Madam Speaker, I rise today as the MP who covers the area of North Battleford where we are having our latest outbreak of problem water. I will read the motion that my colleague from Fundy—Royal put forward for people who have just joined us. It states:
That, in the opinion of this House, the government should act with the provinces and territories to establish enforceable national drinking water standards that would be enshrined in a Safe Water Act.
When I look at this motion, I have a certain amount of trepidation in voting positively for it. People at home are crying out. There is a demand and a need for safe water across the country.
We have a myriad of standards at this point. There are over 79 guidelines in the Canadian drinking water quality, 54 of which are health based, 17 are based on aesthetics, which is colour, taste and so on, and another 8 have a combination of the two. As I said, I talk about this with some trepidation. This is a provincial jurisdiction. We really have to get beyond the politics and look at the end of the day to what is best for the common good of ordinary Canadians who are demanding safe and secure water supplies across the country.
There is a myriad of examples where there are problems. Senator Grafstein has a bill in the Senate at this time. He has identified 700 communities, and he says there are probably more, that have problems with water. At any given time there are 5,000 communities across the country that have boil water advisories out.
We have to look at the concentrations of livestock and some of the weather related problems. Part of the problem in North Battleford is that the river content is very low at this time. Compound that with the sewer pump that is on the wrong end of the town and there is a recipe for disaster.
A tremendous amount of studies have been done. Currently we have national standards but they are not binding. The problem as I see it is that there is a tremendous disconnect between the standards we have and the testing that is required.
The problem with the testing is that it is very expensive. The procedures are very costly. The fancy name is cryptosporidium, which is the little bug in the water in North Battleford. Testing for that requires tankers of water to be taken to the provincial lab, which is 300 or 400 kilometres away. That is done on an ongoing basis. It is cost prohibitive.
The other option is to have a chemical engineer or a biologist on staff, which of course for a community of 15,000 again is cost prohibitive. There has to be some sort of national, provincial and municipal co-operation.
The Minister of Transport made a comment the other day. He stated “The government believes the improvement of our drinking water supply and sewage treatment is an utmost priority.” That is what he said. The health minister, in a comment to my question to him yesterday in this place, said that there was nothing more important than public safety, that we really had to spend money on our crumbling infrastructure and that $56 million had been allocated to Saskatchewan.
To replace the sewage plant alone in North Battleford, we are looking at $20 million. That is a third of the total allocation to Saskatchewan. It will handle the output for 15,000. There is roughly a million people in Saskatchewan, so members will see that the $56 million will be a couple of dollars short and probably a day or two late in this instance.
There are a couple of heavy weights at the cabinet table saying that they realize there is a problem. It really begs a question. Moneys have been allocated to the Canada infrastructure program with the focus on water and sewer. We have a tremendous problem with crumbling infrastructure in water and sewer related areas. One member cited the problems on first nation reserves. He is absolutely right. We see that at home on the reserves. However it is also hitting our towns and communities that pay huge taxes are looking for security in their water and sewer supplies.
We are not seeing it happen out there. As the federal government cut the funding on the health and social transfers, that got off-loaded to the provinces. What did the provinces do? They cut support and so on to the municipal governments, the lowest level of government, which led to problems that we see today. They cannot do the testing that is required because the dollars are not there. Staffing has been cut, and it has been a compound action all the way down. I guess we all share in the disgrace in our safe water supply.
We are being asked today to support the idea that the federal government should get into the business of clean water. That is an argument unto itself. If we look at what federal governments have done over time with health care, employment insurance and other programs like that, we see that they have become bureaucratically heavy and have not delivering the germ we need out there in the real world.
Clean water is and will continue to be a complex issue. We have geography. We have climate. We have floods and all sorts of things that happen. We need access to source. Then we have the crumbling infrastructure. The Federation of Canadian Municipalities said we need $16.5 billion just to get everybody back to a benchmark that would give us relatively safe water and sewage handling. The whole Canada infrastructure program over three years is $4 billion. That will not even supply maintenance.
We will have to take a lot harder look at this issue. Government spending is all about priorities. We saw an announcement of $560 million to the arts. Then people say that they need safe water. Where do we suppose they vote? Which one would they ask for? We have a long gun registry that has eaten up $600 million, and we do not have safe water. Which one would the ordinary citizen want to put the money into? It is all about priorities.
The impact of the water crisis in North Battleford goes away beyond money and regulations. People on the street are concerned about their health and the future safety of the water supply. There is a problem out there about when it will be safe. When the people who were in charge when the problem hit say the water is safe, will these people take their word for it? Probably not. A whole supply system has to be flushed out and that can only be done after rigorous testing has been done at both the sewage end and the pump intake end. There is a combination there of wells and surplus water that is used.
There has been a tremendous outpouring of support for North Battleford's situation from across the country. A lot of other communities, which were in that same situation to a lesser degree, have come forward with ideas. As was mentioned before by my colleague from Red Deer, tremendous gains have been made on the applications of cleaning up our water supply. We are marketing those across the world. If North Battleford wants the upscale, high tech equipment, it will have to go to Beijing to buy it from a Canadian source. We just do not seem to have that communication system in this country which puts the buyer and the seller together. In a lot of cases it is very cost prohibitive.
There are a couple of options available to clean up the cryptosporidium that is in the water in North Battleford. One involves a complete ultraviolet light filter system, which is very expensive and high maintenance. It needs to be maintained on almost a daily basis because of the volume of water that would go through it. The summer capacity is like 3.4 million gallons a day, so that adds to the problem. The system is very dry right now, so it could even go higher than. That is the average.
Other people have come forward. Canadian Tire did an excellent job of getting bottled water to the people. The line up has been as long as two kilometres and those folks have risen to the challenge. They have committed to 1,500 gallons a day to be brought in. They have given fantastic support to a small community. The Canadian Tire store is probably the best loved store out there right now. I really commend it for its efforts.
Culligan has stepped up to the plate. It will ship in skids of water at its cost, including cost of the water, freight and everything. The only thing Culligan wants is for the province to waive the enviro charge, which would be about $1,200 on what it is planning to ship in. I was on a conference call yesterday with the new premier, Lorne Calvert, the mayor and the council, and I am sure the province will step up to the plate.
Everyone is looking for solutions. We are way beyond trying to condemn anyone. We need to find the answers and move along with that.
The crisis over water in Canada is becoming a crisis over government. People are looking to their municipalities that provide these services. They then look to their provinces and ask them for their support. Lastly, they look to the federal government that made the decision to make the huge cuts in health and social transfers. They are telling the federal government that the cuts were for the deficit, which is gone, so we should now prioritize some government spending.
Canadians want the government to look at putting money back into safe resources like water and sewers. They want the infrastructure system, which is so sadly lacking across the country, to be built up again. It is not systemic to one particular area. Every province has problems. No one is blameless. Five years ago we were slashing funding and now it is time to step up to the plate and put some of it back.
We have been asked today to support the idea that the federal government should get into the business of clean water and the safety of supply. I guess in a vacuum where that does not exist someone has to come forward. I have a real problem voting for the federal government to get into a situation like this but of course the money rests with the federal government.
What we are looking for today is the federal government to commit the $20 million that will be needed in North Battleford to bring its sewage system up to standard so it can get back to doing ordinary business.