Transport committee  Thank you, Madam Chair. I'm Greg Carreau, director of the water and air quality bureau at Health Canada. I'm here today with my colleagues, Véronique Morisset and Scott Hancock. I don't have any formal opening remarks to make. I would just like to take a minute to thank you for

Transport committee  Thank you very much for the question. From Health Canada's perspective, we do not have a comprehensive inventory currently of all lead service lines that may exist across Canada. Of course, we are aware that lead has been used historically in infrastructure for drinking water acr

Transport committee  Thank you for the question. As I mentioned at the outset, we do work very closely with provinces and territories on the implementation of drinking water quality standards. Recently we have been working with the provinces and territories very closely on the issue of lead. We have

Transport committee  The implementation of our guidelines is a provincial and territorial responsibility, so we work very closely with them to transmit the current science, and particularly in this case, with lead-set numerical values for our guidelines, in consultation with provinces and territories

Transport committee  The provinces and territories have the mandate.

Transport committee  That's correct. We don't have the mandate to enforce them by legislation.

Transport committee  I can't speak to asbestos.

Transport committee  Specific to lead?

Transport committee  Yes, we understand there are some challenges with regard to implementing the new lead guideline as it moves forward. We understand that the majority of the sources are in the household, through brass fittings or solderings or the lead service lines that we've been speaking about

Transport committee  Yes, we have a sense of the impact and we've been working in the provinces and territories that have a much better sense, obviously. Yes, the sampling at the tap that is proposed in the new guidelines will give a much better indication.

Transport committee  Obviously, our mandate is to protect human health from drinking water with lead. It's beyond our expertise to look at the environmental exposure of the lead in the drainage system.

Transport committee  It's beyond my responsibilities.

Transport committee  No, I'm good.

Transport committee  It may be, you're right. As I mentioned, in our new guidelines we're advocating for and suggesting sampling at the tap, so you'd get a sense of the lead levels at the tap. Then you could do further investigations, if you're finding lead, to find out if it's a service line issue,

Transport committee  Yes, I think from the Department of Health's perspective, the new research that's come about in the early to mid-2000s suggests more of a human health effect than was previously known in the 1990s and previous to that, so we would agree with that.