Environment committee  That's a good question. The fact is that the American regulatory approach is very different from Canada's. In the United States, the regulatory approach has to be based on science, and excludes what we call the precautionary principle. If a standard is introduced in the United States, it's because a cost-benefit analysis has shown that it would benefit American society.

Environment committee  I agree with you. They do indeed complement one another. In fact, the multi-barrier approach was developed in the 1990s. The current drinking water regulations recommend, among other things, that there be less than one parasite per 100,000 litres of water. Now today, in 2023, this is impossible to demonstrate in a laboratory.

Environment committee  Yes. The Netherlands and Australia. The multi-barrier approach was approved by the World Health Organization. In the water industry, there is currently consensus on it.

Environment committee  As part of our research, we develop technological solutions. From now on, we are systematically doing a life-cycle analysis, meaning an analysis that addresses more than simply cost and performance targets. The difficult part is that there is currently no clear consensus on which new performance indicators should be used to evaluate solutions.

Environment committee  To be perfectly clear, agriculture is a major source of pollution. It has always been that way, and it still is today. Farmers use fertilizers, and climate changes have been leading to extreme events that lead to an accelerated flow of these nutrients, which ultimately end up in our lakes and rivers.When that is combined with a warmer climate, the conditions are perfect for the growth of cyanobacteria and algae.

Environment committee  The good news, fortunately, is that the situation is much less serious in Canada than in the United States with respect to perfluorinated compounds. The main reason is that Canada has never produced these compounds. In the United States, new regulations will affect 67 million Americans—I've never seen anything like it in my career.

Environment committee  Thank you for the question. I do in fact believe that we've reached a point at which we have to build various financial requirements into grant applications in order to address other types of challenges. For example, for about 15 years now, the Quebec government has been requiring reduced water use and tying funding for new drinking water infrastructures to reduced water use targets.

Environment committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. To briefly introduce myself, I've been a professor at the Polytechnique since 2004, co‑chairing a drinking water research chair, and the director of CREDEAU, the Centre for research, development and validation of water technologies. Given my background, I would like to share with the committee my views on major water processing concerns in Canada.