Environment Committee on Oct. 26th, 2023

[Nelson Barbosa]

—and water reality is different for them.

I appreciate the questions.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

We go, with pleasure, to Mr. van Koeverden.

[Adam van Koeverden, Liberal, Milton, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I appreciate that.

Thanks again to all of the witnesses for joining today. Thank you for your work and for your expertise on these very important issues.

Again, on boil water advisories, Mr. Barbosa, if I could go to you first, according to the ISC website, as has been mentioned, the project is complete, and the advisory is lifted in 84% of communities that had a boil water advisory. For a further 9%, that lift is pending, but there's clean water flowing from the tap, which leaves 7% for either the projects under construction or the studies under way.

As you said at the very top, and I agree with you, even one boil water advisory, particularly a long-term one, is one too many. Could you give us a sense of how many people this is impacting? I know the website is quite detailed, but do you have an idea, even just a ballpark number, of how many people are still in that 7% group?

I just want to highlight that 93% of those communities now have clean water, which is great progress. The job is not done yet, but quite a lot of progress has been made. Give us a ballpark number of how many first nations are still impacted.

[Nelson Barbosa]

It's a great question, and we're happy to provide a written response in terms of the impact on the remaining 7% of the population.

In addition to some of the points you're raising, we anticipate that about 32% of the remaining long-term drinking water advisories will be lifted by year-end.

Again, first nations control their jurisdictions. They are the ones who bring drinking water advisories in place and lift them. Progress is being made, and we hope that the progress will continue to year-end and get to zero.

We're happy to provide a written response on the 7%.

[Adam van Koeverden, Liberal, Milton, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Barbosa. I recognize that asking for numbers at a meeting like this is challenging.

It's clear to me and I think to all Canadians that long-term negligence and neglect from successive governments have contributed to the failing infrastructure in many rural, indigenous and remote communities. Back in 2006, the Harper government committed to a clean water strategy, and around 2007 there were about 100 boil water advisories across Canada in first nation communities. There were also over 1,700 individual boil water advisories in other communities across the country.

I was looking for information on how many boil water advisories are currently in Canada at large. Do you have any indication about how many Canadians don't have clean drinking water?

[Nelson Barbosa]

In the off-reserve context, I do not have that number offhand.

[Adam van Koeverden, Liberal, Milton, ON]

Based on what I read online, the situation has been improving, so funding municipalities and making sure that they have access to that infrastructure money and things like the municipal gas tax have clearly given some municipalities the ability to plan ahead and do that construction.

For my part, thank you for your work, and I look forward to some of those numbers.

My next—

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

I'm sorry, Mr. van Koeverden; would you like Mr. Barbosa to submit that in writing?

[Adam van Koeverden, Liberal, Milton, ON]

He said he would.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Okay, I missed that; I apologize.

[Nelson Barbosa]

I'm happy to provide the answer on the 7%. I'm not sure that our department has access to the totality of the Canadian landscape outside of on-reserve numbers, but I'm happy to provide on-reserve numbers for sure.

[Adam van Koeverden, Liberal, Milton, ON]

Based on what I read online, percentages for the reason there's a boil water advisory in municipalities are available, but the number isn't. I think that I did access numbers from the previous decades.

Concerning drought and climate change.... This is really to anybody who's interested in talking about food security. I have one more small question, so please give me a moment, if that's okay.

Food costs are rising, and the main reason is climate change. It's irrefutable. Other people might want to say that there are other reasons for expensive food in Canada, but there's expensive food in the United States as well and around the world, and one of the main reasons is climate change. The main thing that is required for crops is irrigation or rain. When that's not available, crops fail. When pests are allowed to run rampant, crops fail, and food costs go up.

Can somebody just briefly touch on the importance of fighting climate change and of irrigation in the context of food security and making sure that food continues to be affordable for Canadians?

[Dr. Catherine Champagne]

I can say, from the perspective of Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, that this is something that we actively look at and that climate change is an important pillar of our current research and programming.

We actively monitor drought across Canada in partnership with the United States and Mexico, and this is a key tool for making sure that we have preparation for understanding how this is going to impact our annual crops produced each year, which impacts our food supply and our costs, as you mentioned.

The other pillar that we focus on is improving practices, so we provide advice to farmers so that in times when there are shortages of water, we have an active tool box that will encourage resiliency and allow farmers to have a broader tool box of things that they can draw on to make them more resilient to these types of extremes. We're focusing on prediction and mitigation.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Time is up.

[Adam van Koeverden, Liberal, Milton, ON]

I was hoping for 30 seconds.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

You're already way over.

Ms. Pauzé, you have the floor.

[Monique Pauzé, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Barbosa, I'll come back to you.

Earlier, I gave you the example of an indigenous community located less than 10 kilometres from Edmonton, whose members can't even turn on the tap to get drinking water. Yet we're in a supposedly wealthy G20 country.

The problem of safe drinking water on first nations reserves was recently the subject of a collective action. However, I understand that a settlement agreement has been reached that includes the creation of the first First Nations Advisory Committee on Safe Drinking Water, including $20 million in federal assistance through 2025.

Can you explain how an advisory committee with $20 million at its disposal will guarantee access to safe drinking water for indigenous communities?

[Nelson Barbosa]

Thank you for the question.

There was a settlement agreement established in December of 2021 to end litigation regarding long-term drinking water advisories. Grosso modo, that settlement agreement committed $8 billion until 2025 in order to support safe drinking water, including $6 billion for infrastructure and for operations and maintenance, which I spoke to, and approximately $2 billion to support community and individual responses.

Among other commitments that had non-monetary aspects, one was the establishment of the first nations advisory committee on safe drinking water. This committee is now active and is supporting ISC in a number of efforts, but also primarily in the consultation on the establishment of potential new legislation.

There are—

[Monique Pauzé, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

I'll stop you there, Mr. Barbosa.

So you think the $20 million for the advisory committee is going to work miracles or, at the very least, help.

I'll come back to the Canada Water Agency, because they too must have concerns in relation to indigenous nations. Now, I think it was Mr. Norris, in his speech, who talked about avoiding overlap.

Where are we with this? There's the advisory committee. There's the Canada Water Agency, which may also have concerns about first nations.

[Nelson Barbosa]

Thank you for the question.

On the $6 billion related to infrastructure, those resources are factored into the plans on long-term drinking water advisories, but I would like to bring to the attention of the committee that the reduction of long-term drinking water advisories and seeing them get to zero is one fabric or one element of the work we do.

There are many communities, and each of them has different water systems and different water realities. There is a lot of focus put on long-term drinking water advisories, but ISC's role is to support the establishment in getting to zero and supporting all water systems across this country, of which there are certainly more than 28.

On the interrelationship between the Canada water agency and ISC, we have regular contact with Mr. Wolfish, with whom you spoke earlier this week, on the establishment of that agency and also on the engagement modalities and the co-development of the CWA.

Thank you so much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Thank you.

Mr. Bachrach, you have the floor.

I'm sorry; it's Mr. Cannings.

[Taylor Bachrach, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

My colleague Mr. Cannings has a question.

[Richard Cannings, NDP, South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC]

Thank you.

I'd like to pose this question to Mr. Carreau.

This spring we passed the new Canadian Environmental Protection Act here, which included, for the first time, the right for Canadians to live in a clean and healthy environment, but that only extended to the confines of CEPA.

I have a private member's bill, Bill C-219, on the Canadian environmental bill of rights, which would extend that to all other federal pieces of legislation that deal with a clean environment.

I'm just wondering if you could comment on those other pieces of legislation that Health Canada or others might deal with and help regulate clean water in Canada. What other pieces of legislation, besides CEPA, would that encompass, and why is it important to extend that right to those pieces of legislation?

[Greg Carreau]

Indeed, I was here at this table helping on Bill S-5 and the amendments to the Canadian Environmental Protection Act in the introduction of the right to a healthy environment.

Health Canada's Canadian drinking water quality guidelines are published under the authorities of the Canadian Environmental Protection Act and do, then, provide the basis upon which provinces and territories implement those guidelines in their policies and regulations.

With respect to the right to a healthy environment, Health Canada and Environment and Climate Change Canada are collaborating on the development of a framework that will be subject to public consultation and will provide an understanding of how the Minister of Health and the Minister of the Environment and Climate Change Canada can implement those authorities in the administration of the act, as well as intersectionality with other pieces of legislation that may be pertinent to the protection of health and the environment of Canadians.

[Richard Cannings, NDP, South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC]

Are you saying that CEPA protects that right across all federal pieces of legislation, whether it's about pesticides or the Fisheries Act and things like that?