Mr. Speaker, Canada has good drinking water generally, though we do face challenges with emerging contaminants.
That said, not all Canadians enjoy the same quality of drinking water. As we know, there are no enforceable national drinking water standards in Canada. Drinking water quality thus varies by province. Within provincial boundaries, there are problems with drinking water in rural areas, where accessibility to quality drinking water does not match what is available in urban Canada. Rural drinking water advisories are fairly commonplace.
As we know all too well, drinking water quality on first nation reserves is nowhere near what it should be in a country like Canada. Instead of implementing legislation, regulations, and standards that would bring first nations' drinking water to the highest national standards, the government has opened the door to allowing drinking water on reserves to meet only provincial standards, which vary across the country and are not uniformly the highest possible.
My earlier question period intervention, which we are debating this evening, was in response to the 2014 summer Ecojustice report card on the state of Canadian drinking water.
The report begins with the question:
What country is doing the most to ensure its citizens have the safest glass of water?
Australia? Canada? The Netherlands? If you guessed Canada--unfortunately--you're wrong.
That is what the report said.
To quote further from the report:
In dozens of instances, the Canadian Guidelines are weaker than those in other jurisdictions and at risk of falling farther behind. In many more cases, Canada has no standard for substances where other countries do.
What is the government doing, even within the current framework for governing voluntary drinking water standards, to ensure Canada has the best drinking water in the world, nationwide?