Thank you.
On this subject, you should know that starting in 2007, when I was on Hamilton council and subsequently mayor, we found to our surprise that we had lead exceedances. Even up until today we're still working on the problem, and we will be putting in a facility to put orthophosphate into the water system of Hamilton, which will mitigate the effects of all of the lead pipes, whether on private property or still old public mains.
I want to first of all go to the point that local decision-makers know best. The Department of National Defence just had an exceedance, from April 27, 2017, to May 8, 2017. You couldn't drink the water in the old Nortel building. One of the comments was that it didn't really matter, because that's something that only affects you over years and years of ingesting. I don't believe that Health Canada would agree totally with that statement.
Second, I want to emphasize in my question to the group the seriousness of lead exposure as it has more recently been discovered, with research such as what I'm looking at here, which is a March 2017 story in The Washington Post. It's about a survey of children with elevated blood lead levels at age 11, checked years later. This was a New Zealand study. They found that there was a direct and indisputable association with children's IQs. Lead damages brain health—we know it does—and public officials said there is no safe level of lead in a child's blood.
I'll address a question first of all to Health Canada. Do you feel that other jurisdictions, municipalities, provinces, and so on, are aware of current research indicating a more serious problem with lead than was previously supposed?