC's programs to support and develop First Nations' capacity to provide safe drinking water were limited, that the technical support was fragmented, and that many of the First Nations water treatment plant operators had difficulty meeting the education and experience requirements for certification.
We noted that regular testing of drinking water on reserves was not carried out in most communities. In addition, at the time of our audit, Health Canada had no plan in place to achieve, by 2008, the testing frequency set out in the Guidelines for Canadian Drinking Water Quality.
Finally, we found that Parliament was not adequately informed about the drinking water situation on reserves. Both departments agreed to provide Parliament with better information beginning with the 2006-07 fiscal year.
Since we issued our report, INAC, in cooperation with Health Canada and Environment Canada, has adopted a plan of action to address drinking water concerns in First Nations. Their March 2006 plan was also supported by the Assembly of First Nations and touched upon most of our recommendations. One notable exception, however, is that the plan does not contain activities related to water-safety testing. INAC also issued three progress reports on that plan. In December of 2006, in March of 2007, and in January of this year, 2008. We are encouraged by the fact that these reports conclude that progress is being made in the implementation of the plan and that access to safe drinking water in First Nations communities is improving. However, we have not yet audited these reports and, therefore, cannot comment on them any further.
[Translation]
I would now like to turn to Chapter 4 of our 2005 Report to Parliament, which examined federal responsibilities for the safety of drinking water in other parts of Canada.
As we point out in this chapter, the federal government develops drinking water guidelines in partnership with provinces and territories. The guidelines specify the maximum acceptable concentration of contaminants in drinking water. They are used at the federal, provincial and territorial levels in different ways, ranging from general guidance to legally required standards.
Our audit revealed that, although the process to develop these guidelines is sound, it is slow, which sometimes delays the planned time for developing the guidelines by several years. At the pace we saw in 2005, we reported that it could take over 10 years to deal with the backlog at that time of 50 or so guidelines that the government needed to examine to ensure that they are up-to-date.
Health Canada is responsible for inspecting water quality on aircraft, trains, and cruise ships that travel between provinces and internationally. However, we reported that the Department was not fulfilling this responsibility on passenger aircraft, where it no longer carried out routine inspections due to unresolved funding issues between the government and air carriers.
In addition, we found that federal responsibility was also clearly defined in regulations for the protection of federal employees, which state that they are to be provided with water that meets the drinking water guidelines. Our audit revealed that for the six departments and agencies examined, each had different internal procedures and requirements for testing. At the time of our audit, Health Canada was preparing uniform guidance for federal departments and agencies. In our view, this was needed in order to help remedy the patchy federal compliance with the drinking water guidelines.
[English]
In conclusion, Mr. Chairman, safe drinking water is a basic requirement of human health. We continue to believe that, in a developed country like ours, Canadians have a right to assume that the water they drink will be of high quality. We hope that our two chapters, together with interest and support from parliamentary committees such as this one, will encourage the government to strengthen its activities in ensuring that our water is safe.
As we know, this committee is engaged in a review of Senator Grafstein's water-related bill. I think we can all agree that safe drinking water is indeed an important issue. However, discussions on new legislation such as Senator Grafstein's are closely linked to policy discussions in which, unfortunately, we cannot engage. Having said that, we will certainly do our best to respond to your questions today.
The Chair: Thank you very much, Commissioner.
I will try to phrase this question in an auditorial way. You have mentioned disparities of various kinds between one regime and another. In this country, if I manufacture bubblegum, packaged ice, battled water, corn flakes, beef or vegetables and purvey them in any way to the public for their consumption, I am susceptible to criminal action if I fail to ensure that the commodity I am selling to the public is healthy. If it causes illness, I am susceptible to criminal prosecution. That may affect the attention and scrutiny that I direct to ensuring that what I am purveying to the public will in fact not make them ill. That applies to everything that we ingest orally — everything we eat and everything we drink. All of those things require that their purveyors ensure, on penalty of prosecution under the Criminal Code, that they will not make me ill.
The sole exception to that is the one thing that we ingest without which we cannot live. We could live without chocolate bars, packaged ice or bottled water. We cannot live without water. It is the only thing we ingest that is not susceptible to criminal prosecution if I sell it to you and make you sick, which has happened.
Does that disparity cause you concern?
Mr. Thompson: Senator, you are asking whether there should be legislation in place to regulate water in this land in a very direct way and whether that legislation should be federal. I have to say that whether there is legislation is a matter of policy.
Senator Grafstein said that many of us have taken water for granted for a long time, and we should not do that. I was heartened in the last week to see the things that have come out from the government, on both the First Nations side and the non-reserve side, that indicate that the government seems to be taking the issue of water safety seriously.
A press release was issued earlier this week by Indian and Northern Affairs Minister Strahl. He spoke about a number of initiatives he is planning to continue having to do with water quality on First Nations reservations, including putting in place a regulatory framework, which does not now exist. We will have to see how these sort out. At least government officials and ministers are paying attention to water quality.
On the non-Aboriginal side, a water framework is being studied, and we pointed that out in our 2005 report. It is being examined now by Environment Canada under the leadership of Assistant Deputy Minister Michael Martin. Some progress is being made on what a revised water policy of the federal government should look like. One was developed in 1987, and it is now being studied through this water framework to see what needs to be changed.
The third thing that has come out is the Bisphenol A issue. Health Canada is now saying this seems to be a dangerous substance.
All of this indicates that there is action and interest on the part of the government of the day and federal departments — INAC, Health Canada and Environment Canada — having to do with the quality of the water we ingest. Were that not happening, I would say we need to shake things up a bit. The fact that it is happening, and that a bill such as this is being considered by a committee such as this, gives me great hope.
The Chair: You mentioned in your opening remarks that in some instances the guidelines, which have existed for a long time, are enforced as a matter of law. What are those instances?
Mr. Thompson: The federal water guidelines are put in place pretty much verbatim in two or three provinces, Ontario and Quebec being two. Where they are in place, they are the law of the province. In other provinces, they are not entirely in place, for a variety of reasons. However, in Ontario, water quality is managed pursuant to the federal water guidelines.
David Normand, Audit Professional Leader, Office of the Auditor General of Canada: The guidelines are developed by the federal government in consultation with each territory and province. This federal-provincial-territorial committee establishes the guidelines for Canadian drinking water. They work by consensus. Once those guidelines are adopted, it is up to each province and territory to include them within their legislation or to follow them voluntarily. As of the time of our last audit, most provinces and territories had adopted them, either as part of their legislation or as a voluntary measure. This boils down to municipalities treating their water against those objectives.
[Translation]
Senator Nolin: Were you the one who drafted Chapter 5, Mr. Normand?
Mr. Normand: I wrote Chapter 4.
Senator Nolin: You heard Senator Grafstein's disturbing account of a woman who, in order to have a problem-free delivery for the sake of her own health and that of her child, or children, was forced to leave the reserve. Have you ever encountered this totally unacceptable situation in Canada?
Jerome Berthelette, Principal, Office of the Auditor General of Canada: In the course of our audit, we met with First Nations chiefs and with people who work for First Nations. We observed a lack of confidence in drinking water on reserves.
[English]
I cannot say I have run into the particular situation that the honourable senator has run into. However, during the audit, we did hear a lack of confidence in the water. It takes a number of different forms. For instance, in some communities, they do not like the idea of the amount of chlorine that is placed in the water. When they drink it, tasting too much chlorine will affect their confidence in the water.
This lack of confidence does exist. I cannot say how widespread it is. However, during the audit we saw it quite regularly.
Senator Nolin: Senator Grafstein is basically raising an alarming situation. It is more than the taste of the water. If someone decides to remove herself from her reserve for two or three years to have a family, it must be based on something more than the perception of bad taste or the chlorine in the water.
During your audit, you must have faced such evidence.
Mr. Berthelette: The evidence that we brought forward in the audit concerns the lack of information. There was a considerable lack of information concerning the safety of the water on reserves.
We noted that Health Canada, who was responsible for funding the First Nations to do the water testing, did not have very good information whatsoever with respect to results of that water testing. We also noted that in some of the communities where water testing was to occur, the water testing, in fact, did not occur. In one community that we note here in the audit, water testing had not occurred for seven months.
When the community knows this sort of thing occurs, there is a tremendous lack of confidence in the water system. When they do not have the information or cannot be confident that the water is safe, then the situation that Senator Grafstein saw is probably inevitable.
[Translation]
Senator Nolin: Congratulations, Commissioner, on your command of the French language.
Mr. Normand, I have one question about the criteria for evaluating the quality of drinking water. Do these standards, which are accepted by the territories, the provinces and the federal government, include criteria for evaluating and analysing drinking water quality?
Mr. Normand: Municipalities are responsible for evaluating the quality of their drinking water.
Senator Nolin: Must they comply with a standard established by the federal-provincial-territorial committee to which you alluded?
Mr. Normand: If these water guidelines are included in Quebec, Ontario or other provincial legislation, then municipalities that treat their drinking water must comply with the standards.
Senator Nolin: Let me rephrase the question.
Is there some way of verifying compliance with these legal guidelines in force in some provinces, notably Quebec? If so, who is responsible for doing that?
Mr. Normand: This would be more of a provincial responsibility. Our chapter does not cover this area. I would not venture an answer as to the procedure followed to verify compliance with these guidelines.
[English]
The Chair: Senators, I will push this by 15 minutes, which is the most we can do. I apologize, but I have no choice.
Senator Cochrane: First, Mr. Thompson, I want to thank you and your officials for appearing here yet again.
Would you clarify for me: I know you did say you released your review in 2005, but when did you conduct it? Does your office plan to return to the issue of water and government policy? I think it would be valuable and a good opportunity to see what this government has actually achieved. It would be a chance to critically examine the numbers.
I note, for instance, that Indian and Northern Affairs Minister Strahl announced $330 million last week to be used in some of the ways that you mentioned. Have you determined when your office will be auditing these actions and the actions of the current government, in general?
Mr. Thompson: Thank you for that question, Senator Cochrane. These two chapters were reported in September, 2005, and they would have begun early in the calendar year, 2004.
We will definitely return to water. There is no question of that. We are following up chapter 4 in a formal way — Mr. Normand's chapter — currently. That report will be published in February, 2009. We will look at bottled water, as well. The recommendations we made in 2005 for chapter 4 will be followed up then. We will follow up chapter 5 a bit later. Some of the issues that need to be sorted out and some of the steps that will need to be taken to respond to the recommendations we made will take a bit more time.
We have seen these press releases and the announcements this week. That gets our audit interest up, obviously. We want to be sure, from an audit side, that what people are announcing as programs and initiatives are actually carried out. I would imagine that Mr. Berthelette, when we get to the point of following up chapter 5, will have a very good look at that.
When initiatives like this are announced, it is so important to have parliamentarians and parliamentary committees such as this take an interest in that and follow them to be sure that what was promised is followed up.
Senator Mitchell: I am interested in the process of the government's review or initiative on water policy. You said they have been making some progress. That is great. Climate change is having a huge impact on this and many other issues. Various departments have just produced a remarkable, state-of-the-art report, on climate change impacts in Canada. I am sure you are aware of it.
Do you have a sense that, in developing their view of water resources and issues like the ones addressed by Senator Grafstein's bill, the government is considering acknowledging the impact of climate change and what that might do on water resources, quality and availability in this country?
Mr. Thompson: I do not know whether they are. I suspect they would be. I suspect we will have a bit of a look at that as we do our follow-up now for chapter 4.
In terms of developing a revised policy to replace what was in place or developed in 1987, I think it is Environment Canada officials who have the lead on that. They are working on this framework that I mentioned in my testimony. It might be instructive to have them come and explain what they are doing. We will talk with them, as well as, we do our follow-up audit. However, we will not be reporting on that until February of next year.
Senator Grafstein: Guidelines are now proposed by the federal government and have been implemented in two of the largest provinces — Quebec and Ontario. This is chapter 4, recommendation 20.27 in your report. You raise the alarming point that 50 of the 83 chemical and physical guidelines are more than 15 years old and need to be updated.
Is it fair to say that because of the backlog, the guidelines that are implemented in Ontario and Quebec are not up- to-date based on the most recent science and technology?
Mr. Thompson: That is the worry underlying that audit finding and the recommendation. Fifty out of 83 are in need of attention and out of date or possibly out of date. That is a serious situation. It will be interesting for us to find out what the responsible officials have done to rectify that. They say they have taken some steps. We will audit and report on that in February next year. It may also be helpful for you to have a chat with them, if I may suggest.
Senator Grafstein: Thank you for your report. I think it is fantastic and clear. You indicated the overlapping of a number of agencies dealing with the same matter. In recommendation 40.35, you point out that six departments and agencies you audited are all responsible for pieces of the water system. Has the government done anything since your report to centralize and modernize its internal regulatory responsibilities for water?
Mr. Thompson: I do not know yet. We are re-auditing this chapter and will report next February.
The Chair: Mr. Normand has said that Quebec has folded the guidelines into provincial law thereby making them enforceable in some way. Using them as an example, Mr. Thompson, what are the consequences, if any, of failing to meet those standards?
Mr. Thompson: If they are folded into provincial law, then it would be the provincial authorities who would have the legal effect of enforcing that. Whatever penalties would follow would be provincial penalties. Unfortunately, I am not a lawyer. Am I correct on that?
Mr. Normand: Yes, you are correct. It is the provincial authorities that would be responsible in this case to enforce the other guidelines and take corrective action. However, I am not familiar with what actions the provinces would take in those cases.
The Chair: If I am a purveyor of water, I am selling water out of a tap, whether I am a municipal or private corporation. People are paying me and I put water into that system that makes people ill. You not aware of the consequences to me, as the purveyor of that water, for failing to live up to the standards?
Mr. Thompson: If I may interject, we are not, but we could undertake to find out from our legal counsel, if that would be helpful.
The Chair: We are so under-resourced that would be extremely helpful, Mr. Thompson. I would be grateful if you would do that when you can and to get the answers to our clerk. Thank you very much, gentlemen, for being with us this morning.
We are joined by someone who knows probably more about water than all the rest of us put together. He is Mr. Ralph Pentland, the former Director of Water Planning and Management of Environment Canada. I emphasize ``former,'' because I am hopeful Mr. Pentland will be able to be forthcoming in respect of our questions.
Good morning, Mr. Pentland. Thank you for being with us this morning. I apologize for having kept you waiting. We are, as you heard me say, constrained by time and I invite you to speak to us and hope you will be prepared to take a few questions afterwards.
Ralph Pentland, Former Director, Water Planning and Management, Environment Canada, as an individual: I would like to begin by thanking the committee for giving me the opportunity to meet with you today and share a few views on drinking water.
I should clarify from the outset that I am not a lawyer, nor an expert on food and drug regulation. Therefore, I will not be commenting on the specific wording of Bill S-206. However, I have read a lot of your testimony and debates and I would like to comment on the key question that you seem to be struggling with: Should Canada have enforceable country-wide standards for drinking water?
My own views on that question have evolved substantially over the past 25 years. They have evolved in the same way as those of many other water experts in the country. I would like to briefly summarize that evolution in thinking.
My experience with the drinking water issue has usually been in the context of broader water policy reviews, both in Canada and in several other countries around the world. I first dealt with the question in the early 1980s, when I helped establish the Inquiry on Federal Water Policy, the Pearson Inquiry. That inquiry held public hearings in every Canadian province and territory and received well over 500 written or oral submissions.
The submissions obviously did not all deal with drinking water, but a significant number of them did. Most of those that did expressed alarm at the prospect of toxic substances finding their way into community water supplies. The final report of the inquiry in 1985 noted that ``We heard frequent calls for federal legislation that would specify and enforce maximum contaminant levels in drinking water.''
Following the inquiry, I chaired the interdepartmental task force that wrote the 1987 federal water policy. That policy set out commitments in 25 different areas, one of which was drinking water.
At that time, the concept of the non-binding Guidelines for Canadian Drinking Water Quality had been agreed to only a few years earlier, and it seemed like all provinces had every intention of implementing those guidelines in a consistent way. It was the considered opinion of our task force at that time that the guideline approach should be given a fair chance. We chose not to recommend enforceable country-wide standards at that time.
The two main commitments in the formal policy were: to consider legislation to ensure the safety of drinking water within federal jurisdiction and to complement provincial and territorial programs; and, to establish national drinking water guidelines to help all jurisdictions in setting drinking water standards.
I left the federal government soon after that and worked outside Canada a lot throughout the 1990s. The next time I looked at the drinking water issue in Canada was about five years ago, when I was asked to work with a number of the country's leading water experts on a book entitled Eau Canada. Some of you may have read or seen that book. It was published by UBC press.
My own part of that project dealt with trans-boundary water issues, but I also had the opportunity to review the material being written by the other authors. I was particularly intrigued by an appendix entitled ``A Survey of Water Governance Legislation and Policies in the Provinces and Territories'' and more particularly the six page section of that appendix dealing with drinking water.
There were many good examples cited as well as a balanced assessment of the need for some regional flexibility. However, there were also a lot of discouraging messages, including: the fact that only two of the provinces had fully adopted the national guidelines; the fact that requirements for monitoring of contaminants varied widely from province to province; the fact that few of the provinces had regulations in place to deal with source water protection; and the fact that a majority of provinces still did not require mandatory reporting on performance.
That appendix also noted the Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development's concern about the significant backlog in the updating of guidelines. It seems to me that, whether or not a country moves towards enforceable national standards, the efficiency of the guideline process itself is critical. Newer pollutants like pharmaceuticals and personal care products are now being suspected of producing drug resistant pathogens and impacting negatively on reproductive systems.
In any event, it is now clear that the earlier promise of the non-binding national guideline approach is falling well short of expectations. Public anxiety is continuing to mount with every new tragedy like those experienced in Walkerton and Kashechewan and the ever-increasing number of boil water advisories.
My most recent exposure to the issue was about a year ago, when I was one of ten concerned scientists and citizens who carried out an independent review of federal water policies and programs. Some of you may have seen the resulting report entitled Changing the Flow. The general thrust of that report was to contrast the growing number and urgency of nationally significant fresh water issues with the declining capacity of the federal government to meet even its most basic fresh water responsibilities. As I recall, that was also the general tone of a Senate report on water in the West, which you know about. It was completed a while back.
Incidentally, about the same time as Changing the Flow was released last fall, the government's Speech from the Throne included a commitment to a new water strategy. I assume that was an acknowledgment that a significant change in direction will be required in the not-too-distant future, and if so, I would certainly endorse that conclusion.
The specific recommendation in Changing the Flow relating to drinking water was that the federal government should ``ensure consistent drinking water requirements by replacing the current Canadian Drinking Water Guidelines with a Safe Drinking Water Act that has health-based long-term objectives and legally binding minimum national standards.''
I do not have time today to go into all of the details, the rationale behind it and the legal and constitutional ramifications. I have, however, sent you this working draft of a parliamentary brief, which I think you all have, prepared by the Gordon Water Group on EcoJustice, which elaborates on these and other points. It answers many of the questions that have been asked here this morning.
That recommendation went on to note that the legislation would act as a safety net and would only apply on federal lands and in provinces that did not provide the same level of protection as the national standards.
For an example of how that kind of safety net legislation would actually work, I refer you to a model act recently developed by the Canadian Water Issues Council and published by the University of Toronto. That model act dealt with a different water topic, the protection of water basins from bulk water removals, but I assume that equivalency provisions in drinking water legislation could be basically the same.
I have negotiated and administered numerous federal-provincial water agreements over the years, so I am as sensitive as anyone about the need to respect provincial constitutional competencies. My own thinking has evolved to the point where I now think enforceable country-wide drinking water standards have become desirable, but I am confident that it could be done in a way that would be fully respectful of the respective roles of the different orders of government and in a way that would leave the primary lines of defence where they belong, at the local and provincial levels.
I know from reading some of your previous debates that you are generally familiar with relevant experience in the United States and Europe. The U.S. case is most interesting from a historical perspective. Their 1974 Safe Drinking Water Act requires the United States Environmental Protection Agency to set drinking water standards, and most public water systems in the U.S. are required to meet them. Standards have been set for about 90 chemical, microbiological, radiological and physical contaminants.
The 1996 amendments require the EPA to update the list of contaminants that are likely to occur in drinking water every five years. This leads to an automatic five-year cycle of review of the standards.
The European model is more modern and in some ways more interesting, especially if Canada were ever to move towards a comprehensive national water policy, with drinking water and other national standards embedded within that broader national policy.
In 2000, member states of the European Parliament passed the Water Framework Directive, a legally binding policy for water management and protection for all of Europe. That framework sets out a comprehensive water management strategy based on integrated watershed management, including trans-boundary watersheds.
The drinking water section of the directive provides for enforceable union-wide standards for most common substances that can be found in water. While translating the directive into their national legislation, the member states can include additional substances or more stringent requirements, but are not allowed to set lower standards. This ensures a high and consistent level of human health protection throughout the whole of the EU.
What is probably most impressive is the transparency of the process. Member states are required to monitor both the quality of drinking water and water used in the food production industry. The monitoring results are provided every three years to the European Commission, which assesses them against the standards and produces a public synthesis report.
It would indeed be unfortunate if our federal and provincial governments were unable to overcome internal barriers and provide all Canadians with a common level of drinking water protection, if a multi-country entity like the European Union can do it.
We expend a lot of time, energy and money on security. What could be more important to the security of Canadians than the dependability and quality of the water that we and our families drink every day? We regularly hear about acute medical problems caused by short-term drinking water problems. However, as the literature on the U.S. legislation points out, we also need to be concerned about the chronic effects that may occur if contaminants are ingested at unsafe levels over many years.
In closing, I would like to congratulate Senator Grafstein for keeping this important matter in the spotlight for eight years now. I am sure that his intent is fully in sync with the wishes of a vast majority of Canadians.
The Chair: Thank you. You have talked about a desire for national standards and compared us with Europe. Do you have an opinion as to whether the enforceability of those national standards ought to be a civil or a criminal matter?
Mr. Pentland: Likely the constitutional authority to back up those standards would be the criminal law. That is where your authority would lie.
It is interesting that we have enforceable national standards to protect fish from contaminants and we have enforceable national standards to protect the environment from contaminants, but we do not have enforceable national standards to protect human beings from contaminants. I think that is an anomaly. We also use criminal law to protect the environment under the Canadian Environmental Protection Act.
Senator Grafstein: Thank you, Mr. Pentland, for your years and years of dedicated service to the cause.
Mr. Pentland is not only an outstanding expert, but since his retirement, he continues to serve Canada well in giving the largesse of his experience. I must say that he has been helpful to me from time to time, keeping me on course, ensuring that I dealt with not only the downstream but the upstream as well. He knows that I have been wrestling with how to do this under the federal power. I thank him for all his efforts and assistance.
I want to draw one point to his attention. We have heard from the Auditor General about the terrible lag in keeping the guidelines up to date, where they are now enforced in some provinces. We now have an enforceable guideline in two provinces that is not up to date.
You raised the even larger question of comparing ourselves to the Europeans. If we look at the Canadian experience, we have to look at 83 chemical contaminants, of which 50 are 15 years or older. When you compare it to the Europeans, they have not 83 but something like, according to your evidence, 95 different components that they look at?
Mr. Pentland: It varies. The core in Europe is 45, and most countries use much more than that.
What happens with Europe and could happen with Canada and does happen with the United States is that they adopt World Health Organization standards. There is really no excuse for a long delay. The World Health Organization brings information in from all countries and assembles standards that are applicable. There are probably 200 or 300 guidelines and countries can pick and choose depending on the situation in their particular country.
With that kind of information available on a worldwide scale, there is no excuse for a long delay in guideline development.
Senator Grafstein: I think you have made my point. Again in terms of follow-up, there is the situation with the Auditor General having issued a report. The Auditor General has now said they will go back and do a follow-up on their report about a lag, which is a disastrous lag, in my view, of 15 years without fresh examination where the evidence and information might have been readily available.
Would you agree that establishing an enforced, regulatory, transparent guideline would be helpful to the provinces that would have the primary responsibility for maintaining that guideline?
Mr. Pentland: Absolutely. I think some of the provinces would lead. The way I have suggested it be done is to have the ones leading be exempt from the federal law. This would be a safety-net law. Some of the provinces, particularly Quebec, Ontario and Alberta, tend to lead on these kinds of things. They would lead the setting of the national standards and bring everyone else along.
I am not suggesting that one would want to impose things on the provinces; that is not the way it would work in real life. Some of the provinces would lead and bring all the others up to the same level.
Senator Grafstein: I thought the European idea was a step better than that. The Europeans have what they call transborder guidelines; they are European Union guidelines that set a minimum standard.
Mr. Pentland: They are standards.
Senator Grafstein: Each state in the EU uses those as their baseline and then they go up from that. Some states have even higher guidelines than the ones proposed by the EU themselves.
Mr. Pentland: Virtually all of them do, yes.
Senator Grafstein: You agree with me that, if there was a federal guideline, enforceable through whatever means — including criminal power — it would in no way, shape or form impede provinces from exercising their primarily responsibility by increasing those standards and enforcing those standards beyond what the federal government would do?
Mr. Pentland: There are many examples in Canada of proceeding in that manner. For example, we had a national flood damage reduction program with national standards. However, virtually all provinces imposed more stringent standards. That is what you want to see happen.
The Chair: In respect to that question, does the Food and Drugs Act, where Senator Grafstein's bill proposes this be done, allow for or contemplate those standards to which you refer?
Mr. Pentland: It does not, at the moment, deal with drinking water. It could. I am assuming that, if Senator Grafstein's bill were ever to pass, you would build the rest of it into regulations. In other words, you would have to have standards and equivalency provisions for provinces and so on. However, that could be built into regulations so that it would go beyond his actual bill. That could be covered in regulations.
The Chair: The Food and Drugs Act would be a vehicle or rail along which it could be done as opposed to a separate act?
Mr. Pentland: It could be done either way. I do not have a preference; I am not a lawyer. I think the drafters, who are the artists at this sort of thing, might have an opinion on whether they prefer one way or the other.
The Chair: We will go to someone who is a lawyer in addition to Senator Grafstein.
Senator Nolin: Thank you, Mr. Pentland, for being here. I want to go back to the Quebec and Ontario experience. In your opinion and experience, how are they currently doing the job of looking after water in their provinces?
Mr. Pentland: Quebec requires operator certification, which all of them do not. Quebec requires disinfection filtration required with turbidity.
Senator Nolin: I do not want the details, but the flavour of your expert opinion on how they do things in Ontario and Quebec.
Mr. Pentland: This paper here, which was done by a group of people, not just myself, concluded that, if you went forward with the kind of approach that I suggested, it is likely that Quebec, Ontario and Alberta would be exempt from the federal law because they have high enough standards.
Senator Nolin: In your opinion they have enough standards.
Mr. Pentland: It is probable they would be exempt from those standards.
Senator Nolin: What about the enforcement of those standards in those provinces? How do they do that now?
Mr. Pentland: The provinces work directly with the municipalities. Some of them have fines and other things. Usually they work with the municipality and, when there is a violation, they will work with the municipality to try and correct it. They will give them time to do it and help them financially sometimes. Often, the municipality does not have the expertise it needs. That must come from some higher level.
Normally they will find a violation and they will try to work with them, give them some time and bring them up to the standards.
Senator Nolin: You have referred to provinces and the fact that, in the 1980s when the guidelines process scheme was organized, the aftermath of that proved not to be as effective as it should have been. What is your expert opinion on the reason why some provinces decided not to follow through with what they had agreed to?
Mr. Pentland: I would not say ``decided not.'' In this country and in many fields — not only water and water quality — we have uneven capabilities in the provinces; both money and expertise. It is still true that some provinces want and need the kind of help that would come from the federal level. Some provinces need it less.
The Chair: And resent it.
Mr. Pentland: We have an uneven country in terms of capabilities. It is not that they do not want to; they all want to, I am sure. They want to protect their citizens, I am absolutely sure of that.
Senator Nolin: If we were to adopt Bill S-206 and the House of Commons did the same and we end up with having a new definition in the Food and Drugs Act, what would be the consequence of the implementation of that law? What would need to be done by provinces, except Ontario, Quebec and Alberta?
Mr. Pentland: You would have to work carefully with them as you develop the regulations. There would have to be a phase-in period, obviously. You cannot state that today a province regulates 40 contaminants and tomorrow they will regulate 100 contaminants. You would have to work carefully with them. You would have a set of regulations and processes and it would all be built into regulations to the act.
This would take some time. It would be complicated and would not happen overnight.
Senator Nolin: Have you thought about the costs associated with the implementation of such a law?
Mr. Pentland: We have talked about it a bit.
Senator Nolin: For the federal, provincial and municipal levels?
Mr. Pentland: There would be costs. My view of costs in municipal water and wastewater is normally it should be covered by the pricing of the service. In this country we probably charge for water and wastewater services something like 70 per cent of the cost of providing them.
There is a cash cow there, essentially, if we start charging the real cost of these services. Charging the right amount for water and wastewater services would have tremendous benefits, both in terms of water conservation and water quality.
There are some communities — small ones and others — that are incapable or do not have the financial capability. There would have to be senior-level subsidies for some period. There is also a huge backlog in infrastructure. It is in the many billions of dollars. I think federal and provincial governments will have to continue to contribute to meet that backlog. However, eventually, you get to a state where these things are mostly self-sufficient. You move to full-cost pricing and these things are paid for by the people using them.
We are nowhere near that in this country yet. People do not pay anywhere near the cost of the services they are getting.
Senator Nolin: I will accept the invitation of Mr. Pentland to put some numbers together for us, if he wants. That would give us a bigger picture of how much money we are talking about.
The Chair: Is there a way to find that out, Mr. Pentland?
Mr. Pentland: Not easily.
Mr. Pentland: There are 200,000 to 300,000 bureaucrats in this town. You could put them to work.
The Chair: I am not sure that is where to go. It is easy in various places to give examples of the shortfall between the cost of delivering not only water but other services and what we actually pay for them. That is easy to document.
Mr. Pentland: That is available. I do not know exactly where you would find it, but there are estimates of the percentage of the cost we are paying for these services.
When I worked on these things full time 20 years ago, we were paying around 70 per cent. I think it would be higher now. Municipalities have recognized the financial potential of this.
The Chair: You have hit on the magic conservation fact of internalizing the true costs of any commodity, and by definition that will result in more efficient use of them.
Mr. Pentland: Absolutely.
Senator Grafstein: Going back to Ontario and Quebec, there is a dichotomy between what we hear from officials and what the medical people say about this. The system has improved because there is more awareness and there has been money thrown at it. However, there is an inequity between the larger communities, which were in pretty good shape to begin with, and the smaller communities, and that is endemic across the country. Would you agree with the Canadian Medical Association's assessment of that problem?
Mr. Pentland: Yes, and that is manifested most seriously in groundwater. A large number of Canadians are dependent on groundwater. Probably half the wells in Canada do not meet standards. People who are dependent on wells have a real problem in this country.
We talked about the U.S. Their national guidelines do not apply to people on individual groundwater systems. They are on their own.
The Chair: There are municipalities that, to some degree, rely upon wells.
Mr. Pentland: There are many, yes.
Senator Grafstein: What is your take on boil water advisories? We have heard the government's position as articulated by Senator Cochrane.
Mr. Pentland: A boil water advisory is a warning not to use the water unless you boil it. As you said before, boiling looks after biological problems in the water, but it will not look after the contaminants. Contaminants that cause long- term damage to humans are not dealt with by boiling water.
Senator Grafstein: I tried to make the point that boil water advisories are not vaccinations in the sense that they do not act as a total prophylactic against all the problems in water. I assume, Mr. Pentland, that you agree with that.
Mr. Pentland: That is right.
The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Pentland. We are grateful for your testimony. It has been most useful and has pointed us in valuable directions.
Mr. Pentland: I appreciate that you are doing this.
The committee adjourned.