Issuing a boil water advisory is not a minor decision. It causes incredible stress on a community, and on businesses as well, because it requires them to change everything about how they go about their daily lives, whether that's washing the dishes in a restaurant or preparing food at home or doing laundry. It's quite striking, when you see how a temporary boil water advisory can be so disruptive, to think that this is the daily reality for so many people.
In fact, in many cases, when the contaminants are not microbial and are not infectious, a boil water advisory won't even address the concerns. It may in fact make it worse, because you make the water more concentrated with whatever substance may be in it. This is something that we do in partnership with drinking water officers and indeed with operators. We very much value the expertise of the operators who are on the ground.
Advisories can cause dramatic effects in that community and for people trying to run their businesses in the community. It's for that reason that we support the passage of this bill, but we certainly do emphasize that within regulations, it would be important to ensure that the real costs of not just implementing water treatment and wastewater treatment but also the ongoing running of the infrastructure be included in discussions with first nations.