I don't think that Canada's foremost water experts, whether we speak of Ralph Pentland or Frank Quinn, believe that the government has a national water strategy. As a matter of fact, a year ago, at a presentation here on Parliament Hill, Frank Quinn, who was a former Environment Canada public servant, said, “Nobody in Ottawa knows where water is any more”. That statement, to me, expresses the government's disarray on the issue.
On another point, I'd like to get to the idea of water infrastructure, because I think the more we reflect on this recession the more we realize that, as in every recession, certain industries are going to lead us out of it. I think, quite frankly, it's going to be the green industries. I think one of the industries that can do a lot of work is the water infrastructure industry, if you will, the filtration industry, the engineering firms.
There was a report that came out back in December that suggested that $1 billion invested in addressing the water infrastructure deficit in Canada would create 11,500 to 47,000 jobs. How much are we going to spend on water infrastructure in the next two years? How much is the federal government going to spend on water infrastructure in the next two years? I would posit that it's not nearly enough.
We all love hockey. It's good to build arenas, but arenas are not a global growth industry, whereas it's estimated that the global market size of the water industry is U.S. $360 billion and it's forecasted to rise to U.S. $1.6 trillion in 10 years. If you look at the market, the water portfolios are the ones that are outperforming the market. So why aren't we doing more to encourage this industry in Canada?