Madam Speaker, these petitioners state that the International Joint Commission, which administers the Canada-U.S. Great Lakes water quality agreement, recommended in 1992 that Canada and the United States develop a timetable to sunset the use of chlorine in the Great Lakes watershed. Forcing campgrounds, restaurants, trailer parks and rural churches to chlorinate their drinking water, which will cost thousands of dollars that they do not have, violates this federal chlorinated substances action plan and international agreement.
Since there is no scientific evidence that the basis of the chlorinated water effluence being added to the list of toxic substances is being paid attention to, the petitioners call upon Parliament to instruct the federal environment minister to impose a moratorium on the expanded use of water chlorination in small, rural applications until other alternatives have been studied.