Mr. Speaker, I am glad to be speaking today on an act to amend the Department of Health Act drinking water guidelines. Before getting into the sobering debate that is under way, I wish to quickly highlight the village of Zeballos in my riding, as it was voted best tap water in B.C. this year, according to the BC Water & Waste Association.
In principle, the NDP supports the bill's mandated guideline reviews since it has long called for a national water policy to secure the principles of water as a human right and a public trust. We need to have a discussion about more stringent national objectives and standards, in line with the European Union, United States, Australia, and the World Health Organization.
According to a 2014 report commissioned by the environmental litigation organization Ecojustice, drinking water standards in Canada continue to lag behind international benchmarks. With a country as rich as ours, and with so much freshwater resource at our disposal, it is quite shameful to be in this position, having to debate drinking water guidelines in the House in 2017.
There are two-thirds of all first nations communities in Canada that have been under at least one drinking water advisory at some time in the last decade, and people in many municipalities face repeated drinking water advisories. According to the latest figures from Health Canada, 85 first nations communities across Canada are facing a total of 130 drinking water advisories, 98 of them long term, and 32 short term. That does not include communities in B.C. where a separate first nations health authority tracks water quality.
It was a major promise in the last election to end drinking advisories in indigenous communities within five years. However, according to a recent report from the David Suzuki Foundation, the Liberal government is not on track to fulfill its promise and has no plan to get there. That is completely unacceptable, disappointing, and frustrating.
There is no regulatory framework holding the federal government accountable for safe drinking water in indigenous communities. This is largely because provincial laws and regulations that apply for municipalities do not apply to reserves, which are considered federal lands under federal jurisdiction. Enabling legislation passed in 2013 gave the government the authority to develop water and waste water regulations for first nations communities under the Safe Drinking Water for First Nations Act, but it does not compel the government to do so. This means that no level of government is currently held accountable to ensure that drinking water is clean and safe on reserves.
Engineers working in the field apply provincial standards as guidance for their operations. However, because of this informal approach, it does not empower communities in their efforts to hold the federal government accountable when underfunding, equipment breakdown, and other issues prevent them from maintaining these standards. Without these standards, there are victims in the path of this neglect.
Dorothy Firstrider of the Blood band said, “A lot of our community members are suffering from stomach infections that are due to unsafe drinking water.... A lot of our infants are constantly being treated for a lot of infections that are due to unhealthy drinking water.” That is not okay in our country. We will never achieve true reconciliation without addressing the inequality, and indeed the injustice, that has existed throughout this country for far too long with respect to drinking water.
It is completely unacceptable that successive federal governments have failed to honour the fundamental human right to clean drinking water in so many indigenous communities. There needs to be an expedited infrastructure development process. There needs to be more indigenous decision-making in the process, and there needs to be greater transparency in how the federal government is working towards upholding its promise to end drinking water advisories within five years.
The Liberals will claim they are spending money, but the additional funds allocated for first nations water systems in the 2016 budget represent less than half the amount that engineering firm Neegan Burnside estimated was necessary in 2011. Indigenous and Northern Affairs Canada's funding pressures will likely worsen as it finances new plants that tend to be more expensive to operate than their predecessors.
In my riding of North Island—Powell River, we have seen some progress in some areas. The clean water and wastewater fund joint initiative between the B.C. provincial government and the Government of Canada has awarded additional infrastructure dollars in the riding over the past few years. However, there are still some important challenges ahead. We still have highly coloured water or “cedar water” in some areas. Saline intrusion is an issue for wells on islands and near the coast, where groundwater is often a reservoir of fresh water on top of the more dense saline water. Kingcome first nation is concerned about its water supply. Comox has had significant problems with turbidity, causing extended boil water advisories fairly regularly over the last few years. It has just settled on a proposal for a new filtration system and is now working on funding, for which it will have a very large federal ask. It is so important that it be addressed. Like Comox, too many municipalities continue to face repeated drinking water advisories. The federal government needs to step up to ensure that every Canadian community has access to clean drinking water.
I see the bill before us today as a conversation starter, because experts have clearly demonstrated that Canada is lagging on many fronts when it comes to drinking water. Here are a few examples that the Liberals need to take in consideration.
Canadian drinking water objectives and standards should incorporate health based, long-term objectives for drinking water quality similar to the maximum contaminant level goals established by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. These long-term objectives would provide a vision for the future and clarify the distinction between purely health-based objectives and standards based on other considerations.
New Canadian drinking water objectives and standards should establish outcome-based treatment standards to ensure effective protection from microbiological organisms through advanced filtration, or an equally effective treatment process such as UV, for all communities in which drinking water supply is provided by surface water sources or groundwater that is directly influenced by surface water. This step is needed to address the threat to public health posed by microbiological contaminants, particularly protozoa and viruses. The U.S. has already taken this important step.
The last is establishing national standards for maximum allowable concentrations for microbiological, physical, chemical, and radiological contaminants. The U.S. and the EU have legally binding standards for maximum allowable concentrations in drinking water. Canadians should enjoy the same level of protection. One approach would be to create a federal safety net, so that the national standards would only apply on federal lands and in provinces and territories that did not provide the same level of health protection as the national standards.
In principle, the NDP will support this bill's mandated guideline reviews since it has long called for a national water policy to secure the principles of water as a human right and a public trust. I hope the government will respond to our call for more stringent national objectives and standards in line with the European Union, United States, Australia, and the World Health Organization.