Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I thank the witnesses very much for being here.
Mr. Barbosa, I may have a question for you later. Not so long ago, I listened to a report that said that 10 kilometres from Edmonton, so really close to this city, lives a first nation that doesn't have access to drinking water. You can even see the big buildings in Edmonton from there, but there's still no water coming out of the taps. This concerns me. I'll come back to it shortly.
For now, I'll talk to Mr. Carreau from Health Canada instead.
In your opening remarks, you all said there was collaboration. If that's the case, I don't understand why we want to create a Canadian water agency that's supposed to improve collaboration. There's a problem here. In fact, several examples illustrate the lack of communication and collaboration between government departments.
I'll give you a very concrete example. Last July, we learned that drinking water in the borough of La Baie was contaminated with PFAS, which we were talking about earlier. Activities at the Bagotville military base were the cause. We're talking here about more than 3,000 homes and 8,000 people exposed to these contaminants.
Military bases are the responsibility of the federal government, as is Health Canada. Correct me if I'm wrong, but Health Canada may be concerned about this risk to human health. However, the federal government has not shown its nose in this matter. If it has, it's only very recently. It was the municipality of Saguenay that took matters into its own hands, releasing $6 million.
I find this a good example of the lack of coordination.
If, in this framework, federal departments don't feel involved when they are directly involved, how can you say that a Canadian water agency is going to do better?