Bill C-326 (Historical)

An Act to amend the Department of Health Act (drinking water guidelines)

This enactment amends the Department of Health Act to require the Minister of Health to identify any foreign government or international agency that, in the Minister’s opinion, has standards or guidelines respecting the quality of drinking water that should be compared to those
that are being developed in Canada. Every fiscal year, the Minister shall publish the results of the comparison of various aspects of those standards or guidelines.‍

Indigenous Affairs

[Don Rusnak, Liberal, Thunder Bay—Rainy River, ON]

Mr. Speaker, just last month, my colleague's private member's bill, Bill C-326, which focuses on drinking water guidelines in Canada, moved to the Senate for first reading. As members will know, decades of neglect have left drinking water systems on first nations reserves in Canada in an unacceptable state. This is why our government is committed to ending long-term drinking water advisories on all public systems on reserve by March 2021.

Can the Prime Minister please update this House as to the actions being taken to ensure reliable access to clean drinking water on reserves?

[David Morin]

In terms of the legally binding drinking water quality standards, we are working with regard to private member's bill C-326 on improving the transparency, the reporting and the progress that's being made with regard to drinking water quality standards in Canada. We are progressing. Work in that area is to really improve the transparency in the CEPA annual report.

In terms of work that's being done to make this available, a lot is being done between the federal government and the province. We are also a collaborating centre of the World Health Organization.

Specifically with regard to 1,4-dioxane, we actually published a draft drinking water quality guideline in September. Prior to that we did not have one. That draft drinking water quality guideline that was published in September has 1,4-dioxane at 50 micrograms per litre, which is considerably lower now than the one that is proposed by USEPA. They have it as currently at about—

Department of Health Act

[The Speaker, Liberal, Geoff Regan]

It being 3:17 p.m., pursuant to an order made on Tuesday, October 2, the House will now proceed to the taking of the deferred recorded division on the motion at third reading stage of Bill C-326 under Private Members' Business.

The House resumed from October 2 consideration of the motion that Bill C-326, An Act to amend the Department of Health Act (drinking water guidelines), be read the third time and passed.

Business of the House

[Mark Strahl, Conservative, Chilliwack—Hope, BC]

Mr. Speaker, if you seek it, I believe you will find unanimous consent for the following motion. I move:

That, at the conclusion of today's debate on the opposition motion in the name of the member for Portage—Lisgar, all questions necessary to dispose of the motion be deemed put and a recorded division deemed requested and deferred until Wednesday, October 3, 2018, at the expiry of the time provided for Oral Questions;

and that, notwithstanding any Standing Order or usual practice of the House, the recorded division on the motion for third reading of Bill C-326, An Act to amend the Department of Health Act (drinking water guidelines), standing in the name of the member for Lac-Saint-Louis, deferred until Wednesday, October 3, 2018 immediately before the time provided for Private Members' Business be deferred anew until the expiry of the time provided for Oral Questions that same day.

Department of Health Act

[Gord Johns, NDP, Courtenay—Alberni, BC]

Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to rise today to speak in support of Bill C-326, an act to amend the Department of Health Act (drinking water guidelines).

My colleague from Edmonton Strathcona did a great job of talking about things that are missing in this piece of legislation and also what is important.

Before I get started, I want to talk about some of the water defenders in my riding. I want to recognize Linda Safford and the great work that the Comox Valley Council of Canadians do. I want to recognize Dan Lewis and Bonnie Glambeck from Clayoquot Action, and my friend Sarah Thomas, who has fought so much for the Alberni Valley and the protection of the watershed there. I also want to recognize Tsimka and Gisele Martin from Tla-o-qui-aht First Nation for their defence of Meares Island and protecting our water there.

It is really important that we have water defenders in our communities. We are fortunate to have eight Nuu-chah-nulth nations in my riding, the Qualicum nation and the Comox people. They are always there to defend what is important and that is our water.

We rely heavily on clean water in our riding for our water supply. Comox Lake is something we are looking at as a water supply in the Comox Valley to ensure that we have clean water. Meares Island supplies the water for Tofino and Ucluelet is looking at getting its water from Kennedy Lake.

We all know that water makes life possible on our planet. We learn this as children. If we are fortunate to live near the streams, rivers, lakes and oceans of our country, we learn that it is fundamental to our local economies, our culture and our food security.

Too often we take this knowledge of water as the essence of life for granted as we live our lives. We waste it and we pollute it with industrial waste and debris such as single use plastics, which I have raised repeatedly here in the House.

Protecting and preserving our water is urgently required through a national ocean plastics strategy, including filling the legislative and regulatory voids that are required to ensure effective stewardship.

At the same time, there is no question that water is a human right. Nothing can survive very long without it. We can live up to a month without food, but only for a week without water.

Most of us also take the right to safe drinking water for granted because most of us have access to an abundance of fresh water like I just spoke of. I live in a temperate rain forest so we do take it for granted. However, this is not true for two-thirds of all indigenous communities here in Canada. These communities have been under at least one drinking water advisory at some time in the last decade and people in many municipalities as well face repeated drinking water advisories.

This is true, for example, of the Comox Valley in my riding which has been subjected to multiple boil water advisories covering a period of 126 days just over the past three years. We have an application for the Comox Valley water treatment project and we desperately will need federal and provincial support to establish that and ensure that we do not have these boil water advisories and that we know that our children, our elders and all citizens will have access to clean drinking water.

During the last election campaign, the Prime Minister promised to end drinking water advisories in indigenous communities within five years. The government is three years into its term and we are far from that. According to a recent report from the David Suzuki Foundation, the Liberal government is not on track to fulfill this promise and, sadly, it has no plan to get there. The government has two years left in its five-year promise and there is no plan to fulfill this promise. This is completely unacceptable. It is disappointing and frustrating. Frankly, it is embarrassing.

According to a 2014 Ecojustice Canada Report, drinking water standards in Canada continue to lag behind international benchmarks. The report compared the guidelines for Canadian drinking water quality with corresponding frameworks in the United States, European Union, and Australia, as well as standards recommended by the WHO. While Canada has, or is tied for, the strongest standard in 24 instances, it has, or is tied for, the weakest standard for 27 substances. That is unacceptable.

In 105 other cases, Canada has no standard at all where at least one other country does. There is no regulatory framework holding the federal government accountable for safe drinking water in indigenous communities. This is largely because provincial laws and regulations that apply to municipalities do not apply to reserves, which are considered federal lands under federal jurisdiction.

The federal government's unacceptable failure to provide clean drinking water in indigenous communities is still unacceptable, and its funding continues to be inadequate for addressing urgent, immediate drinking water and wastewater and waste management treatment.

While the mandated guideline reviews called for in this bill are important, more stringent national objectives and standards in line with the European Union, United States, Australia and the WHO are clearly required.

In closing, all Canadians clearly do not have equal access to clean drinking water. It is time for Canada to establish a national water policy to secure the principles of water as a human right and as a public trust. We need a plan to implement that strategy.

[John Oliver, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Health, Lib.]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to sincerely thank the member for Lac-Saint-Louis for his hard work and insights on Canada's drinking water guidelines, which he introduced through Bill C-326, and also for his leadership in this area over many years. I know that all members in this House come from ridings that pull their drinking water from multiple sources. In my community of Oakville, we pull it from Lake Ontario. Therefore, drinking water guidelines are essential and important to every one of us.

Canada has a long history of developing guidelines to ensure that Canada's drinking water is among the safest in the world. In fact, the first guideline was published 50 years ago. Today over 100 guidelines are maintained and renewed. If passed, Bill C-326 would help ensure that Canada's drinking water guidelines are protective of health and are comparable to those in leading jurisdictions internationally. Furthermore, it would improve transparency on how drinking water quality guidelines are developed in Canada.

It is important to understand that drinking water quality is the responsibility of all levels of government, from federal to municipal. While drinking water is primarily under provincial and territorial jurisdiction, the Government of Canada plays a central role in drinking water safety. Health Canada works in close collaboration with the provinces and territories to establish science-based guidelines for Canadian drinking water quality, which are published by Health Canada. Each of these guidelines is specific to a contaminant found in Canada. These guidelines are in turn used by the provinces and territories as a basis for establishing their own drinking water quality standards, in accordance with their respective public health priorities. The guidelines are also used to ensure the safety of drinking water in areas of federal jurisdiction.

This collaborative approach between federal, provincial and territorial governments is applied consistently throughout the process, from identifying priorities and assessing risks to developing draft guidelines to consulting with Canadians and working toward implementing the guidelines across Canada. This process is based on robust science, national and international peer review and the consideration of standards and guidelines from other international jurisdictions. This harmonized approach helps ensure consistency in the levels of protection across Canada while respecting the existing constitutional division of responsibilities.

Canada takes an approach to the development of drinking water guidelines that is similar to what many other countries do. Health Canada develops guidelines for substances of concern that are found in Canadian drinking water supplies at levels that can pose a risk to human health. A drinking water contaminant in Australia, for example, is not necessarily a concern in Canada because of differences in industry and geology. This means that the substances needing guidelines or standards will vary internationally. Canada identifies issues that are specific to Canada and takes these issues into consideration when developing guidelines designed to protect the health of Canadians. The science generated, as well as the standards developed by other global authorities, are used to help inform the development of drinking water quality guidelines in Canada.

Every four years, Health Canada, in collaboration with the provinces and territories, conducts a comprehensive review of chemical substances, including new or emerging potential drinking water contaminants. This review aims to assess whether there is new science related to the potential health impacts of a contaminant, new information on Canadians' level of exposure, and any new treatment technology developed nationally or internationally. On the basis of this review, a list of prioritized contaminants is created. This collaborative, science-based process ensures that federal and provincial resources are directed at substances most likely to pose a risk to the health of Canadians.

Internationally, Canada is considered a leader in the development of drinking water quality guidelines. Health Canada is also recognized as a collaborating centre for water quality by the World Health Organization, highlighting Canada's international prominence and expertise. The department has been a contributor to all the World Health Organization's drinking water quality guidelines for the last several decades, and over the past 10 years, the World Health Organization has used Canada's drinking water assessments as the basis for developing its own guidelines for 12 chemical substances and has requested specific input from Health Canada on a further 10.

As part of its assessment process, Health Canada routinely monitors and reviews the drinking water guidelines and standards developed by other key organizations. The science supporting these international standards is taken into consideration when developing our Canadian guidelines.

This approach ensures that Canadian drinking water guidelines are based on credible, science-based criteria and also take into consideration the science behind new and updated drinking water standards developed globally.

The Government of Canada also works closely and shares information with international government agencies. Health Canada recently collaborated with the United States Environmental Protection Agency to develop a risk assessment on blue-green algae, also harmful algae blooms, which affect a growing number of drinking water sources in Canada and the United States. This risk assessment was used as a basis for a Canadian guideline and for a U.S. health advisory on blue-green algae.

Health Canada has also co-operated with Australia in the development of an online risk assessment tool. The online tool is developed to help operators in small communities with small drinking water systems to evaluate their level of risk and prioritize areas for action.

To summarize, Canada's effective, collaborative, science-based process for developing drinking water quality guidelines is among the best in the world. However, are improvements possible? The answer is yes. If passed, Bill C-326 would, for the first time, formalize in legislation the role of the federal government and specifically the Minister of Health to coordinate the development of national drinking water quality guidelines and to consider the guidelines and standards developed in other jurisdictions. This represents a significant step toward improving federal accountability on the issue.

The intent of Bill C-326 is not to question the quality of the work that is being done by Health Canada and our provinces and territories. The intent is to maintain Canada's status among the world's leading agencies on drinking water quality. It highlights the need for our scientists to review the work of other leading agencies to keep abreast of new scientific approaches and studies. It demonstrates the need for having open and transparent scientific processes and to better communicate our work and its importance to Canadians on an ongoing basis.

If adopted, Bill C-326 would strengthen federal accountability by improving the transparency of the process by which drinking water guidelines are developed.

Health Canada is already moving in this direction. In addition to being posted on the Government of Canada's website, new and updated guidelines for Canadian drinking water quality are now published in the Canada Gazette under the authority conveyed to the Minister of Health under the Canadian Environmental Protection Act.

Each guideline published in the Canada Gazette will include a comparison between corresponding guidelines or standards of leading international jurisdictions and agencies. If passed, Bill C-326 would build on these efforts and enhance information that is available to Canadians on drinking water quality guidelines.

Publishing the guidelines for Canadian drinking water quality under the Canadian Environmental Protection Act will help enhance the government's transparency and outreach to experts, stakeholders and interested Canadians, and formalize the consultation process on all guidelines.

In conclusion, Bill C-326, if adopted, would strengthen Canada's efforts to ensure our guidelines are among the best in the world, that they are based on up-to-date science and that they are protective of the health of Canadians. It will inform Canadians and stakeholders of the process used to develop guidelines and how our drinking water quality guidelines compare to standards and the guidelines of leading international agencies.

I am pleased to advise the House that the government will be supporting Bill C-326. Once again, I would like to thank the member for Lac-Saint-Louis for his work on this important issue and for his leadership past and ongoing in ensuring strong drinking water guidelines for all Canadians.

[Linda Duncan, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Mr. Speaker, in Bill C-326, the member for Lac-Saint-Louis proposes a number of measures related to empowering the federal Minister of Health, under the Department of Health Act, to investigate and report on the need to update regulation of toxins in drinking water.

I want to say again that I am aware of the long-standing interest of this member in calling for greater action to protect Canadian water quality, including safe drinking water, and I commend him for this dedication. I also wish to echo the calls by the MP for Sarnia—Lambton for the comments she has made on the concerns about the continuing boil water advisories in our indigenous communities.

However, the member for Lac-Saint-Louis' specific reforms appear at odds with, and may actually conflict with, recommendations made by the parliamentary committee on environment and sustainable development in a number of reports tabled in this place in 2007, 2008 and as recently as 2017, which have still not been acted upon.

Certainly, repeated calls have been made for greater action at the federal level to protect water quality, in particular from contamination from harmful toxins. Strengthened measures have been demanded by parliamentarians, government officials, scientists, physicians, lawyers, environmental advocates and our own commissioner of the environment and sustainable development.

Indeed, during our committee study of the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, we heard testimony that Canadian drinking water standards often lag behind international benchmarks. CEPA, or the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, is the federal law that has been in force since 1988 for regulating toxic substances, including those that may be found in drinking water or potential drinking water sources. It is also important to note that it is this law that extends powers to both the Minister of Environment and Climate Change and the Minister of Health for the control of toxins.

Following an extensive study that heard testimony from government officials, the commissioner of the environment and sustainable development, industry, scientists, legal experts and environmental advocates, the committee tabled a report calling for substantive reforms to this law to ensure improved control of toxins, including in water.

Bill C-326 proposes that the Minister of Health be empowered to review drinking water standards to ensure consistency with standards imposed by other OECD nations. Our committee was advised that in some instances, Canada has in place the lowest standards among OECD nations for 27 toxic substances. While the committee recognized the need for the reforms, they do not appear to coincide with those the member recommends under Bill C-326.

In fact, the committee recommended amending CEPA to require a mandatory assessment of any substance where an OECD country has placed restrictions on it and more. It also called for action where there was an increased use of that substance or any new scientific findings came to the attention of the Minister of Environment and Climate Change. The committee recommended that CEPA be made the principal statute to regulate any products containing toxic substances, not the Department of Health Act.

The parliamentary committee did recognize the need to enhance the powers of the Minister of Health in recommending controls on a toxin where it may pose risks to health. However, it was noted that the law must require dual reviews by both the health and environment ministers to ensure that risks to both health and environment are assessed.

A recommendation was also made to ensure that any assessment consider risks to vulnerable populations. The committee went a step further than Bill C-326, recommending automatic listing of any substance once it is determined to be toxic, not simply that it be reported to Parliament. It called for immediate action where there is information that a substance may be harming human health or the environment. However, we still await action by the government on these languishing critical calls for reform to protect our environment and human health.

Finally, many have called for the current national guidelines for Canadian drinking water to be made binding in law, as is the case in many other western nations. Further, they have called for communities, including indigenous communities, to be granted the right to participate in risk assessments and the setting of standards. This would be consistent with Canada's having recognized, at the UN conference on sustainable development in 2012, the right to water. Such calls have been made for decades by Ecojustice, the Forum for Leadership on Water, the Centre for Indigenous Environmental Resources, the David Suzuki Foundation blue dot campaign and indigenous leaders.

Should Bill C-326 be passed, it will be important that the proposals be considered in tandem with the recommendations by the parliamentary committee.

I call on the government to table amendments to the Canadian Environmental Protection Act this year. That would enable them to be debated and implemented as expeditiously as possible to ensure the protection of Canadians.

As my colleague from the Conservative Party noted, yes, the government is showing a greater commitment to removing boil water advisories in aboriginal communities, but no community in 2018 should be suffering under a boil water advisory. Yes, there may be certain gizmos that can be attached to taps, but frankly, many of these communities do not even have water from taps and have to go to a well.

A number of years ago, I wrote a handbook for indigenous communities to ensure that they had protections for their safe drinking water, because there was a law proposed by the Conservative government to regulate safe drinking water in indigenous communities. Regrettably, essentially what that law did was simply transfer liability to indigenous communities.

It is absolutely critical that the resources be given to our indigenous and rural communities so that they can, in fact, be granted the same opportunity many of us have to simply turn on the tap and have clean, fresh water. I have had the privilege of working overseas in a number of countries, such as Bangladesh and Indonesia, and on those occasions, it was not necessarily safe to drink the water from the taps, so I recognize in a very small way what is being suffered in many of the communities.

I again commend the member for his attention to this issue and the initiative he is taking, but I would encourage the government and the committee, when considering this bill, to look at it in the context of the report done by the parliamentary committee.

[Marilyn Gladu, Conservative, Sarnia—Lambton, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise today to speak to Bill C-326, an act to amend the Department of Health Act with regards to drinking water guidelines. I am truly grateful to the member for Lac-Saint-Louis for introducing this bill. I also want to thank him for his ongoing work on this issue.

Bill C-326 would require the Minister of Health to examine existing drinking water standards in 35 OECD countries and, if necessary, make recommendations to change Canada's drinking water standards.

Canada is currently a World Health Organization collaborating centre for water quality and has an active role in drafting the WHO guidelines for drinking water quality.

Canada also shares information on this subject with other intergovernmental organizations such as the agency that handles these matters in the United States.

It is important to note that developing water quality guidelines falls under provincial and territorial jurisdiction. However, I believe the federal government should contribute to the conversation and has a role to play in standardizing those guidelines nationally.

All Canadians must have access to drinking water of the highest quality no matter where they live, their history or their income. Drinking water in Canada should be available to everyone, and the fact that entire regions do not have consistent and permanent access to water is unacceptable.

Federal oversight and the clear responsibility of the Minister of Health to report to the House will greatly improve this situation and hold the government to account on its commitments to Canadians.

As with all other matters pertaining to health, we must ensure that changes put forward come from up-to-date sources and scientific data.

As always, I expect that the federal government will use the best data possible when developing these measures.

Now that we have a bit of background on the intent of this bill, I would like to outline exactly why I think the bill may actually be a bit redundant. The committee heard that the Minister of Health and the Department of Health already, on an annual basis, review the World Health Organization's standards on water quality and check back to ensure that they are implemented. The problem is not that the check is not happening. The difficulty is in making sure that we adhere to those standards across the country.

There is some difficulty with that because there are so many layers of standards. It would be great to get to a place where we would say that the World Health Organization's standards are the ones we want to meet and that federally, provincially and municipally we would all line up to the same thing. Some effort to get there is time well spent.

With respect to our first nations people, there was a commitment on the part of the government to eliminate the boil water advisories and $8.4 billion was pledged. There are some statistics on that. Since 2015, 40 boil water advisories were lifted, but another 25 were added to the list and a total of 91 boil water advisories remain in effect. We need to make sure the water quality standards we have in place federally make their way across the country and that we address the issue of water on reserve.

As of last year, two-thirds of the $2 billion that was allocated to address water systems in budget 2016 is unspent, so it is important to make sure that if we put money in place to address issues, we spend the money,

The other point I would make is we are three years into the mandate and have not yet made the progress we wanted to make on those boil water advisories, so I encourage the government to make tracks to see that happens.

There is a lot of technology in place. I took note that the government is shipping bottled water into many reserves. There is technology available today, where for $300 we could supply a family of five for a day. It is a water filtration system that filters both organic and inorganic materials, and just requires a cartridge filter change every 10 years. This is the kind of significant technology that could be brought to bear, along with water treatment systems that the government is putting in place.

There are other things I wish we were talking about in terms of water. Many of my constituents, when they found out I would be speaking on this, had issues they wanted to bring forward. Nick Young sent me some information about Nestlé and the withdrawal of millions of gallons of water from our lake system for mere pennies. He is concerned we are not adequately protecting our resources.

Similarly, I had input from people in the community who said the government should weigh in on the issue of whether or not we should be fluorinating our water. There was quite a volume of data provided to me. If we looked around the world to different places, some fluorinate and some do not, and there actually is not much difference in terms of dental health and some of the determinants that happen there. However, because there are municipalities that are constantly seeing this issue come forward, it would be good for the government to complete the research and come with an answer on how we could standardize across Canada. There have been cases in Calgary where they took the fluoride out of the water and now we are seeing an increase in dental health problems that they believe are related to that,

In addition to these issues, we should do some work on updating some of the guidelines. There is a lot of inconsistency between jurisdictions. Sixteen of the 94 Canadian drinking water guidelines are consistently applied across all provinces and territories. A very small percentage of what we say we want to have is in place. Only eight Canadian provinces and jurisdictions have legally binding drinking water standards. Obviously, we want to include that as part of the law.

I want to thank the member for Lac-Saint-Louis, because I know he has done a lot of work in the area. There is still more to be done, not just in setting the standards but in the work to clean up and remediate our water. In Sarnia—Lambton, we are part of a binational effort to clear up the areas of concern. When the work began between Michigan and Sarnia, a lot of the industries have been there over the years and there was a lot of cleanup to be done. The efforts have resulted in most of the areas of concern being cleaned up and the blue flag status being returned to the water in Sarnia—Lambton, so it is great to swim and enjoy the beaches there. However, there still remain areas of concern.

I was speaking with the Minister of Environment today about finding money to finish up that remediation. They have extended those areas of concern now from Sarnia all the way down to Niagara, and there are five remaining areas of concern to be addressed. I encourage the government to do that, in addition to drinking water standards. We have some of the most beautiful lakes in the world. We have the largest volume of water on the planet. We should be leaders in setting the standard in making sure that everything we have here is kept for generations to come.

That said, I appreciate the member bringing this forward. It would put into law the practice that the government currently has of checking with the world standards every year and making sure it brings those back to try to get some coordination and implementation across all of the provinces and territories.

[Francis Scarpaleggia, Liberal, Lac-Saint-Louis, QC]

moved that C-326, An Act to amend the Department of Health Act (drinking water guidelines), be read the third time and passed.

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased that Bill C-326 has moved past second reading and committee stage and is back in the House for third reading. Although the scope of the bill is narrower than what I had hoped as a result of the amendments proposed in committee, the fact remains that the bill is another important lever that will ensure greater transparency when establishing drinking water standards and that this process will look to the future, that is the study and control of emerging contaminants.

When developing and drafting the bill, I borrowed elements of the American system for drinking water. I use the term elements only because, in general, here in Canada we favour an approach to regulating drinking water that is a little different than that of the U.S. For example, we do not favour adopting uniform standards that are enforced by law across the country. Instead we use a regional approach, that is a provincial one, which in reality places greater importance on the efficient management of water purification plants than on attaining certain specific limits or thresholds for a large variety of water contaminants. In other words, our approach gives regulatory bodies greater flexibility.

Ironically, the stricter approach can make the work of plant operators more complex and can even be detrimental to the objective of ensuring quality drinking water. I sincerely believe in the Canadian model, which, according to the experts, is becoming more prevalent internationally for the regulation of drinking water.

That being said, the United States is actually being more proactive and transparent about studying and regulating drinking water contaminants, especially those known as emerging contaminants. The United States amended its Safe Drinking Water Act in 1986 and again in 1996 to give the U.S. EPA additional responsibilities regarding drinking water.

These amendments included the requirement that the U.S. EPA develop and manage a candidate contaminant list every five years. In other words, every five years, the EPA must select at least five contaminants from the candidate contaminant list and make decisions on whether to make regulations pertaining to them, in a process that is called regulatory determination. Moreover, the EPA is also now required to monitor at least 30 unregulated contaminants every five years. In the event that it decides that a new contaminant will be regulated, the EPA has two years following that decision to draft a regulation and an additional 18 months to finalize it. There is thus a well-structured, forward-looking and transparent process in place in the U.S. with respect to managing contaminants in drinking water in that country.

Publishing the candidate contaminant list is a key strength of the U.S. system. Making the list public enhances transparency regarding the future regulatory direction of the EPA. It provides important information that researchers can then use to make decisions, namely, regarding the contaminants for which they would want to collect primary data to inform the regulatory process. Moreover, this proactive approach spurs research and innovation, including in the area of water filtration processes.

In essence, Bill C-326, both in its original and current forms, aims to encourage that same kind of forward-looking and transparent approach. The amended version of Bill C-326 calls on the minister “to identify any foreign government or international agency that, in the Minister’s opinion, has standards or guidelines respecting the quality of drinking water that should be compared” to Canada's. This determination, which until now has not been legally required, nor, to my knowledge, made public, if the minister has in fact considered such a comparison, will necessarily elicit questions from those with an interest in the quality of our drinking water, and questions, of course, are the very currency of accountability.

In other words, civil society, including NGOs and researchers, will be able to seek clarification and justification publicly through Order Paper questions, oral questions, correspondence to the minister or other means, of the minister's decisions with regard to the agencies and/or countries she has chosen as a basis of comparison to Canada in regard to drinking water guidelines. Civil society will in turn be able to offer its own opinion as to the validity, or conversely, the lack of validity of the minister's choices.

Furthermore, Bill C-326 requires the minister to identify which standards set by the chosen agencies or countries should be compared to the standards being developed in Canada. Again, civil society will get a chance to critique or support the minister's choice. This will help us look ahead and look at other countries or international agencies that may have more stringent standards than ours, as well as at specific standards outside Canada that may be higher or stricter than ours.

This bill highlights gaps, and as budget analysts and scientific analysts both know, gaps are what stimulate reflection, research and corrective action.

I also hope that this bill—if passed—and the debate it has stimulated so far will spur the government to focus more on emerging contaminants in its Canadian Environmental Protection Act annual report.

In the interest of increasing transparency, promoting research and innovation, and ultimately improving human and environmental health, I ask the House to support this bill.

[The Speaker, Liberal, Geoff Regan]

The House will now proceed to the taking of the deferred recorded division on the motion at report stage of Bill C-326 under private members' business.

The House resumed from May 10 consideration of the motion that Bill C-326, An Act to amend the Department of Health Act (drinking water guidelines), as reported (without amendment) from the committee, be concurred in.

The House proceeded to the consideration of Bill C-326, An Act to amend the Department of Health Act (drinking water guidelines), as reported (without amendment) from the committee.

Health

[Bill Casey, Liberal, Cumberland—Colchester, NS]

Mr. Speaker, we acknowledge the comments by the Conservative member. Certainly the report does not have all the answers, but it is a great first step.

I now have the honour to present, in both official languages, the 15th report of the Standing Committee on Health in relation to Bill C-326, an act to amend the Department of Health Act, drinking water guidelines. The committee has studied the bill and has decided to report the bill back to the House with amendments.

I want to thank the member for Lac-Saint-Louis for developing this private member's bill. It calls on the government to conduct a review of drinking water standards and to make recommendations on our national guidelines.

[The Acting Chair, Liberal, Sonia Sidhu]

Yes.

(Motion agreed to: yeas 6; nays 0)

We will proceed to the consideration of Bill C-326.

I'm pleased to welcome our two guests from the Department of Health. David Morin is the director general for safe environments, and Greg Carreau is the director of the water and air quality bureau. They're available should members have any questions about the bill or amendments. Thanks for being here today.

Pursuant to Standing Order 75(1), consideration of the preamble is postponed. The chair calls clause 1.

(On clause 1)

[David Morin]

Good afternoon. Thank you for this opportunity.

Drinking water is an important issue for Canadians. The responsibility for ensuring the safety of drinking water is shared between provincial, territorial, federal, and municipal governments. The responsibility for providing safe drinking water to the general public generally rests with the provinces and territories, while municipalities oversee the day-to-day operations of treatment facilities. In first nation communities, the Government of Canada works in collaboration with first nation band councils on the safety of drinking water.

While drinking water is primarily under provincial and territorial jurisdiction, the Government of Canada plays a central role in drinking water safety by providing the scientific basis for guidelines for Canadian drinking water quality and by leading their development. This consensus-based process provides a national basis for federal, provincial, and territorial requirements for drinking water safety.

For over 50 years, Health Canada has played a leadership role in undertaking scientific assessments of pollutants in Canadian drinking water to identify potential risks to Canadians. These assessments take the form of guidelines for Canadian drinking water quality. Health Canada works very closely with provinces, territories and other federal government departments, such as the Department of Indigenous Services Canada, to develop these guidelines and to support their implementation.

Canada's guidelines for Canadian drinking water quality are based on up-to-date, credible, peer-reviewed scientific studies. In developing these guidelines, we also take into consideration the science behind new or updated drinking water standards and guidelines developed by leading agencies around the world when they are relevant for Canadian drinking water. That is to say, Canada develops guidelines needed to address drinking water pollutants that may affect Canadians.

As part of its assessment process, Health Canada routinely monitors and reviews drinking water guidelines and standards developed by leading international agencies, including the European Union, the World Health Organization, and the United States Environmental Protection Agency, not to forget the Australian National Health and Medical Research Council.

The science supporting these international standards and guidelines is taken into consideration when identifying which substances are priorities for establishing future guidelines. The science is also taken into consideration in the development of those guidelines.

The development of standards and guidelines has evolved over the past 50 years in Canada and internationally. Throughout these changes, Health Canada has continued to work on establishing evidence-based guidelines to help ensure the safety of Canadian drinking water. Evolving scientific methods and studies can now provide a much better understanding of how pollutants behave in the body, enabling scientists to more accurately determine potential health risks.

As the science behind assessments of pollutants in drinking water gets more precise and sophisticated, the value of international collaboration becomes increasingly significant. All leading international agencies rely to some extent on the work of others, including Canada. All agencies consider the key studies that have been used by other agencies on pollutants of concern. However, each jurisdiction maintains its own considerations that are specific to its country.

Bill C-326 highlights the need to consider improvement to Health Canada's drinking water program by proposing to amend the Department of Health Act.

If adopted, this bill would, for the first time, set out in legislation the role of the minister with respect to drinking water quality. Specifically, the bill would require the Minister of Health to prepare and table a report in Parliament that reviews the drinking water quality standards in OECD member countries.

Health Canada, however, already focuses on reviewing leading international agencies' standards and science for pollutants that may be of concern in the Canadian environment, such as those of the U.S. EPA. This is because the quality of drinking water standards depends on the quality of water in the environment. A drinking water contaminant in Australia, for example, is not necessarily a concern in Canada because of differences in industry and geology. This means that the substances needing guidelines or standards will vary internationally.

We identify the issues that are specific to Canada and take them into consideration when developing guidelines designed to protect the health of Canadians. The science generated as well as standards developed in other global authorities are not ignored. However, many of the other international agencies rely heavily on the work of the World Health Organization, and the risks from drinking water in these areas are very different from those in the Canadian context.

From a reporting perspective, Health Canada currently identifies which guidelines were finalized, which of them underwent public consultation, and which were in progress in the Canadian Environmental Protection Act's annual report that is tabled each year by the Minister of Environment and Climate Change. However, we do recognize that there is an opportunity to enhance the transparency of drinking water information through existing reporting mechanisms. In particular, information from international comparisons could be added to the report.

Internationally, Canada is considered to be a leader in the development of drinking water quality guidelines. Health Canada is recognized as a collaborating centre for water quality by the World Health Organization. This highlights Canada's international prominence and expertise. As part of this role, the department has been a contributor to all of the World Health Organization's drinking water quality guidelines for the last several decades. We also collaborate with Australia and the United States Environmental Protection Agency, and in particular, our collaboration with the the U.S. EPA has resulted in risk assessments that form the basis for standards or guidelines in both countries.

In conclusion, Canada's collaborative, science-based, and consultative process for developing drinking water quality guidelines is among the best in the world. However, we recognize that the drinking water program in Canada needs to continue to evolve, given how important safe drinking water is to Canadians. In particular, we need to continue to consider the standards and guidelines from other leading international organizations, and also tp assume a leadership role by developing new science and sharing it with other organizations. For example, our science has formed the basis for 12 of the World Health Organization's drinking water quality guidelines in the past 10 years. The program also needs to continue to find ways to enhance transparency and communication with stakeholders.

This is why we are very much looking forward to the discussion on Bill C-326 that is aimed at considering ways in which the drinking water program in Health Canada can be improved to ensure that we continue to safeguard the quality of drinking water for Canadians.

Thank you very much.

[Grand Chief Joel Abram, Grand Chief, Association of Iroquois and Allied Indians]

[Witness speaks in Oneida].

That was a greeting in my language of the Oneida Nation.

I'm the Grand Chief of the Association of Iroquois and Allied Indians. We're an advocacy organization. We serve the seven first nations of the Batchewana in and around southwestern Ontario. The members we serve are Batchewana First Nation in Sault Ste. Marie, Hiawatha First Nation near Peterborough, Oneida Nation of the Thames near London, Delaware Nation near Chatham, the Wahta Mohawks north of Orillia, the Mohawks of the Bay of Quinte near Belleville, and also as far south as Caldwell First Nation near Leamington. We represent around 20,000 first nations members.

Thank you, committee members, for hearing me today.

With regard to Bill C-326, it appears to have few teeth in raising national drinking water standards, besides the Minister of Health justifying why the standards are where they are. Also, because it's a provincial jurisdiction constitutionally, except for first nations, there are already drinking water standards for first nations passed in the Safe Drinking Water for First Nations Act. That act is not adhered to either, due to lack of capacity in first nations, as our previous speaker alluded to. Also, there is the failure of any legislation to include guaranteed funding triggers for first nations when water does not meet the standards.

We recently lobbied the federal government on the water issue. There's a lot of concern among first nations. Three-quarters of the boil water advisories in first nations are within Ontario, yet the Ontario region receives only 12% of the capital nationwide.

If this bill is passed, it will not have an impact on first nations drinking water. That is worth raising in itself, as first nations' drinking water standards are a federal responsibility. Once the national drinking water standards are raised, the standards in the first nations drinking water act will also go along with that. We think it probably should, in having a bare minimum that the rest of the country is going to enjoy. First nations should hopefully enjoy that too, as drinking water is a basic human right.

Right now, as it stands, the drinking water of several of our first nations does not meet the drinking water standards of the province; it's not even close. For instance, Oneida Nation of the Thames and Delaware Nation both have GUDI water systems, meaning groundwater under the direct influence of surface water. Our aquifers flow underneath the Thames River. We're downstream from London. Every time they have a storm surge, millions of tonnes of partially treated sewage goes directly into the Thames, which also affects the aquifer we take our water from. The filtration doesn't meet the standards to take a lot of that stuff out, so there are a lot of odours in the water and some.... There's a lot of concern about that.

We are looking to co-develop a new regulatory framework for drinking water that would ensure that funding for first nations is triggered as soon as the water does not meet quality standards. We saw a situation with the Municipality of Swan River where they had an issue with their drinking water facility, and within 24 hours a federal-provincial task force was looking into solving the issue. Within 48 hours, they had it identified and a solution was well under way. Another criterion is that you have to be on a boil water advisory for at least a year to even get on the page for possibly getting funding sometime in the future. In the meantime, other first nations who do have treatment facilities but do not meet the provincial drinking water standards are left in the lurch. By the time funding appears for them, they may be on boil water advisories also.

Federally there is not enough of a press forward to address first nations issues. We understand that there should be a good minimum drinking water standard federally, but how does that tie into first nations drinking water standards? Right now it doesn't appear that it does through this bill or through the Safe Drinking Water for First Nations Act either.

We need to remove the federal ranking system as a formula for capital allocations. It's very unclear. We established a needs-based budget to ensure safe drinking water in all first nations. Also, we need established budgets again for operation and maintenance to ensure that the water standards are maintained. Again, there is very little support in terms of the human resources needed. Right now in Ontario, the Ontario First Nations Technical Services Corporation does provide training to first nations water operators. However, the funding to actually pay the water operators does not exist in a lot of cases, and so first nations are forced to rob Peter to pay Paul in order to have a good number of drinking water operators so that they can have safe water. Again, that impacts other areas of our budgets.

Those are the main issues I have, and there are first nations that may want to enter into municipal partnerships for drinking water. Again, we'd like to raise our first nation issues with Bill C-326, because if a national drinking water standard is raised because of this bill, the first nations drinking water standards need to at least go along with that. The province doesn't really have much to do with first nations in terms of their drinking water right now as it is.

I remember in Oneida that we tried to have the Ontario Clean Water Agency come to do an assessment of our treatment facility. They declined, saying that we were a federal responsibility. We kept pressing them on the issue, and they agreed to do it and to just issue a report to us to let us know where the plant was in relation to the provincial standards. Again, the report came in that the plant did not meet the standards, basically due to redundancy, in terms of having any type of backup system, and because the filtration system was getting quite old as well.

There are a lot of infrastructure needs that first nations have with regard to water, and this bill doesn't seem to do a whole lot in terms of being able to enforce anything. I do think human capacity is an issue, but for first nations, it's more about the infrastructure monies that are available, and about making sure that the standards within a first nation drinking water act match what's happening nationally and provincially.

[Dr. Steve Hrudey]

Thank you.

Honourable members of Parliament, I truly appreciate this opportunity to share with you my experience and knowledge about drinking water as you review Bill C-326. I've outlined my qualifications and experience in my written brief, so I won't repeat them here. My evidence is based on authentic experience with drinking water safety. I hope to make a case that you'll want to ask questions about. My written brief contains many published references that elaborate on the evidence for the case I'm going to argue.

Bill C-326 appears to aim at ensuring safe drinking water for Canadians. That aim is praiseworthy, but based on a substantial body of evidence, I am obliged to testify that Bill C-326 is most likely to be misinterpreted and, as currently drafted, may only distract from achieving its noble aim.

Almost 18 years ago in May 2000 in Walkerton, Ontario, Canadians witnessed seven consumers die and over 2,400 made ill—many seriously so—because their public drinking water became contaminated. If it had been law before May 2000, Bill C-326 would not have prevented that disaster. You may well ask why not? Walkerton was a failure to meet the numerical regulatory limits that were specified. Requiring a more stringent numerical limit would have made no difference.

Justice O'Connor, in his landmark inquiry reports, recognized that ensuring operational competence is the critical factor for ensuring safe drinking water, not specifying more stringent numerical limits. Justice O'Connor was informed in his judgment by parallel international advances made by the World Health Organization and the Australian National Health and Medical Research Council. These are now captured in what's called a “drinking water safety plan” approach that focuses on operational competence rather than just tightening numerical limits. Those numerical limits are already set with considerable margins of safety. Failures like Walkerton are caused by inadequate operational competence to ensure safe operations.

Despite the Walkerton incident being 18 years in the past, such fatal operational errors have continued to occur in affluent nations. Just last year I was retained by Water New Zealand to give evidence to a government inquiry into a drinking water disaster in a community called Havelock North that caused four deaths and 5,500 cases of illness in August 2016. This disaster occurred in a modern, suburban community of about 15,000 residents for reasons similar to Walkerton's disaster—because the operational personnel responsible for drinking water failed to do what needed to be done.

In my evidence for New Zealand, I reported on case studies of 38 outbreaks of serious drinking water disease that have occurred in 13 affluent countries: nine in the U.S.; seven in Canada; six in England; three in Finland; two each in Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland; and one each in Australia, Ireland, Japan, New Zealand, and Scotland. These resulted in a total of 77 fatalities in nine fatal outbreaks and caused over 460,000 cases of gastrointestinal disease.

While the majority of Canadians are routinely provided high-quality drinking water that is safe by any international standard, assurance of that achievement is less secure as we move to smaller and more remote communities, including first nations communities. The bottom line for ensuring safe drinking water is the competence—the training, knowledge, public health awareness, commitment, and functional capacity—of the water provider. The smaller the entity charged with providing public drinking water, the more difficult it becomes to ensure adequate competence.

Consider the following example to illustrate my point. Would you be comfortable as a passenger travelling in a plane flown by a pilot being paid minimal wages and who has minimal training and negligible technical support? I expect not. Yet, in many small communities in Canada we place responsibility for delivering safe drinking water upon personnel who are often undertrained, and are mostly underpaid and undersupported for the enormous public health responsibility they must discharge. Adopting more stringent numerical criteria in the guidelines for Canadian drinking water quality, which are already intentionally cautious, will do nothing to improve drinking water safety in these communities.

I'd like to thank member of Parliament Scarpaleggia for the references he made to some of my writings. We had a discussion on these issues, and I'm pleased that they've been taken note of. However, I'm commenting on what's in the bill.

Thank you for your attention to this important matter. I welcome your questions about what is needed and what will improve safety.

[Francis Scarpaleggia, Liberal, Lac-Saint-Louis, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I will begin by sort of echoing Mr. Attaran's comments in saying that, in Canada, drinking water is generally of good quality, with the exception, of course, of the drinking water in many rural or first nations communities.

Bill C-326 does not address the issue of boil water advisories in first nations and other communities. Resolving these issues requires a political will, a significant commitment of financial resources and highly likely, in my opinion, new governance structures in some cases. Fortunately, the government is dealing with this challenge with great determination, and so far, the results have been promising.

When any changes are made to the drinking water standard development system, we must make sure not to unduly increase the burden on Health Canada or, perhaps more importantly, on public water services and their operators. To do otherwise would be counterproductive to achieving the objective of Bill C-326, which aims to reduce Canadians' exposure to harmful contaminants in drinking water. Interfering in how Health Canada and public water services are fulfilling their mandate of providing quality drinking water unintentionally compromises the quality of our drinking water.

Bill C-326 aims to be a small practical step. It's objective is to modestly increase the rigour and accountability of the process of developing Canada's guidelines for drinking water quality, hopefully resulting in Canadians being able to access the best drinking water in the world on an ongoing basis, even as new contaminants are identified over the long term.

The bill seeks to do this by requiring Health Canada to systematically scan the international environment to compare Canada's drinking water guidelines with those of other comparable nations, and report on discrepancies. Such an exercise would provide the public, NGOs, and the media with the information needed to judge whether the government is being timely and thorough in recommending maximum allowable concentrations for contaminants in drinking water.

Bill C-326 is inspired by the work of the environmental NGO Ecojustice, namely by its report entitled “Waterproof”, which is a report card on Canada's drinking water guidelines in comparison to those of the U.S., Australia, and European Union countries and guidelines recommended by the World Health Organization.

According to the report, published in 2014, there are 189 substances regulated in other countries for which Canada has no standard. This gap, however, is justifiable in 84 cases, where Canada has either banned a particular substance or the substance is otherwise not in use here. That leaves 105 substances that are regulated in at least one other country, but for which a guideline does not exist in this country. For example, Canada lacks a guideline for styrene, a possible human carcinogen, but the U.S., Australia, and the World Health Organization have set maximum allowable limits for this substance in drinking water.

Furthermore, according to the Ecojustice report, there are 27 substances for which Canada has the weakest standard of the countries that do have standards, or is tied for the weakest standard. For example, the standard for the herbicide 2,4-D is 1.5 to 3 times stronger in other countries than it is in Canada.

It is important, in my view, to note the distinction between microbial pathogens known to cause human disease through drinking water, and contaminants that, because of their low concentration, pose very little risk to human health. This doesn't mean that low-risk contaminants should not be assigned maximum allowable concentrations. This should be done on precautionary grounds, in my view. However, care must also be taken to avoid diverting plant operator attention from those pathogens that provide a clear, quick, and certain risk of harm if not properly monitored and controlled in drinking water systems.

There may be legitimate reasons why a Canadian guideline remains weaker than that of another comparable country. Guidelines are a function of risk, and risk depends on many factors. A contaminant's presence—arsenic would be an example—may pose an insignificant risk in a particular geographic area, and thus, pouring large sums into eliminating that risk could come at the expense of other important health priorities. To quote Dr. Steve Hrudey in a paper he wrote for the C.D. Howe Institute:

...there needs to be acceptance...of the reality that all risks to drinking water safety are not equal and that drinking water treatment strategies must address the important risks before limited resources are substantially diverted to dealing with the hypothetical issues.

Some believe we should move further in the direction of a cookbook or numerical approach to regulating drinking water as in, for example, the U.S. with its stricter emphasis on legally binding standards for drinking water contaminants. However, it may be better, and in line with emerging international practice, to put a strong emphasis on ensuring the highest operational standards in water utilities. To again quote Dr. Hrudey, speaking of over 70 case studies of outbreaks since 1974 from 15 different affluent nations:

Despite having the most detailed and onerous regulatory regime for drinking water in the world, the US accounted for 23 of the 70 disease outbreaks....

Owing to our constitutional division of responsibilities with respect to drinking water, where the provinces select guidelines to enforce, our system of regulating drinking water has built-in flexibility that prevents an over-reliance on a rigid numerical approach at the expense of focusing on ensuring good operational standards in drinking-water plants. While stricter guidelines can be recommended, provinces can decide on their relevance given local conditions and other factors to be considered in evaluating risk.

Canadians have the right to know how Canada's drinking-water guidelines measure up against international standards and whether there are valid reasons for any observed discrepancies. Such analysis could prove transformative for the process of updating Canada's drinking-water guidelines.

Bill C-326 thus imposes a statutory requirement on the government to conduct a comprehensive analysis of Canada's drinking-water guidelines in comparison with international standards and report on the results.

Specifically, Bill C-326 would require the health minister, within three months after the end of each calendar year, to conduct a review of the drinking water standards in OECD member countries in the previous year, and prepare a report on the review. The minister would be required to table the report before the House and Senate essentially within 15 days of the report's completion. The report would also have to be published on the department's website within 30 days from the day the report is laid before the House and Senate. If the Minister of Health is of the view that standards in an OECD country provide for a higher level of water quality than the Canadian guidelines and that it would be in the interests of Canadians that those guidelines be amended accordingly, the minister would be required to include such a recommendation in his or her report.

Bill C-326 creates a process analogous to the one by which pesticide regulations are updated in Canada. Subsection 17(2) of the Pest Control Products Act states:

...when a member country of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development prohibits all uses of an active ingredient for health or environmental reasons, the Minister shall initiate a special review of registered pest control products containing that active ingredient.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[Professor Amir Attaran, Professor, Faculties of Law and Medicine, University of Ottawa, Ecojustice Canada]

Thank you. It's good to see you again, Mr. Chair.

Thank you all for inviting me and having me around to discuss Bill C-326. As you've just heard, I'm a Professor in the Faculties of Law and Medicine at the University of Ottawa. I'm a biologist by background, educated abroad at Berkeley, Caltech, and Oxford, and then I said “enough of that”, and I became a lawyer and got my law degree at UBC.

My work at the University of Ottawa—and before that in other faculty positions I held at Yale and Harvard—has to do with law, public health, and human or environmental security. That is the focus of my research and my litigation. It is also a set of goals shared by Ecojustice, which is a really quite remarkable environmental law organization. It's a charity, the largest of its kind in Canada and one that is partnered with our law school at the University of Ottawa.

In Canada, a simple glass of water, like the one before me now, should be safe to drink anywhere in the country. If Canada were a perfect country, it would be safe to drink this anywhere, but we're not perfect. Our country is definitely not perfect on water. Most Canadian cities have relatively sophisticated water treatment facilities. Many rural parts of the country or first nations communities do not, and they rely on untreated or minimally treated water. That said, here in the national capital region, just a few days ago there was a boil water advisory up in the Pontiac, so it presses in on our cities as well.

For Canada 150 last year, a time of celebration for most of us, there were also over 150 first nations communities with boil water advisories, which is a disappointing fact. The longest of those boil water advisories had been going on for over 8,000 days—over 20 years. I can honestly say from my research that there really is no other developed country as lagging and as backwards as Canada is on drinking water, and that's a tragedy.

Ecojustice, the charity, has a long-standing interest in this area through representing groups in litigation or regulatory proceedings, but also in research, and particularly in publishing a series of reports call “Waterproof”. I'm going to take you through the highlights of the 2014 report.

In that report, Ecojustice looked at the Canadian guidelines for drinking water quality, which are basically the maximum levels of chemical, radiological, or microbiological contamination that are tolerable in drinking water in Canada. Ecojustice compared those Canadian safety levels to the standards in the United States, the European Union, and Australia, and also to the global standards from the World Health Organization.

They found that the Canadian standards quite frequently lag behind. While Canada has reached first place or tied in first place in 24 instances, more often than not we're in last place for 27 different substances compared to the U.S., the EU, Australian, or WHO standards. In fully 105 cases of substances that those others regulate, Canada does not have a water safety standard at all—nothing. There are well over 100 cases where Australia, the EU, and the U.S. have standards and we simply don't, of any kind or of any level.

An example is a herbicide called 2,4-D, which is very widely used. In those countries I mentioned, the safety threshold is up to three times more stringent than it is in Canada. In Ontario and Quebec, for example, there's a ban on using 2,4-D as a cosmetic herbicide, for instance to make golf courses pretty. It's prohibited. However, there's no standard for it in our drinking water at all.

Let's take styrene, the key ingredient in polystyrene, which I'm sure you've heard of. We have no safety standard for styrene in drinking water. The World Health Organization classifies styrene as possibly carcinogenic in humans. A derivative of it, Styrene-7, 8-oxide, is classed by the World Health Organization as probably carcinogenic in humans. Those are found in drinking water at unregulated levels because we have no standard.

Along with poor safety standards—and I've just given you two examples—Canada also has no requirement to treat surface water, or groundwater that is mixed with surface water. Other countries directly or indirectly legislate to require such treatment. We do not. No wonder we are up to our eyeballs in drinking water advisories and boil water advisories. It's as simple as that.

With regard to what to do, the “Waterproof” report has a number of recommendations. It's good reading, if you'd like to see it.

However, for today's purposes, the most important thing to discuss is the special review policy in Bill C-326. What that bill calls on the minister to do is conduct a special review any time that an OECD country passes up Canada with a newer or tougher safety standard in drinking water. The basic idea there is that the minister has to watch the OECD. We would tend not to fall into last place if we were watching what the rest of the OECD is doing. You get in first place in a race by watching the guys a little behind you and trying to run a bit faster. That's the philosophy behind the special review requirement in the bill. If the minister thinks it's in Canadians' best interest to adopt a tougher OECD-inspired standard, she has the option of doing so. She has the option of adopting that, and making a recommendation in an annual report that she gives to Parliament.

Now, as for my thoughts on this, the idea of comparing us to the OECD is very good. Parliament has done this before. We have used the OECD as a comparator for pesticides and toxins in the Pest Control Products Act and in the Canadian Environmental Protection Act. However, here's the difference. Those laws make it mandatory for the minister to take action on a special review when Canada is behind its OECD peers; Bill C-326 makes it optional. This is obviously an area of potential improvement. The ministerial action could be mandatory instead of optional.

That said, do I urge the committee to recommend the passage of the bill? Of course I do, but with amendments, if you'd like to, including the amendment I just discussed. That's an option, as well. That's what you do here.

I'll leave it there. Thank you for making time, and I look forward to your questions.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bill Casey]

I'll call the meeting to order. Welcome to meeting number 98 of the Standing Committee on Health.

We are continuing our study on the order of reference made on Monday, October 30, on Bill C-326, An Act to amend the Department of Health Act (drinking water guidelines).

We have two panels today, with three witnesses on the first panel. Then we'll take a break and go to the next panel. Our first panel will have opening statements of 10 minutes maximum.

I'll introduce the witnesses. First, I believe it's Mr. Francis Scarpaleggia, Member of Parliament, who instituted this motion. With him is Ecojustice Canada's representative, Amir Attaran, Professor in the Faculties of Law and Medicine, University of Ottawa. Thank you.

By video conference, we have Dr. Steve Hrudey, Professor Emeritus, Faculty of Medicine and Dentistry, University of Alberta. I like your backdrop, Dr. Hrudey. It looks very good.

[Sonia Sidhu, Liberal, Brampton South, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to all the witnesses for the very touching comments.

My first question is for Mr. Odjick. What barriers are there to implementing Bill C-326? How can we address those barriers?

Could each of you give your views?

[Professor Graham Gagnon, Professor, Centre for Water Resources Studies, Faculty of Engineering, Dalhousie University, As an Individual]

Thank you, committee members and Mr. Casey, for providing me this opportunity today to talk about Canada and drinking water.

I’m presently the Director of the Centre for Water Resources Studies, a professor, and NSERC Industrial Research Chair at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia.

In our lab I supervise and engage with students and research projects that touch drinking water research across Canadian communities. In particular, our work focuses on some of our partners, such as Halifax Water and Cape Breton Regional Municipality, but I also have the opportunity to work with many municipalities across Canada. Last week I was dealing with a project in Regina, Saskatchewan, and an emerging issue that folks in Regina are addressing.

As the director for the centre, I've also had the opportunity to work with the Atlantic Policy Congress of First Nation Chiefs, headquartered in Cole Harbour, Nova Scotia. The chiefs in my region are adamantly concerned about drinking water, and one of their approaches is to develop a first nation water authority, an innovative approach to address drinking water challenges they face in the region through aggregation, combined services, and management structures that are truly innovative within the paradigm of Indigenous Services Canada.

As the centre director, I've also had the opportunity to work with many of our provincial and federal agencies. I finished a project recently with Health Canada; I'm working on a project with the Government of Nunavut, a project with Nova Scotia Environment, and Ontario and Alberta as well. Throughout that work, and through the work with municipalities, there is clearly a need, particularly in the municipality group, to strive for best-in-class information. Many of our municipality units across Canada are members of an organization called the American Water Works Association. AWWA is headquartered in Denver, Colorado. As you might imagine, many of our large metropolitan cities reach out to AWWA to find best-in-class information. The proposed bill to look for best-in-class information for the federal government through the OECD annual review would be something that I could see would be welcomed by municipalities from the standpoint that many of the them are already doing this; and to push the envelope and think about new ways and new innovation to manage drinking water would only be welcomed by many municipalities.

In addition, I work with a number of clean tech companies. The clean tech economy in Canada and Atlantic Canada is robust for drinking water. One of the companies I work with regularly is a company called LuminUltra. It's based in Fredericton, New Brunswick, and it's a leading biotech company that is striving to develop new assays to measure bacteriological quality in drinking water. Much of its work is pushed by offshore needs, as many Canadian clients don't necessarily see the value of the business case. However, looking at other instruments for regulatory paradigms or regulatory regimes in Canada would strive to find new ways to measure bacteriological quality and engage biotech companies like LuminUltra.

However, within the context of Canada, developing policy on drinking water requires both a local and a regional perspective. In Canada, the Canadian government uses the Federal-Provincial-Territorial Committee on Drinking Water, or the FPT, as a collaborative approach by federal agencies and provincial partners to achieve drinking water safety. However, one voice is critically missing from this committee, and that is an indigenous voice. While I recognize that Indigenous Services Canada serves on the FPT, this is not the same as a technical expert or a community member from a first nation community. Consistent with what my colleague Mr. Odjick said, I think the representation and views of a community member are critical for this type of federal agency or this type of federal committee. Many of our provincial partners live and breathe and raise families in the provinces they represent when they attend as a committee member. A first nation representative would provide that sense of place that doesn't exist right now on the FPT. It would provide an Inuit voice, a Métis voice, or a first nation voice that would be critical in understanding drinking water issues in communities.

I would strongly urge the present committee members to think about this as they reflect on the current policy and Bill C-326. Ask yourselves how this would affect first nation communities and whether an indigenous voice in particular would be welcome on the federal-provincial-territorial committee.

Thank you very much for providing me this opportunity. I welcome any questions today.

[Jason R. Odjick, As an Individual]

[Witness speaks in Algonquin]

Hello. My name is Jay Odjick. I'm an artist, writer, and television producer from the Kitigan Zibi Anishinabeg community, about an hour and a half up the road.

I'd like to talk about a few different things. I'm here primarily to talk about the state of drinking water in first nations communities. I'd also like to talk about opportunity. I'd also like to talk about belief.

Belief is a very important thing. At times, for me as well as many other first nations people, I believe it can be hard for us to believe in government. I am looking around the room, though, and I'm seeing people. I believe in you, because I believe that if we were to reach out we could touch one another. Tangible things are things that I can believe in.

As it relates to opportunity, I'd like to thank you all for the opportunity to be here and to recognize that we are on unceded Algonquin territory. It's an opportunity for me to speak because I'm not an elected official of any first nations community, or group, or organization, but I am a community that has had a long-term no-consumption advisory.

The reason I'm a bit nervous to speak is that our community of Kitigan Zibi is not exactly representative of the problems many first nations communities face as related to their drinking water. Many communities are faced with a bacteria-based problem, whereas in Kitigan Zibi our problem has always been radiation—and I'll talk about that a bit more. I'll also talk a bit about the other first nations communities and the issues they face.

Insofar as the situation or state of first nations' drinking water goes, it's important to note that we have seen progress. We've seen progress due to diligent work, including the erection of facilities designed to handle these problems, the current government's commitment to eradicating drinking water advisories in first nations communities by 2021, and the hard work of people in first nations communities and the testing that's been done.

It can be hard to find accurate numbers, and I think for a lot of people that's a major thing because you really have to know where to look. In terms of progress, I know for us in Kitigan Zibi the uranium in our water was identified in approximately the mid-1990s—1994, I believe. Along with that, radon has been a major problem for us as well.

In terms of progress, in 2015 there were approximately 100 to 135 long-term drinking water advisories in first nations communities. Now, it's important to note that 135 number does not mean nations or communities; that's the total number of advisories. Some communities have more than one. I'm familiar with the few that even have two or three.

According to the INAC website, as of March this year the most contemporary numbers are that there are 78 long-term advisories, and that 57 of them have been lifted in the last couple of years. That's good. I think that's really encouraging. The thing we have to take into account is that while many of us are encouraged, many of us are still angry. I think what we have to understand is that anger is justifiable. It's hard to look at pictures, for example, of kids from Kashechewan with the skin conditions that been identified as being caused by exposure to their own water. If there's one thing we're supposed to be able to trust in this world, I think it's our water. They say water is life. That should be true, but it isn't always the case.

To be more encouraging, I believe that Bill C-326 could potentially play a role in meeting the 2021 goal. When I read the bill there were a few questions that came to mind. The bill is about meeting Canada's guidelines for drinking water and the standards of the other OECD member countries. My question question is primarily whether Canada can do that if we include first nations' drinking water and the state of it in our reports. I don't know the answer to that. I'm just some guy. The secondary question would be about it being a lofty thing to aspire to. It's a lofty aspiration, especially with the 2021 deadline of eradicating those DWAs, and there are people who are dubious about it. Speaking for myself and no one else, I'd rather have lofty aspirations than the opposite.

I think that with Bill C-326, it's important to look not only at the drinking water standards of nations outside of Canada but also at the status of drinking water of the nations within Canada, and by that I mean our first nations. I hope Bill C-326 can play some role in that.

The other thing that's important to note is that one of the major challenges facing first nations as far as drinking water goes is the jurisdictional quagmire, the same one we face in so many other regards, of what jurisdiction it falls under, whether it's provincial or federal. I think the message we'd all like to send is that the federal government must claim responsibility.

The other question as it relates to first nations drinking water, at least from what I've seen in my own community, is the most relevant thing: what are we testing for? As I said, our problem is not bacterial in Kitigan Zibi; our problem is based on radiation. I'd like to speak a little bit to the realities of that.

In the 1990s, when we found the uranium, we began working as diligently as we could. We had obtained funding from Health Canada to test for the uranium. Admittedly, I'm not the best person to speak to this, but this is what I know, what I've read, and what I've been told by people, my chief and people who've worked on this project. We've done a good job as well, with the aid of the federal government, in bringing this number down. Based on the information I have here, at the time, in the 1990s, radon was present in 43% of homes, with 8% of those homes being between three and ten times the safe levels. As of today, that number has gone down to around 17%, so we've seen success.

The way we treated the uranium in the water was to use a type of resin. The resin would basically take the uranium from the water. How does it do that? We began to be concerned that the resin was actually absorbing the uranium and thus becoming radioactive. At some point somebody asked, “What about septic tanks? What about septic fields? What about leach beds?” At that point, two or three wells in Kitigan Zibi were tested for the presence of radium, and we found it. To what extent? That's where things get interesting.

We went back to Health Canada and said, “Look, we treated the uranium. There is also radium. We don't know how much, and we don't know at what level.” Health Canada at that point said that the cheaper option would be bottled water. Since then, the majority of households in my community have consumed bottled water. The cost to the community is roughly, as far as I'm told, about $1,800 a week. Again, I'm not an elected official, and also for sure not a mathematician, but I think at some point, when you look at these costs and at the population rising, that will stop being the cheaper option. We have to go with the better option, the human rights option.

In closing, I'd like to say that I believe in people above all else. I believe that we could reach out and we could touch one another. I believe in you. I believe you're listening, and I believe you care, or you wouldn't be here. You wouldn't have the jobs you have.

I'd like to take a small moment to engage you all in a suspension of disbelief exercise. I'd like you to believe that this is actually a glass of water from Kitigan Zibi. As I said, I believe in you. If you were really thirsty, my question is, would you drink it? You don't know about the levels of radium in it, but you don't need to drink it, because you have bottled water. So my question to you is this. I don't know how many of you here have children. If I were to bring in a small tub of this water—and when I say this I believe in you as people, and I believe you care about the well-being of other people—would you bathe your babies in water from Kitigan Zibi as we do every day?

Although I believe in you as people, what I'm asking today is to give us a government we can believe in. Give us a government we can reach out to and touch and feel every time we turn on our tap.

Thank you.

[Clayton Leonard, Senior Counsel, JFK Law Corporation]

Thank you for the opportunity to speak to the committee. As I understand it, Bill C-326 at its core simply requires the Minister of Health to conduct a review of drinking water standards in OECD countries, and to make recommendations for amending national guidelines for drinking water in Canada.

As you know, my work has been exclusively with first nations on safe drinking water, so all of my comments to the committee will be in that context. My overall opinion of the bill, having taken time over the weekend to review it, is that at best it's a distraction and perhaps a waste of time, and at worst, it may place additional burdens on first nations that they are not prepared to meet.

As the committee probably knows, in 2011 there was a national engineering assessment of first nation drinking water and wastewater systems that recommended roughly $5 billion in investment over 10 years. Although the former government and the current one have made additional investments, neither has come anywhere close to meeting that pressing and decades-long need in first nation communities.

It's been my experience that first nations across Alberta, British Columbia, and the rest of the country are already struggling to meet federal drinking water standards. Just to list off a few of these standards, first nations are already expected to comply with the protocol for centralized wastewater systems in first nation communities, the protocol for decentralized water and wastewater systems in first nation communities, design guidelines for first nation waterworks, guidelines for effluent quality and wastewater treatment at federal establishments, and Health Canada's guidelines for Canadian drinking water quality, as well as INAC's level of service standards for water and sewer systems.

As a practical point, when I read the bill, it's not clear to me how the recommendations from the minister's review would apply to, or impact, that long list of guidelines that first nations are already expected to meet.

Most first nations systems, as identified by the national engineering assessment, are struggling to meet those guidelines already. If additional reporting and monitoring requirements are placed on plant operators and those in the communities, they will just have to do more with less already.

There's also the question of what this means for the implementation of the Safe Drinking Water for First Nations Act. It's enabling legislation, and as I understand, the federal government has not yet taken significant steps across the country to develop regulations under the act. It's not clear to me how the review of drinking water guidelines that would happen under this bill would impact the development of those regulations.

There's also the question of whether the act is going to stay in place. I worked closely with first nations from Alberta, and former minister Bennett, when she was in opposition, actively coordinated and helped us oppose that piece of legislation, and committed to repealing it and replacing it with something developed in true collaboration with first nations across Canada. We haven't seen that yet. In fact, we really don't know what the fate of the legislation will be at all.

It's also unclear to me what all of the work put into this bill would really mean for the protection of drinking water. We have overlapping jurisdictions around the country with varying standards. In Ontario there's legislation that protects source water; in Alberta it's done by voluntary guidelines, as an example. Source water protection is really fundamental to protecting drinking water for first nations and non-first nations—it doesn't matter where you are in the country. It's probably the weakest component of the regulatory guidelines and legislation in this country. I think if any bill regarding drinking water is not sharply focused on the protection of source water, then it's not really worth the time.

Those are my comments.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bill Casey]

I call the meeting to order.

I want to welcome everybody to meeting number 97. Pursuant to the order of reference of Monday, October 30, we are considering Bill C-326, An Act to amend the Department of Health Act (drinking water guidelines).

I want to apologize to our witnesses for being late. We had a Prime Minister's statement in the House, and all the parties responded to it.

Mr. Davies, do you have a point there?

[The Chair, Liberal, Bill Casey]

I appreciate the motion, but you kind of hijacked my agenda. Before we go to that, I just want to go through the things we have to do before we get to a new subject. If that's okay with you, I'll just go through those things.

We still have a few meetings before the pharmacare study is finalized. That's when we come back. We are going to have Bill C-326, drinking water guidelines. It has already been referred to us, so we have to fit that into our schedule sometime. I think it's April, or we have 12 months to do that one. We have to do a study on drinking water before April. Then we have private member's motion M-132, on federally funded health research. We have to do that within a year, just so you know.

We have, coming sooner or later, Bill S-228, which is going to be really interesting. That's food and beverage marketing to children. We have Bill S-5 which is anticipated to come. That's on tobacco packaging. It is going to be another interesting one.

Those are just things we have to do, and then we should talk about a new subject, as Mr. Davies has proposed. Actually, indigenous health was the next one on the priority list that we originally established way back when we had 17. We knocked it down to priorities and that was the next one, along with home care and palliative care, and organ donation, after that.

Now I'm going to go back, and I'm sorry to interrupt you, Mr. Davies—

Department of Health Act

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Mr. Speaker, it is great to have an opportunity to speak this morning.

I trust that members had a good weekend, perhaps putting their final Halloween preparations together and getting their costumers ready. I hear the Minister of Defence has a good architect costume ready to go, the Minister of Finance is going to dress himself up as a champion of the middle class, and the Prime Minister is going to work as hard as possible to look like a feminist. I am sure we will be seeing good costumes on display this week, and I wish members well in the celebrations. If the costumes do not go well, do not worry, nothing is going to scare our children more than the deficit projections.

Now, Bill C-326 is an act to amend the Department of Health Act, establishing drinking water guidelines. For those who are just joining the debate, the bill would amend the Department of Health Act to require the Minister of Health to conduct a review of drinking water standards in other OECD countries. It is a requirement to conduct that review. If appropriate after conducting that review, though it is not required of the minister, it would empower the minister to make recommendations for amendments to the national guidelines respecting drinking water.

I know what members might be thinking, but the bill is not as controversial as it might sound at first. The bill would give the minister the added encouragement to conduct this review and gather this information based on best practices in other countries within the OECD. On that basis, we think it is a reasonable bill. It is something we in the opposition are pleased to support. I think the bill will find support throughout the House as a way of moving forward and bringing more information into the assessment in terms of what we are doing with respect to drinking water.

With that explained in terms of the context of the bill, I will make a few points with respect to it in terms of water quality, the federal role, and the question of ministerial discretion. Then, finally, I will talk about how we incorporate the best science and information into the policy decisions we make.

First of all, of course, in the Conservative caucus, we strongly support high-quality drinking water. We think that governments at all levels should do as much as they possibly can to ensure that water is safe to drink. We recognize, especially for indigenous communities, that there is a great deal of work that still needs to be done in that respect. However, it is a basic principle that all people should be able to access this fundamental necessity of life. They should be able to access water in a clean and safe way.

We live in a country that is geographically dispersed. It is very large. That can potentially create some additional challenges, but it is fundamental that people be able to access clean water. I do not think that is a point on which any member would disagree.

One of the things that the bill invites us to consider is the federal role in establishing standards. Certainly under the previous government, we believed in a federal role for establishing clean water standards. At the same time, the practical implementation of those guidelines, for most Canadians, happens through other levels of government, at the provincial and municipal level. Of course, the federal government has more direct involvement with respect to indigenous communities. There is still a role for the federal government to be reviewing this information and working to establish guidelines, even though the implementation happens at other levels. The way we can think about this balance is under the principle of subsidiarity, which is something I believe in, and that we in the Conservative caucus believe in.

Subsidiarity is the idea that services should be delivered at the level closest to the people affected that is practical for the service delivery to happen. It means we should be concerned about legislation or policy that involves the federal government taking over responsibility that can be done more effectively and competently at the community or provincial level. We should trust local communities. However, where there is a certain scale and efficiency, then it makes sense for the federal government to be engaged.

There is not the scale or effectiveness in having every individual community, without the support of overarching guidelines, come up with its own guidelines independent of that federal support.

This case is an example of where the federal government can play to its strength, which is to gather information from different jurisdictions around the world, where it can conduct the legality of information, and make that information available to other levels of government, while at the same time seek to empower them and not take away their ability to make decisions on their own and across areas of government.

Our approach to federal government activity in general is to look for those competencies of it where the scale makes sense for it to play that coordinating role but not to have it take authority away in areas which can be better done at the provincial or the municipal levels.

Unfortunately, right now we have a federal government that does not trust sub-national governments to make decisions in certain policy areas and seeks to dictate in areas outside of its jurisdiction. I could bring up many examples of that, such as its approach to the carbon tax, where it has told provinces that if they do not do exactly what it wants them to do, it will impose a jurisdiction-specific tax on them. That is very much out of step with the principles of the Constitution and the principles of subsidiarity.

When we see legislation that might seem to involve the federal government interfering in provincial and other sub-national governmental jurisdictions, we are inclined to ask additional questions. Nonetheless, in this case, the bill gets the balance right. The federal government can play a study and coordination role, while still respecting the decision-making role of other levels of government. This is the balance our caucus looks for in legislation, and that is exactly right in the bill.

The next point I want to talk about is the way in which certain legislation fetters the discretion of a minister.

This bill would marginally fetter the minister's discretion but in an appropriate and reasonable way. It is worth noting that the existing framework allows the minister to do these kinds of activities already. Perhaps the government member who has proposed the bill is concerned that the minister will not do these things otherwise and needs legislation to have that direction. Nonetheless, it is legitimate for legislation in this case to identify specific areas where this study is important and beneficial with respect to what happens around the world and drawing that information in.

In general, our caucus takes the view that it is legitimate and important for there to be certain actions of the legislature to limit the discretion of ministers when it sees it as important to do so.

The government is more philosophically inclined to try to give the maximum discretion to ministers and really minimize that tie-in of legislative accountability. There is a balance to be struck there, that when there is something important like studying different systems around the world for maximizing health through drinking water, there is a legitimate role for the legislature to establish those guidelines and to put those things in place.

The final point I want to make is that the bill asks us to incorporate the best science and information possible in the decisions we make, and we in the opposition strongly support that. We hear the terms many times of evidence-based policy, of science-based policy bandied back and forth. It is a real slogan that the government likes to use, but there are many examples where we do not see the government actually drawing on the best science at all. The whole debacle over electoral reform showed how the government was willing to completely ignore the science around public opinion research tools when it suited its purpose. However, in this case, the bill incorporates the best scientific knowledge as part of the framework to be established, and we can support that.

With respect to the issues I have raised of subsidiarity, how to fetter ministerial discretion, and the incorporation of science and policy, the bill strikes the right balance. Again, it will hopefully help us take some further steps toward ensuring high quality drinking water in Canada.

The House resumed from September 22 consideration of the motion that Bill C-326, An Act to amend the Department of Health Act (drinking water guidelines), be read the second time and referred to a committee.

[Erin O'Toole, Conservative, Durham, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is my honour to rise today in debate on this private member's bill, Bill C-326, an act to amend the Department of Health Act. As some of my colleagues have been saying in debate so far on this subject, it is about proposing water quality guidelines for Canada.

As some members have mentioned, this presents a number of challenges because of dual or triple roles of jurisdiction involving water. I am going to talk a bit about why I think it is important, particularly as an Ontario MP who has followed water issues for many years and the challenges faced in Ontario. Then I am going to put forward some thoughts on some of the struggles that Canada is having, particularly with respect to indigenous peoples and access to water. That is something I have been talking about for several years as a member of Parliament.

This bill, in particular, would create guidelines that strive to be the best in the world. For the member to come up with guidelines that he feels are the strongest in the world, he is going to look to all of the member countries of the OECD. This bill would empower an analysis of best practices from those OECD members. The goal, then, is to have a regular review so that the Minister of Health and the federal government can produce guidelines that, by the standards of the OECD, are best practices around the world to ensure there is safety within our municipal water systems.

What is key here is that the federal government does not have jurisdiction over municipal water systems. It does have jurisdiction over first nation reserves and treaty arrangements around the country. Therefore, the federal government does have particular responsibility that it has not been living up to, both parties, going back decades, so that should be kept in mind.

A lot of Canadians take the safety of their water supply a little for granted. As a southern Ontario MP, we live on the shoulders of the Great Lakes, the largest single freshwater supply in the world. Canadians often do not see the true cost of getting that safe water to their taps. There are municipal systems, artesian wells, a whole range. This bill seeks to develop guidelines to try to get municipal levels of government and provinces, which can regulate directly, up to world standard.

We support that on this side. We think it is one of these interesting areas in which the federal government can use its unique role to try to promote best practices, standards, knowing full well it does not have direct jurisdiction for most homes. These standards would then be something that municipal townships, regional municipalities, and cities could benchmark their own performance on. If we follow some of the legislation that has been in some of our provincial legislatures in the last 10 years with respect to water quality, we will find that many have been pushing for more detailed explanation and direct cost recovery by consumers of the cost of getting them that water.

For many generations, we have taken it for granted that water is free. It is not free. The standards and quality assurance needed have a cost. That cost, for many years, in many municipalities, was absorbed into a general tax base assessment to property owners and businesses. However, more and more municipalities, including throughout the Durham region, which I represent, and I know in many other parts of this country, are now starting to itemize what those costs are for water, and in some cases sewer services for Canadians, so they can see that despite our abundance of water, there is a cost to quality assurance. The goal that the member has is to then make sure that all levels of government have an aspirational goal of making sure the country that is most blessed with fresh water also adheres to the highest standards, through comparison on a regular basis to the OECD. I support that aim and the member's work.

As an Ontario MP, I remember the Walkerton inquiry. I watched it closely as a young law student and lawyer to see what could happen when simple processes break down. In Walkerton, Ontario, in the year 2000, seven people died as a result of E. coli contamination of a rural water source.

Twenty-three hundred people fell ill as a result of the Walkerton crisis. That made national and international headlines because we do not normally see an outbreak like that from a municipal water source. Justice Dennis O'Connor, one of the most respected jurists in Ontario, was tasked with heading an inquiry into how that happened. The cause of the E. coli contamination was manure from one of the farm fields in the area getting into the water table and the system, and then chlorine levels and E. coli tests not being applied on a daily basis.

That inquiry showed quite simply how a standard community could have a water system that was taken for granted for years but suddenly becomes derailed and causes deaths. Mr. O'Connor's recommendation, among many others he made, was for more training. The brothers in that case who had run the Walkerton system for many years had little to no training. There was no chlorine testing done daily and there was no positive requirement on this small municipal township to publish to the province the E. coli levels when there was a warning or a bad indication. A positive reporting requirement in Ontario came into place as a result of that.

One of the other findings was that the warnings were not sufficient. Even early, when there was some indication that the water system was the cause of the E. coli sicknesses and death, there was not wide enough public education and warnings to people and so they continued using the water system.

I would invite the member and other members interested in the subject to consult the O'Connor inquiry report, because around the same time, North Battleford, Saskatchewan had a similar E. coli contamination of its water source and 5,800 people fell ill there.

The federal government can provide that aspirational guideline for municipal and provincial partners. Where is our jurisdiction with respect to water? It is with our first nations, and all parliaments in my lifetime have been failing on this front. My friend, the deputy House leader, said that we can do better. We can collectively do better on this front.

The Prime Minister outlined yesterday the challenges facing indigenous peoples in Canada, and there are many. What I would like to see with respect to water is a much more robust plan, because between 120 and 140 first nation communities at any one time have a boil water advisory of some type. Some, like the Neskantaga First Nation near Kenora in my province have had these advisories for years, in this case for 23 years.

There are some unique problems in this and the old ways of doing things are not going to solve them. I had the good fortune of putting out some ideas on this in the last year as a result of consultations with some young, dynamic first nation leaders. I appreciated their advice.

With the private sector, we need to unleash the potential of Canada to solve the problem, not wait for one or two ministers or this party or that party. We should be using crown agencies like Sustainable Development Technology Canada to empower innovative companies to come up with solutions. I sailed on a naval ship that was able to clean and provide drinking water in a confined space for about 300 people. Why do we not adapt these technologies for first nation and remote community use?

I also asked why we are not using Infrastructure Canada and P3 Canada to come up with P3 projects to tackle these more than 100 different projects. They will be different, but some of the same needs will be there. We should empower that approach and allow some of our large international contractors, defence contractors, security contractors to get industrial regional benefit credits for their investments in infrastructure.

This is an area where all parties can work together to acknowledge that we are not doing enough. I admire the Prime Minister's ambition, but so far, I have not seen tangible ideas to solve the problem.

What I would like to do is make sure we support this bill to provide guidelines but work together to make sure that first nations have an effective plan for safe drinking water in the future.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, first I want to compliment my colleague. Over the years, I have been able to get to know our caucus chair, and one of his passions I have witnessed is that he truly cares, in a very real and tangible way, about Canada's environment and anything related to water. I have had the opportunity in the past, as have a number of my colleagues in the province of Manitoba, to talk about Lake Winnipeg and how important it is not only to the residents of Winnipeg or Manitoba, but indeed to all of Canada. That water basin crosses international borders.

The member has a very strong passion on this particular file, and I have had the opportunity to ask him, in a nutshell, what he is hoping to achieve with this piece of legislation.

I respect the fact that Canada, most people would think, sets a fairly high bar in terms of water quality, but sticking to what the Prime Minister often says, we can always do better. When I reflect on what the member has brought forward for us to debate this afternoon, he is accepting the Prime Minister's challenge. We can do better.

We think of Canada as a wonderful, vast nation with literally thousands of lakes, rivers, and creeks. We are a water nation in a very real sense. Many would think that we have the best water in the world, and in certain areas of our country I suspect that we do. However, the member brings up a valid concern. Other jurisdictions in the world tend to have different criteria, higher criteria, for ensuring that the quality of their drinking water is of a high standard. It raises the question of whether Canada has some standards or criteria that are lower than those of some other countries, whose standards may be a little better than ours.

I respect the fact that we should not be taking our guidelines for granted and that we should be looking at what is happening here in Canada. We need to recognize that we live in a federal society where we have different levels of government, all of which play an important role. The national government has a leading responsibility in many areas, but it would be irresponsible of us to think that this is solely the national government's responsibility. Provincial jurisdictions also have a very important role, and even our municipalities.

Winnipeg just got a new water system, which was finalized around 2009-2010, and it is an amazing facility. Winnipeg, as a community, has been very blessed in terms of water, such as with Shoal Lake and the beautiful, crystal-clear water that is coming down a pipe based on gravitational pull into the city of Winnipeg. It has been providing water for generations of Winnipeggers and Manitobans. We have been very fortunate with that. It is one of the reasons we have some of the lowest water bills in North America. I still drink from the tap, which is something we can all be somewhat proud of, because in many jurisdictions that is the case. In fact, there are some who would argue that drinking from the tap can be healthier than drinking bottled water.

The point is that we have to take into consideration that, yes, Ottawa plays a role, but provinces, municipalities, and people as a whole all have something to contribute to this area of concern.

We have a fairly competent and able Department of Health. It has been working with the different stakeholders, the provinces and territories, and will continue to do that through the federal-provincial-territorial committee on drinking water, for example, with the idea of developing and updating guidelines for the quality of Canadian drinking water.

My colleague across the way raised some valid concerns with respect to indigenous people and the important role we play in working in co-operation with their leadership to ensure the quality of water is equal and fair in all regions. The Prime Minister and our government are committed to doing just that. Wherever we can improve the quality, we need to do so.

Members know that we encourage private members of all political stripes to generate ideas and bring them to the floor of the House to challenge us as legislators.

Looking at the specifics of Bill C-326, the government is saying that we need to take into consideration Canadian context and priorities before conducting an internal review, and that is important. My colleague and our caucus chair is very much aware of that.

We need to limit any review of standards and guidelines to those considered to be of leading international agencies and to the guidelines designated as priorities for development in Canada. These are two concerns we need to at least attempt to get more clarification on and possibly address. This could enhance my friend's private member's bill.

There is a lot to be gained on this. If we can tweak the legislation so we can get widespread support within the House of Commons, we would be doing a great service to Canadians.

Stealing from what I started off by saying, whether we listen to the Prime Minister or others who say we need to do better in different areas, this is an area we can do better in. We should look at what the sponsor of the bill hopes to accomplish. I believe this is an expectation that most Canadians would have of the different levels of government, that being a high sense of co-operation, working together to ensure Canada not only demonstrates strong leadership from within our boundaries, but even to countries outside of our boundaries that try to emulate some of the things we have done to provide good quality drinking water.

Often when disasters abroad take place, we will send our military and DART to provide good quality and clean drinking water. We have done this with a number of countries over the years. In good part Canada is perceived as a country that understands the importance of providing good quality water.

I look forward to seeing the bill head to committee. I understand the member is working with the government on ways we can improve the legislation.

[Romeo Saganash, NDP, Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik—Eeyou, QC]

[Member spoke in aboriginal language]

[Translation]

Mr. Speaker, I thank you for this opportunity to speak about an issue that is very important to me, and that is water. Bill C-326 seeks to amend the Department of Health Act so that we may set out guidelines respecting drinking water.

This bill seeks to require the department to ensure that existing drinking water standards in member countries of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development are upheld and to make any necessary recommendations for Canada in that regard. I wonder why only OECD countries are mentioned. I think that there is also reason to consider including members of the intergovernmental economic organization, namely the World Health Organization. I think we might be able to add them in the future.

When we talk about the major challenges of our time on this planet, when it comes to climate change, protecting the environment, or developing our natural resources around the world, we often forget one aspect that is essential to human survival on earth: water.

I do not know if my colleagues have had the chance to fly over the northern regions of our country. I do almost every week since I have the privilege of representing one of the largest ridings in the country, which covers 54% of Quebec. I like saying that half of Quebec listens to me when I speak. This resource we call water, I see it every time I fly over my riding.

It is important to remember every day that access to drinking water for humans, for Canadians, is a fundamental right. In fact, enforcing this right is part of the mandate of the institution we are all a part of because, which is a public policy mandate. It is important to remember that. We have such an abundance of fresh water in Canada that we must find ways to protect this resource.

During the last election, the Prime Minister of Canada promised to end drinking water advisories in indigenous communities within five years. However, anyone who has ever been in an indigenous community knows that water treatment facilities there are in terrible condition. The promise to fix everything within five years did not take into account the complexity of such an endeavour. There is no easy solution to this problem, a stark reality faced by indigenous communities in a country like Canada. Canada is one of the richest countries on the planet, but its first peoples' living conditions, in many cases, are akin to fourth world conditions.

Members do not need to take my word for it; the hon. member for Lac-Saint-Louis quoted a report from the David Suzuki Foundation that confirms exactly what I am saying, which is that the government is not on track to keep its promise to solve this issue within five years.

That is why I said that that was not a reasonable timeframe. As someone across the way pointed out, the promised investments need to be paid out. After the 2015 election, there were 159 boil water advisories and today there are 172. Despite investments, why is the situation worse now than in 2015, when this government first came to power? I have an answer to that, which I will come back to later.

One thing that people need to understand about indigenous communities is that there is no legislative or regulatory framework that guarantees access to clean drinking water in those communities. As strange as that sounds, it is true. Of course, the previous government passed the Safe Drinking Water for First Nations Act, but there is no obligation to implement the provisions of that act, given the complexity of the situation, including training people to maintain the facilities that exist in those communities. These things are so complicated that it would have been a long shot to think that the Liberals could keep their election promise from 2015 within the timeframe they had set, unfortunately.

We need to set a number of long-term objectives. We need to have standards similar to those that exist in other countries, for example, standards governing the maximum allowed concentration of microbiological, physical, chemical, and radiological contaminants. Canadians have a right to that as a country. We need to take urgent action to put an end to the boil water advisories in first nations communities. That must be done in co-operation and partnership with indigenous people, not imposed on them as the previous law sought to do. As I have been saying all along, access to clean drinking water is a fundamental right. We could draw from the standards that exist elsewhere, for example, in the European Union, the United States, and Australia.

Earlier, it was said that budget 2016 allocated $1.8 billion for infrastructure. As the member for Lac-Saint-Louis said, money has been allocated. I will admit that that is true.

However, the fact that this is still a problem should indicate that those investments were not enough. There is not enough money. In fact, that additional funding represents less than half of what Neegan Burnside estimates is necessary to put an end to the boil water advisories.

I think I can quote Clayton Leonard here, the lawyer that represented Alberta first nations in this matter:

How many times do you get to reannounce the same amount of money? If you spent $2 billion, and then you find that 73% of first nations still face serious drinking water issues, it's a pretty clear indication it's not enough.

This is not only about boil water advisories, although that is what we hear about most often. A number of communities are under do not consume orders, including Potlotek, Kitigan Zibi in Quebec, Bearskin in Ontario, and Wahta and Peter Ballantyne Cree Nation in Saskatchewan.

We need to address this problem for all Canadians, but we must never forget this country's first nations.

[Bob Saroya, Conservative, Markham—Unionville, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to discuss Bill C-326,, an act to amend the Department of Health Act, drinking water guidelines, a private member's bill sponsored by the member of Parliament for Lac-Saint-Louis.

I would like to touch upon a few reasons why I stand in favour the legislation.

We all know that suitable drinking water is necessary for human life. Without water, there is no life. The average adult human body is made up of 65% water. We can all agree that all Canadians deserve better than the bare minimum, especially when it comes to their health.

When we think of Canada, we think of a country that is clean, healthy, and thriving. That is why it is essential our drinking water be of the highest quality.

My riding of Markham—Unionville depends on Lake Ontario for all our drinking water. We are blessed to have one of the Great Lakes at our disposal. In Markham, we have the great fortune of being able to enjoy clean drinking water straight from the tap.

Unfortunately, not everyone has this great fortune. We know all too well the tragedies that come from contaminated water. Far too many examples come to mind when I think of the dangers of a contaminated water supply.

As of July 31, in 101 first nations communities south of the 60th parallel there were 48 short-term drinking water advisories, meaning there was a temporary water quality issue on a specific water system; and 102 long-term drinking water advisories, meaning the advisory had been in place for more than a year.

Among Canada's first nations communities, Ontario has seen the highest number of drinking water advisories. This problem hits close to home for many of us. Reasons for inadequate drinking water include E. coli, inadequate disinfection, and source water contamination, among many others. This is simply unacceptable in Canada.

Many parts of Canada rely solely on ground water for their day-to-day needs. The legislation would ensure that those people have better drinking water. Access to safe, clean, and reliable drinking water is an important priority for Canadians, which is why the previous Conservative government passed the Safe Drinking Water for First Nations Act in 2013.

No matter where we live, every Canadian should have access to safe, clean, drinking water. I am a very proud Conservative member of Parliament, and I stand in agreement with my colleagues on this legislation.

Bill C-326 will include that the Government of Canada recognize that national guidelines respecting drinking water would be required to ensure such quality.

The bill would amend the Department of Health Act to require the minister of health to conduct a review of drinking water standards in 35 of the member countries of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development and, if appropriate, to make recommendations for amendments to the national guidelines respecting drinking water.

The creation of a federal-provincial-territorial responsibility will ensure a higher standard of drinking water for Canadians from coast to coast to coast. The federal-provincial-territorial committee on drinking water is designed to protect the quality of drinking water in Canada. This will be done by developing and maintaining national guidelines.

The bottom line is that Canadians need to have access to safe drinking water. We can all acknowledge the need for the national guidelines to be in keeping with the highest international standards respecting drinking water, keeping in mind that the best interest of Canadians is essential to every parliamentarian.

Accountability is essential to this process. The legislation would require the minister of health to ensure that a review conducted on drinking water standards would be the best deal for our constituents and Canadians overall. Further, the bill would create a stronger partnership between OECD countries and share the best practices which would ultimately allow Canada to have a higher standard of drinking water.

Bill C-326 would require the minister to compare Canada's water quality standards with other OECD countries. This practice currently does not take place. Moreover, Bill C-326 seeks to have the Government of Canada recognize that national guidelines respecting drinking water are required to ensure the highest quality. As well, it seeks to ensure that the main responsibility of the federal-provincial-territorial committee on drinking water is to protect the quality of drinking water and to develop and maintain national guidelines.

Ultimately, the bill would lead to the creation of better guidelines and the goal of safer water for all Canadians. However, there are a few observations I would like to address.

The first is that some OECD countries do not currently base their guidelines on science, and many contaminants found in other countries are not found in Canada or are already banned. This has potential to become problematic.

The second observation I want to draw attention to is that Canada also shares information with other government agencies, such as the United States Environmental Protection Agency, in the area of drinking water quality. We already share best practices with our southern neighbours, but we can do better.

Third, I would like to highlight that Canada is a World Health Organization collaborating centre on water quality and participates in the development of World Health Organization guidelines for drinking water. As a nation, we hold ourselves to a high standard when it comes to water health and safety. The legislation would make water quality in Canada better.

Finally, I would like to add that implementing water quality guidelines falls under provincial and territorial authority. This could hinder the process and create an issue of authority.

Our country has an abundance of fresh water, yet water in many indigenous communities is not safe to drink. Small towns and villages across the country face the issue of accessible water. The water on many first nations reserves is contaminated or hard to access. Oftentimes the treatment systems and infrastructure in place are not acceptable. Supporting the legislation is taking the right steps to address this crisis.

I will always be in favour of sharing best practices and having working partnerships with other nations around the world, especially if the issues in these discussions pertain to my health, that of my family, my constituents, and Canadians as a whole.

The previous Conservative government worked with provinces and territories to establish guidelines to ensure high-quality drinking water in Canada. However, this new legislation would ensure reviews would be done that would keep our drinking water standards among the highest in the world. Canadians deserve that. We need to keep Canadians safe and healthy.

I am confident in speaking in favour of this legislation. Canadians rely on their drinking water, and it must be safe and clean.

My colleagues and I are supporters of the legislation. I understand the bill is widely supported by members of aboriginal communities as well human rights advocates.

Canada is the best country in the world in which to live. We deserve the highest standards when it comes to our most basic necessity, water.

[Francis Scarpaleggia, Liberal, Lac-Saint-Louis, QC]

moved that Bill C-326, an act to amend the Department of Health Act (drinking water guidelines), be read the first time and referred to a committee.

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague, the member for Charlottetown, for seconding this bill.

Water is a solvent. That means it picks up lots of substances and contaminants, some of which can be hazardous to public health, while others may be benign.

Water is a universal solvent. There is much that dissolves in water. Therefore, it is important to understand what and how much is in the water we drink that is capable of causing us harm. No doubt the popular assumption is that every glass of treated water is the same, that it is has the same composition and quality. In fact, the contents vary depending on the specific source water, and water sources vary geographically.

A 2006 report by the David Suzuki Foundation found that 53, that is 75%, of the guidelines for Canadian drinking water quality for chemical contaminants have weaker acceptable limits than at least one of the countries included in the comparison or than the World Health Organization's limits. In other words, Canada's maximum acceptable concentrations were lower than at least one country in the comparative survey. The most substantial differences were observed in comparing Canadian guidelines for pesticides to those in Australia and the European Union. The aim of Bill C-326 is to strengthen the quality of Canada's drinking water over the long term by requiring that Health Canada, in developing its recommendations for Canada's drinking water guidelines, takes account of any higher standards in any OECD country.

The rise of emerging contaminants, some potentially cancer causing, others possible endocrine disruptors, requires that the government consider best practices in comparable countries when developing Canada's drinking water guidelines. Also, it is imperative that the public be aware of whether and why the government may have rejected a superior standard from another OECD country.

Bill C-326 aims to instill more rigour, accountability, and transparency in the development of drinking water guidelines in Canada by requiring Health Canada to conduct periodic reviews of drinking water standards in other advanced countries. The bill would require that the government, after comparing specific Canadian standards with another country's higher standard for a particular contaminant, publicly justify why Canada is not adopting that other country's superior standard, or conversely why we need to.

Bill C-326 is inspired by the work of the environmental NGO Ecojustice, which produces report cards on the state of Canada's drinking water. It has called for Canada's maximum allowable limits, or MACs, for specific contaminants in drinking water to be as high as the highest in any OECD country.

The intent of this bill is not to make Canadians worry about the quality of their drinking water. Of course, we all know that there are problems with the water supply in first nations communities, and I am very proud that the government has decided to commit the resources to end all drinking water advisories for first nations by 2021.

Municipal tap water is safe. Major multinationals like Coke and Pepsi, which sell bottled water under the Dasani and Aquafina brands respectively, actually get their water from publicly owned municipal systems, not from glacial lakes or pure groundwater. They draw water from the municipal systems of Mississauga, Brampton, Calgary, and Vancouver.

However, it will come as a surprise to many watching this debate that there is no national drinking water legislation in this country that guarantees all citizens a legal right to clean drinking water. What is more, drinking water standards are not consistent across the country. They vary by province and territory.

Our unique federal system makes addressing a matter of national concern as vital as ensuring consistent and high drinking water standards for all Canadians a challenge, which calls on us to smartly and creatively address the issue within the existing constitutional framework. In Canada, water is constitutionally a provincial resource. Authority and responsibility for water, including drinking water, falls to the provinces. The federal government's jurisdiction is limited to drinking water in first nations, on ships, planes, and trains, national parks, and in National Defence facilities.

While Health Canada does not enjoy authority to impose legally binding drinking water standards across the country, it does have a role to play in developing provincial and territorial standards, namely through research, analysis, and evidence-based recommendations. This is why Bill C-326 invokes the Department of Health Act.

Briefly, Health Canada and the federal-provincial-territorial committee on drinking water develop and publish the guidelines for Canadian drinking water quality. Provincial and territorial governments then voluntarily adopt these guidelines, which they manage and enforce at their own discretion.

A specific guideline may include a number of different elements, including a maximum allowable concentration, which is a numerical value that describes a safe level of exposure to a particular contaminant over a lifetime of water consumption. In other words, this is the threshold above which human exposure to a contaminant in drinking water is deemed unacceptable in terms of known or suspected adverse health effects.

In establishing MACs, Health Canada relies almost exclusively on the review of published literature that includes toxicological information on a contaminant, and information on the treatment options that exist with respect to that contaminant. For this purpose, the department gathers information from academic articles, conference proceedings, and materials produced by other other jurisdictions. Consequently, guidelines may not necessarily be developed based on the most relevant or latest scientific evidence. In cases where there is no usable evidence available, there may be no guidelines at all.

Drinking water committee members, namely the provinces and territories, provide input to the discussion on guidelines. They will, for example, raise the technical and economic feasibility around achieving a specific guideline value or raise the real risk that the contaminant poses. In some cases, it may not pose a significant risk, and therefore a guideline may not be in order.

In reality, what we have in Canada is a patchwork of laws and regulations in an area that intuitively, to most Canadians, should involve a standardized national approach. Thus, only eight of Canada's 13 provinces and territories have established legally enforceable drinking water standards. What is more, only 16 of 94 guidelines are applied uniformly across the country. Also, discrepancies exist along rural and urban lines where larger communities test for a wider range of contaminants than do smaller communities.

What we have here in Canada is a federal system tailored to our geographic, cultural, economic, and regional realities. This system, which is uniquely ours and is tailored to our needs, is something we need to learn to live with. Bill C-326 aims to work within our current constitutional framework.

The current constitutional framework is the context in which I have introduced Bill C-326, a bill that works to move us closer to more or less consistent high-quality drinking water standards for Canadians, wherever they may live. The nature of Canada's drinking water regime can also be understood by comparing it with the drinking water regimes in other countries, notably the United States and European Union countries.

In the U.S., drinking water is regulated on a federal level through the Safe Drinking Water Act. Legally enforceable national regulatory limits exist for many contaminants. Some call this the “cookbook numbers approach”, because the system is focused on implementing specific numerical thresholds for an array of contaminants. In addition to legally binding limits, the EPA has non-enforceable guidelines for contaminants with aesthetic and/or cosmetic impacts.

Importantly, the EPA is required every five years to publish a contaminant candidates list for contaminants that may require future regulation. Every five years, the EPA must select five contaminants from the list and make decisions on regulations pertaining to them. The agency is also required to monitor at least 30 unregulated contaminants every five years. Publishing this list is a major strength of the U.S. system, from the standpoint of ensuring transparency, accountability, and progress in improving drinking water.

The EPA bases drinking water regulations on the results of scientific studies. This may have something to do with the more litigious nature of the American legal system, which provides an incentive to use science to better defend against possible future court action. While the EPA only regulates contaminants for which it has sufficient data, it continues to collect information and conduct research to fill data and information gaps where it lacks sufficient information to make a regulatory determination.

The European system uses the precautionary principle to establish drinking water guidelines. The general premise of the precautionary principle is that substances with unknown health effects should be kept to the lowest possible exposure, especially in cases where health- and environmental-impact data are lacking.

Canada's drinking water standards are not firmly rooted in the precautionary principle. It has been said that Canada uses the precautionary principle selectively. In general, drinking water regulations and management activities in Canada prioritize contaminants that pose the greatest risk to public health; that is, microbial contaminants such as E. coli, whose effects are immediate and can be deadly. In Canada, the monitoring of known and emerging contaminants in drinking water pales in comparison to the U.S., the EU, and Australia, even though Canada and Australia take similar approaches to drinking water at the national level in that they both establish mere guidelines, as opposed to legally binding standards.

In particular, Canada lacks drinking water guidelines for suspected endocrine-disrupting compounds found in plastics, pharmaceuticals, and personal care products, such as cosmetics and toothpaste. One reason Canada lacks guidelines for many pharmaceuticals and personal care products suspected of being endocrine disrupters is related to Health Canada's needing scientific information on health effects and the capabilities of treatment technologies before it will initiate a process to establish a MAC. Hopefully, by encouraging more study and analysis of discrepancies in contaminant standards between Canada and other advanced countries, Bill C-326 would encourage Health Canada to commission more primary studies on emerging contaminants with, say, the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council or Canadian universities. Even where MACs exist in Canada's drinking water guidelines, these appear to be less stringent than those of peer countries.

Simple measures are sometimes the most effective in creating change in complex areas of public policy. Sometimes it is not the most elaborate, detailed, and legal solution that bears fruit. I do not mean to elicit a partisan reaction, but I think this is an interesting example. The government decided to change the way senators are appointed as a way of bringing broad change to the nature of the Senate. This was a very simple measure. It was very simple and very different from the many elaborate models that had been proposed over the years that were seemingly not workable.

Bill C-326 takes a similar approach. By requiring that Health Canada better monitor and publicly report on comparisons between Canada's drinking water guidelines and those in countries similar to Canada, the bill aims to spur progress in achieving, in the words of Dr. David Boyd, in the Suzuki Foundation report entitled The Water We Drink, “national standards for drinking water quality that are equal to or better than the highest standards provided in any other industrialized nation.”

Hopefully, Bill C-326 would, at the same time, contribute to the goal of ensuring that first nations, like all Canadians, can access drinking water that meets the highest international standards. The Safe Drinking Water for First Nations Act, adopted by the previous government, essentially defers to provincial regulations for drinking water for first nations. Provincial regulations are influenced by the guidelines for drinking water quality. It is intended, therefore, that through its influence on these national guidelines, Bill C-326 would, among other things, impact positively on the quality of first nations' drinking water in the long run.

[Francis Scarpaleggia, Liberal, Lac-Saint-Louis, QC]

moved for leave to introduce Bill C-326, an act to amend the Department of Health Act (drinking water guidelines).

Mr. Speaker, it gives me great pleasure to rise today in this House to table this bill, which would require the Minister of Health to conduct a review of drinking water standards in member countries of the OECD, and if appropriate, to make recommendations for amendments to our national guidelines here in Canada with respect to drinking water.

This bill is aimed at ensuring that our drinking water standards are the best in the developed world. It is a way for the federal government to have greater influence in the body that establishes national but provincially implemented drinking water standards in Canada.

(Motions deemed adopted, bill read the first time and printed)