Transport Committee on Feb. 23rd, 2017

[The Chair (Hon. Judy A. Sgro (Humber River—Black Creek, Lib.)), Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Good morning. Welcome to the Standing Committee on Transport, Infrastructure and Communities, meeting number 48. Pursuant to the order of reference of Tuesday, February 7, 2017, a study of water quality has been referred to the House.

I welcome the sponsor of that particular order, Mr. Bob Bratina. Welcome to our committee. I know it's your first time coming here and having a chance to spend some time with us.

[Bob Bratina, Liberal, Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON]

It's a pleasure, thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

We look forward to hearing the information on this particular motion.

Just before Mr. Bratina starts, we have 25 students from the École nationale d'administration publique in Quebec who are going to be observing our committee today, at least for the first hour. Welcome to all of you.

Mr. Bratina, please go ahead.

[Bob Bratina, Liberal, Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON]

Thank you.

The United States Environmental Protection Agency states that lead is the most serious environmental health hazard for children under six years of age in the United States. Lead poisoning has been dubbed the “silent epidemic” because of its increased prevalence worldwide. According to recent statistics, about three to four million young children suffer from lead poisoning. This type of poisoning is more common among children under six years of age, affecting one in every six children. One major problem is that most parents are unaware that their child has lead poisoning, and often it is too late when they have their child tested.

Building owners are responsible for the pipes and water within their premises, so what do homeowners with newborn children and modest incomes do about replacing lead service lines or otherwise dealing with water quality problems in their households? What role can and should the federal government play in this national public health issue?

In Hamilton, we began dealing with lead exceedances in the municipal drinking water 10 years ago. I was a councillor in one of the old wards, the downtown ward, of the city. Public works was at first reluctant to increase the number of household tap tests beyond what was required by the province. The reason we found out about it is quite interesting. It was because London, Ontario, was found to have lead exceedances. So the province decided this could be a broader issue; let's test many municipalities. They did 28 or more municipalities, including Hamilton. The information was gathered but never revealed until a newspaper article in the London Free Press, in which I found out, as the downtown councillor, that Hamilton had lead exceedances.

The province required the municipalities to do tests to see what the pervasiveness of this problem was in the city. I said to the public works department, “I want to do more tests in my downtown area, because these are older areas and people of lower incomes”. The answer was, “How much money do you want to spend, because the more we test, the more we find”. I said, “Okay, let's test the blood lead levels of the children in the affected areas”. A groundbreaking study of about 700 children was carried out, and sure enough, those children in those specific areas did have higher lead levels, significantly higher than the average across the population. That's a very important part and I'll come back to that later.

Now that we know we have lots of lead pipes and lead exceedances in the drinking water of households, what do people do when they are of modest income and they find out that it's $1,500 to $2,000 to take that lead pipe out? To assist those families, we created a loan program that allowed them to remove the lead service line on their property, paid for on their water bill, repaid over several years; I think 10 years is the program. In Hamilton, we are replacing 500 to 1,000 lead service lines in the city as a result of this program. It's also being done in London, Guelph, and Ottawa. Staff in Toronto recommended the plan to Toronto council and that council turned the plan down, referred to as one of those fiascos and why don't they just go to the bank and get a loan.

While most provinces abide by the Canadian maximum allowable concentration for lead presence, 10 micrograms per litre, unfortunately we still hear of cities and towns across Canada discovering heightened levels of lead in the tap water of buildings, homes, and schools.

In Surrey, B.C., six elementary schools have been shown to have up to eight times the allowable lead concentration in their drinking water. Unfortunately, the comments by the experts around that problem are as follows: If parents are concerned about their child's development, they're worried about other sources of lead—for example, through paint or toys. I think continuing to monitor the situation is probably the best thing we can do at this point and provide support to both the school districts and education to the public in general.

Parents can be reassured that, at the population level, there's no evidence that British Columbia blood levels are affecting their health. Well, that's fine at the population level, across the board, everybody, rich areas, poor areas. But when you go to the poorer areas, children are ingesting lead, which could affect the development of their brain.

In Flint, Michigan, more than 1,700 residents are suing the United States government's Environmental Protection Agency for its mismanagement of the water crisis after extremely high levels of lead were leaching into the drinking water. The lawsuit states that the EPA failed to warn citizens of the dangers of consuming lead and failed to ensure that state and local authorities were accurately addressing the crisis on the ground. The plaintiffs are seeking $722 million in damages. The law suit states:

This case involves a major failure on all levels of government to protect the health and safety of the public. Local, state and federal agencies and employees, working individually and at times in concert with each other, mismanaged this environmental catastrophe.

This case can serve as a lesson on the importance of our governments having a unified approach to removing lead pipes and improving drinking water quality across the country. The federal government must work with its provincial, territorial, municipal, and indigenous partners in unison.

Lead toxicity has been studied at great length through blood level tests. The Canadian guideline is currently 10 milligrams per litre, which seems minute, but Health Canada, the World Health Organization, and many other toxicity experts agree that no amount of lead consumption is safe and severe health effects are occurring as a result.

Understanding this, Health Canada's federal-provincial-territorial committee on drinking water is planning to update the Canadian drinking water guidelines for lead. A document has been released online and is open for public consultation until March 15. This consultation began in January. I brought my private member's motion forward in November of last year. In January, Health Canada said let's look at reducing the maximum acceptable concentration that we have at the moment.

I'm not suggesting that this committee study the health effects, but I think we could probably hear some testimony to reaffirm the seriousness of the situation. My hoped-for outcome for this study would be that the committee call in expert witnesses to provide a report to the House containing a list of current best practices across Canada for removing lead lines and treating drinking water; recommendations on how best practices could be expanded; recommendations for how the federal government could play a role in the process, such as by creating awareness and advocacy programs for the dangers of lead consumption; utilizing current funding programs or creating new ones; and working with its provincial, territorial, municipal, and indigenous partners to create a national strategy for combatting lead in drinking water.

That's the basis of my private member's bill, and I'd be happy to answer any questions.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Thank you very much, Mr. Bratina. We appreciate very much your bringing this issue to our committee's attention.

Our first questioner is Mr. Rayes, for six minutes.

[Alain Rayes, Conservative, Richmond—Arthabaska, QC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Mr. Bratina, thank you for having come to present your bill to the committee.

I would first like to ask you which groups and stakeholders you consulted to prepare your bill.

[Bob Bratina, Liberal, Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON]

I honestly would have to say that most of the consultation took place in the 10 years that I was on city council. A lot of consultation took place at that time. Subsequent to that, McMaster University did a special and very exhaustive program for the City of Hamilton. I consulted with McMaster University on the basis of the information they brought forward, which was a very comprehensive review of strategies throughout the country and proposals for the City of Hamilton.

To answer your question, a lot of this consultation took place previously, but as a result of that, I revisited some of those experts. I talked to the Federation of Canadian Municipalities, and they were of course interested in moving forward. I think they would want to hear from the committee on what specific roles and specific questions the committee might ask of them to move this issue forward.

The Canadian Water Quality Association is another group that we consulted with. They have done extensive work in this area.

In fact, we have a number of organizations that are prepared to come forward, including the City of Hamilton's finance department and public works department, which could give testimony. I asked them about this a month or so ago in regard to how well the plan is working and whether evidence could be brought forward to a committee.

That's a general overview of the consultation I had.

[Alain Rayes, Conservative, Richmond—Arthabaska, QC]

Before I ask my next question, I'd like to make this comment. I was so excited at the idea of asking my question that I forgot to mention that we have in our audience several master's students from the École nationale d'administration publique, the ENAP, in Quebec. Professor Rémy Trudel is accompanying them. They are going to be spending the first hour here with us to see how things are done. I just wanted to let you know who these people are. I thank them for being here with us.

I will ask my question immediately. The students will be able to see that we have a short period of time to ask our questions.

This issue is very close to municipalities, since the buildings and service lines are directly on their territory. Some of them have already started to put certain programs into effect.

Why do you think the federal government should play a role in this change, which is quite considerable, and will likely also be quite costly?

[Bob Bratina, Liberal, Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON]

My review of the situation occurred because of the crisis in Flint, Michigan, and then the subsequent refusal by the City of Toronto to accept a very useful and workable loan program.

The problem became obvious to me as I began to do a simple Google search: “Canada lead drinking water”. Month after month through this past year, I came up with cities across Canada—Brandon, Manitoba, and Kamloops, British Columbia, and so on—that are discovering what we found 10 years ago in Hamilton and worked very quickly and efficiently to address.

It's obvious that there's no coherent management of what many experts consider a crisis, that is, the exposure of young children to lead in their drinking water, especially those in marginal circumstances, such as families who have to rent older premises, for instance, premises likely built before 1975 for sure. Many in our older cities were built in the late 19th century and early 20th century.

These people were unwittingly exposing their children to a lifetime of diminished expectations. The other thing that has happened over the past five years since our Hamilton experience took place is some very intensive research into exactly how this lead is affecting the brains of these young children. I took that all in a bundle.

[Alain Rayes, Conservative, Richmond—Arthabaska, QC]

How much speaking time do I have left?

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

You have 45 seconds.

[Alain Rayes, Conservative, Richmond—Arthabaska, QC]

Mr. Bratina, I hear what you are saying very clearly. Municipal water lines allow the water to reach all of the homes and buildings. Perhaps you will have the opportunity of speaking to other stakeholders, since my time will soon be up, but I'd like to know why, in your opinion, the federal government should infringe on jurisdictions that are to me of a municipal nature.

In order for this aspect to be prioritized, certain conditions would have to be imposed on the sums to be transferred, for example, through the fuel tax. I think there are already conditions related to water quality in the municipalities that want to use money from that program.

I'm convinced you will be able to answer that question, directly or indirectly.

[Bob Bratina, Liberal, Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON]

Are the municipalities using the resources made available to them to address the issue? In the City of Toronto, on the private side, they decided they weren't going to provide any assistance.

The other problem is that if the city tears out an old lead line, a main trunk line, that was installed in 1940 or something, now you have a new pipe. With the lead lines previously connected to the city pipe, there may have been less leaching of that lead because of the nature of the construction and the quality of the water. Once you change part of it, however, it may create chemical reactions that actually put in more lead, and now the thing you did with the federal money is affecting the health of a private individual. I think we need to work through this.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Thank you very much, Mr. Bratina.

Mr. Hardie.

[Ken Hardie, Liberal, Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC]

Mr. Bratina, one would be led to believe through your testimony that the real issue here is the connection between the main water main and the house, that this is where the problem will primarily exist. Is that your take on it?

[Bob Bratina, Liberal, Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON]

It's a complicated situation. In Flint, Michigan, there were no major problems until they changed the source of the water. The chemistry of that water released lead that was captured for years in old infrastructure.

[Ken Hardie, Liberal, Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC]

Okay.

[Bob Bratina, Liberal, Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON]

You can't simply say that if you take that lead pipe out from the household it's going to fix the problem. It's more complex.

[Ken Hardie, Liberal, Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC]

Now, lead in drinking water pipes has been banned in the United States since the 1930s. That doesn't preclude, though, some very old homes, heritage homes, that maybe very rich people buy. What about the notion of the lead pipe inside the house itself? Do we have any notion of how big an issue this is?

[Bob Bratina, Liberal, Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON]

What you're getting at is really that we need to test the water at the tap to ensure that especially babies being bottle fed are not ingesting high amounts of lead. The tap is connected to pipes within maybe an old house from the 1930s, as you said. Just because you took the lead line out doesn't mean that all of the lead potential is gone. That's a good point.

[Ken Hardie, Liberal, Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC]

I get that, yes. The other point is, how large a presence of lead in the water system is required to lead to adverse consequences or exceedances, to use the term you've used? They were using lead in the solder for copper piping up until the 1980s when they stopped doing that. You and I are almost old enough to remember leaded gasoline in cars, and there were excessive lead levels because of that. There were many different sources in the past where lead could be present.

If we turn this on its head, we can start looking at what we can do about it. You've talked about the City of Hamilton's initiative to provide loans to people to replace, at the very least, the service to the house. If we're inside a house, though, and there's lead piping there or even an excess of lead solder, that's a whole other issue. If you were sitting in our shoes making recommendations, would you want to see the presence of a lead service pipe or lead piping disclosed on a real estate listing so that people would know they are buying a house with this potential problem? Or would you ask, for instance, the home inspection business to test the water in the house and report the result to the would-be buyer?

[Bob Bratina, Liberal, Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON]

It's an interesting question whether it should be regulated to that extent. I'd probably say yes. I went through the urea formaldehyde question back in the day, and that's a whole other story that relates to who's responsible. In that case, the government suggested you should put this in and then said you better take it out. Remember, there are federal regulations on lead pipes and solder, and so it's almost like a recall where we admit we made a mistake in 1986 and 1970.

It really has to with the quality of the water coming out of the tap. If it's efficacious to take the lead pipe out at a reasonable cost and with a loan program, that's fine. If it's not, filtering the water and alternate water sources would be options. But I think it behooves the federal government to pull all this information together, because it's not any different in Kamloops than it is in St. John's, Newfoundland.

[Ken Hardie, Liberal, Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC]

I submit that we might also be looking at issues with copper piping. Depending on who you talk to, there could be issues there. Even PVC piping is cited by some as having the potential to give off nasty things into the water.

A lot of it will depend on the chemistry of the actual water being supplied to the communities. It's almost as though we need to take it on a community-by-community basis rather than necessarily looking at a one-size-fits-all remedy.

[Bob Bratina, Liberal, Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON]

I would disagree. As I said, St. John's, Newfoundland and Kamloops, B.C., it's the same problem across the country. In many cases, cities don't even have inventories of their own main trunk lines, never mind the household lead lines that are there.

I'm honing in on lead, specifically, because I dealt with it in Hamilton and I know exactly the problems that can be created, especially the irreversible damage done to the developing child's brain. We can't just say, “Well, let's just leave it up to the communities, and let them go to the library and see what the latest news is.” In Flint, Michigan, the U.S. government is facing a class action suit because of this: “Well, why didn't you tell us?”

[Ken Hardie, Liberal, Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC]

Thank you.