Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the member for Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik.
This particular debate is an excellent occasion that illustrates the kind of conflict and ideology that political parties get into from time to time, because what we have, Mr. Speaker, is a motion calling on the government to act essentially in an area of provincial jurisdiction. I think we would all agree in this House, on all sides of the House, that the right to clean water is something that should be shared by all Canadians. All Canadians should be entitled to obtain clean water, to use clean water anywhere in the land. It is fundamental in the same sense that every Canadian should expect the same standard of justice, the same standard of safety and the same standard of health care. The government over the years has provided in those areas.
But in fact, when it comes to the safety of water, this has been something that has been mostly under provincial jurisdiction. We are now faced with the problem where we have had several tragic incidents where the water supply in communities has been dangerously polluted and it has led to some deaths. Quite rightly, in my view, we have a motion before us calling on the government to be in the forefront of establishing enforceable standards of water quality.
Here is the rub. Three of the opposition parties who have been stressing the need for enforceable national standards for water quality today, those three parties, when you press them, are not willing to have those standards imposed upon the provinces because those three parties, part of their ideological structure is that they believe that fundamental political life should begin with the lowest common denominator, normally the provinces, certainly in the case of the Bloc Quebecois, but also in the case of the Canadian Alliance and the Conservatives with the municipalities.
In Ontario, and I cannot speak for all of the nation on this issue, but in Ontario I can remember when the average citizen could test his water for free. Mr. Speaker, you would take it from a tap, take it to your local medical officer of health who would have given you a proper container, and that water would be tested. Indeed for many, many years in Ontario the province was responsible for ensuring that municipalities had their water tested properly.
But in 1996 the current Conservative government in Ontario basically downloaded the obligation of water quality on the municipalities, on the one hand, who had to look after maintaining such standards as there were, and the province basically privatized the testing of water and took away the free program of water testing through municipalities that up until 1996 led to I think 400,000 tests per annum in Ontario of water quality. All that disappeared.
The problem with this motion and particularly with the amendment to the motion, particularly the amendment that is indeed supported by our side, is if you cop on national standards to protect citizens, then you have to have a way of guaranteeing that those national standards are acted upon.
In response to a question I posed earlier in this debate, the leader of the Conservative opposition said well, yes, we can have enforceable standards, but he believes that we can come to agreements with the provinces.
Mr. Speaker, I ask you, what if you cannot come to an agreement with a province? What if a province decides it does not want to spend the money on water quality? What if you have a case, as you have in Ontario, when the province downloads the responsibility of water quality to the municipality?
We talked for a little bit about infrastructure. This is not just a question of drinking water. This is a question of the proper treatment of sewage and that kind of thing. What we have in my own municipality, we have a situation where the province downloaded the responsibility for sewage treatment and that kind of thing to the municipality and it has privatized it.
In Hamilton a private corporation runs the sewage treatment plant and there is a lot of anecdotal evidence indicating that that sewage treatment plant is in a lot of trouble. The problem is because the province downloaded to the municipality who privatized it. No one knows whether that sewage treatment plant is functioning properly.
I submit that all across Ontario and indeed all across the country that no one knows for sure that the water treatment plants in communities like North Battleford or communities like Collingwood or other communities across the country, that they indeed are looking after their water quality to a standard that guarantees the safety of the people using it.
The other thing that is overlooked in this debate is we have talked only about municipal water supplies. I do not think I have heard a single person mention the tens of thousands of Canadians who get their water from wells. Again, Mr. Speaker, in Ontario it used to be possible to test water in your well. As a farmer or a cottage person, you could take it to the local officer of health and you could have that water tested. That no longer exists.
Now that we have the industrial farm where there is an increased risk of truly deadly bacteria getting into the water table, we do not have free water treatment even though two decades ago or 15 years ago we did have. So we are regressing, not progressing. My difficulty with this motion is not the original motion. It is the amendment to the motion that says that we must respect jurisdictions.
We are afraid in the House to stand up as members of parliament and say that when it is a case of national safety, when it is the safety of Canadians, whether it is a criminal code, a justice, a law or a medical issue, we are afraid to stand up in this House and say that we should have national standards for water quality across this country, and we have to impose them upon the provinces if they are not willing to do it.
I do not think that is going to happen. Today I heard the Prime Minister say in the House that we had to respect provincial jurisdictions. It is going to be very difficult to turn that around considering what we have heard from the opposition. I note that only the NDP was prepared to suggest that the water quality standards that were being proposed should be mandatorily enforced.
If we are not going to intrude on provincial jurisdictions, then I suggest this national government has to do something, and it has to do something practical. Quite frankly, this is a feel good motion and does not do a darn thing. It just makes it look as though we MPs on both sides of the House are taking action when in fact I do not believe real action is being taken.
Therefore, I would like to suggest something to my own government. The government should invest in free testing for all communities and individuals across the country. If we cannot enter into provincial jurisdiction to fix the water treatment plants, then at least give Canadians, whether they are on a farm or in a municipality, an opportunity to test their water to see whether it is safe. If they find the water is unsafe, then they can go to their local politicians, be they municipal or provincial, and demand action. However right now it is a complete darkness, a complete void. People are drinking water and have no idea whether it is safe, and of course they are unwilling to test it themselves and often cannot afford to.
My suggestion, my contribution to this debate is that as far as the motion is concerned I am not at all happy with it. I just do not think it goes anywhere. However I am delighted to at least have had the opportunity to offer what I think is a constructive suggestion to the government, and that is to institute a nationwide free water testing program.