Mr. Speaker, I am happy to rise in support of the motion, although with some reservations. I will be sharing my time with my friend from Winnipeg North Centre on this very important subject.
I must admit that I prepared some notes and I thought about the motion overnight. I did so with a great deal of concern at a somewhat personal level because I have some close friends who live in Walkerton. I have followed that issue and that incident very closely out of concern for their health and for the health of that community. When we heard the story break last week about North Battleford, it was déjà vu.
I could not help but recall it was a little over a year ago that the government and governments across the country had their warning. We had all the scientists and all the experts say to us that this would happen again. Now the citizens of North Battleford have been the next victims.
With regard to the motion, I must admit that I do not have a great deal of hope it would not be repeated in more communities across the country. We have known for 30 to 40 years that our infrastructure programs and support programs for both water and sewage treatment have not been funded properly. They have been deteriorating to the point as seen now in these two communities.
They have lead to the deaths of citizens in Canada. It is not limited to just those two communities. We have had regular and continuous warnings right across the country, including in the province of Quebec, in spite of my friend's protestation of how good the systems are there. It will only get worse before it gets better.
Last year in Ontario 274 communities had boil water advisories. Last weekend 37 Saskatchewan towns were being advised to boil their water. These are all after Walkerton.
The need for government action is very obvious. We will see that today in terms of the response we get from the various political parties in the House. It seems to me and to my party that to a great extent the motion is only window dressing unless there is action that flows from it. I have great reservations that will happen.
I had a vision of a federal budget that recognized the urgency and the crises we are faced with in terms of the treatment of our water. We did not see that in the fall budget and we will not see a budget for perhaps another year that would take this issue into account.
When I hear the Minister of Health saying that we cannot snap our fingers and solve the problem, he is right. It begs the question of where he and the government have been for the last year since Walkerton and where successive governments have been for the last 30 to 40 years.
It all comes down to money, as is often the case. We could set up a co-operative effort between the provinces and the federal government, but the reality is that the municipalities deliver these services. They are responsible for treating our water and our sewage. We cannot divorce those two issues.
I am not sure about the Bloc, but if we passed the motion everybody would be in favour of it. Then, tomorrow, do we just do nothing as we have for these last number of years? Or, do we deal realistically with it? Do we reach into our collective pockets in the form of tax dollars and pass those down to municipalities? They have told us that what they need over the next 10 years is a minimum of $16.5 billion.
The vast majority of those dollars have to come from the federal government because most of the provinces are either in no position or a very weak position to be able to fund that. At this point we have a commitment in the last federal budget. Over the next six years we have $2.65 billion committed for all types of municipal infrastructure, not just water or sewage treatment. That includes roads and any number of other items. That $2.65 billion comes nowhere near dealing with the problem.
What do we have? We have a situation where, from what I am hearing, I expect we will pass this motion. We will probably not do anything more. That is a sham we are perpetuating on the people of the country. If we do not take action we should all be ashamed.
We no longer can say, as some of the other political parties in the House would say, that we still must have this thrust of having tax cuts. We are seeing the costs of those tax cuts in Walkerton and in North Battleford. We will see it again and again across the country.
We have to get real. We have to dig into the pockets and use the revenue being generated, not to turn back as tax dollars but to flow through so that municipalities across the country can build the proper sewage treatment plants, can treat the water and can do the testing and monitoring that needs to be done, all of which will cost a lot more money than any of those municipalities have.
Unless we are serious about it, as I said earlier, we will simply perpetuate this sham. That is not something any of us should be proud of. All I can say on behalf of the New Democratic Party is that over the next weeks and months we will continue to press the government to develop an appropriate infrastructure program for the municipalities.