Certainly. Waste water management is probably the greatest challenge we have with respect to clean water in Canada today. About 75% of our communities have effective primary or secondary waste water management, but fully 25%, 850 communities, large and small, first nations and otherwise, still have inadequate waste water management and treatment.
In consultation with the provinces and the territories, in July we announced that Canada's first national waste water management regulations will be brought in. They will focus on three priority areas. The highest priority, the greatest degree of pollution, will be treated with a target date of 2020. The next intermediate level will be done by 2030, and the lowest level of correction required will have a date of 2030.
This will probably lead to a subsequent question on infrastructure support for the cost. Environment Canada estimates a cost of significantly under $10 billion to bring the full country into compliance. I've spoken with the president of the Federation of Canadian Municipalities, mayors across the country, east and west, and others. They estimate something beyond $20 billion. We are talking. We are working together. Our government has already invested more than $2 billion directly in waste water management. Of course, the annual gas tax refund of $2 billion is available to all municipalities, large and small, to apply against that waste water management.
If that infrastructure money were to be applied fully to waste water management over the next five years, and one knows that it has to be spread a little bit more broadly, one would think the country would be very close to being in full compliance from coast to coast to coast.