Thank you, Chair.
I'll just repeat the motion so the committee is up to speed on what the actual motion said. It reads:
That the committee report to the House that the first environmental act by this Liberal government was to approve the dumping of eight billion litres of raw sewage into the St. Lawrence River and that the committee agrees that the dumping of waste water into our waterways goes against Canadian efforts to promote clean water.
I think that everybody sitting around this table can completely agree with this—that it's not a good thing.
I also want to bring this to the committee's attention. It's actually from 2020. It's from The Canadian Press and it's entitled “Canada dumped nearly 900 billion litres of raw sewage into waterways between 2013 and 2018”. It reported that:
Data Environment Canada posted to the federal government's open-data website earlier this month shows in 2018, more than 190 billion litres of untreated wastewater poured out of city pipes that carry both sewage and storm water.
That's 190 billion litres. I'd asked the question earlier if you have any idea.... This is from 2020. This has been going on, and it's a big problem.
It goes on to say:
That is 14 per cent more than in 2017, and 44 per cent more than in 2013.
I don't know what the government is doing about it. This is why we MPs are so worried about this. Action is required.
The article continues:
Mark Mattson, president of Swim Drink Fish Canada, said the amount should shock people.
I agree. It goes on:
“It shows you the problem,” he said. “It should wake people up.”
“There's lots of holes in the data,” he noted.
The number does not include wastewater that leaks out from systems that don't use combined sewage and storm water pipes or any data on non-sewage related pollution that isn't treated by wastewater plants, such as pharmaceuticals. Quebec is also excluded from the data in 2018 because that province signed an agreement to report it to Ottawa in a different way.
That's why I was very concerned about the provinces and how this opening in the Canada Water Act involves all this as well.
That's what I have to say about this. I think it's a very important study. I'm hopeful that the committee can support continuing on with this motion and we can vote to approve it.