Well, I think it's pretty clear that in Canada in the year 2010 we should not be discharging raw sewage, untreated sewage, into our lakes, our rivers, and our harbours. That is in fact what has been happening in some quarters in this country. Some municipalities are better than others, but clearly there is a need for national standards, and I hear very few Canadians who disagree with that. We've worked long and hard with the Canadian Council of Ministers of the Environment to arrive at these standards. They are national standards. They will be brought into place in an orderly way. The drafting is completed. As I said earlier, we have prioritized the infrastructure systems across the country. There are some 4,000 municipalities in Canada with discharge facilities. Those that need upgrades to achieve these standards have been categorized into high risk, medium risk, and low risk, with the availability of additional time in the case of the lower-risk facilities.
I would say that the facilities that are more pressing are in larger cities. In the city of Victoria, for example, we have been dumping raw sewage with absolutely no treatment into the Pacific Ocean. Both the British Columbia environment minister, Mr. Penner, and the premier have indicated that this needs to be brought to a halt, so discussions are under way as to what kind of infrastructure will be needed.
Certainly there are other communities where significant upgrades will need to take place. The intent here is to do this in an orderly way over a period of time. All of these kinds of investments are eligible under federal infrastructure programs that will run over the next many years. But making these investments will require prioritization on the part of municipalities.