It's probably going to be hard to define exactly what it's going to mean. It's going to mean a headline in The Globe and Mail one day when Hamilton Harbour's delisted as an area of concern. It's a national story.
Without a doubt, perception lags behind reality. Much of the community is disenfranchised from the waterfront. It's a spectacular community with the Dundas Valley, the escarpment, the waterfront. It has natural assets that communities across the country would kill for, and yet, over many decades, not only physically but through legal tools, it was illegal to touch Hamilton Harbour at one point. The majority of the shoreline was industrialized. It was cut off from the community. I literally see my job as reminding the city that it's a waterfront city again.
The impacts that those investments in those large projects have is very significant, because 50% of the water that goes back into Hamilton Harbour is through the waste water treatment plants. That means that 50% of the water doesn't go through technology. Technology is not going to save the day in this regard. Phosphorus and other sources of chemical and biological pollution will require the human touch along with technology, so law, policy, and behavioural changes will be required along with better stormwater infrastructure, for example. Today is a waste water sewage overflow day in Hamilton Harbour. We still see two billion litres of raw sewage going into the harbour every year. That's a frighteningly small fraction to what it used to be, thanks to these upgrades to waste water treatment, but there are still significant changes, both technological and non-technological, that need to be made, which are often more difficult to implement.
To answer your question, it will be a very significant development in the psyche of the community. I can tell you that there is so much enthusiasm for restoring this harbour. You can't go wrong getting behind these projects. You can't go wrong.