Thank you, Mr. Chair.
It is a privilege to be with you today.
My name is Mathieu Laneuville. I am the president and chief executive officer of Réseau Environnement. We are proud to represent the largest association of environmental experts in Quebec. The City of Montreal and AquaAction are also members of Réseau Environnement.
We would like to address three major points today: underfunding of water infrastructure, water treatment, and the Canada Water Agency.
First, the underfunding of water infrastructure, to which Ms. Vodanovic has already referred, is not limited to Montreal; it affects all municipalities in Canada. This lack of funding is a major problem. I don't know whether people realize this, but municipal water infrastructure in Canada is one of our greatest collective assets. In Quebec alone, its replacement value is said to amount to over $200 billion.
Unfortunately, there has been a shortage of love for this infrastructure in recent decades, which means that today, the maintenance deficit for these assets represents almost 20% of their value. I should point out that there is an asset maintenance deficit when assets are in poor or very poor condition. Municipal employees in Montreal, Repentigny, Quebec City or Lac-Saint-Louis are working miracles with obsolete infrastructure that is constantly on the verge of breaking down.
We know that water is an essential service. We want water to be top quality at all times, but we are using drinking water to put out fires. There is a huge risk that there will not be enough water if a water main bursts, for example. There are also our hospitals, where many people go for dialysis treatment. If there is no more water, those people will die.
We have to think not only about the quality of our drinking water, but also about how important water infrastructure is for public services. That is why it is important for more to be invested and this asset maintenance deficit eliminated.
At Réseau Environnement, we are also proud to have partnered with HEC Montréal to demonstrate that investments in our water infrastructure are not only desirable, but also profitable. We have shown that for each dollar invested in water there is a return on investment of $1.72, taking into account all benefits for human health. For the young generations, IQ is falling by two to three points per decade because of new endocrine disruptors. We are seeing endocrine disruptors in our fish, but also in the new generations of human beings, like mine, and even in earlier ones. We are seeing how human beings, as well as fish, are finding it harder and harder to reproduce. So underfunding of our municipal water infrastructure has real world consequences.
The second point concerns water treatment, which Ms. Vodanovic talked about. At present, a lot of primary treatment is done in Canada. These wastewater treatment facilities were built 40 years ago. I would point out that 40 years ago, wastewater was not being treated. It was being dumped directly into watercourses. Then primary treatment of this water was started. That is fine, but today, given new technologies, which Ms. Chronopoulos talked about, and given emerging new contaminants, we have to proved public health and the health of our ecosystems better. That is why, at Réseau Environnement, we advocate treatment 2.0. Let's not keep using 40-year old technology. We have to adopt new standards. We could follow the example of Switzerland, for example, which has succeeded in treating 80% of emerging contaminants, unlike Canada, where we do a lot of primary water treatment.
Ms. Vodanovic spoke just now about ozonizing. In Repentigny, at present, primary treatment of wastewater is still being done. A lot of endocrine disruptors are being left in our watercourses. I am also thinking about the terrible floods on the Assomption River. I could also talk to Mr. Deltell about the Saint-Charles River, where there is flooding.
In anticipation of the upheavals caused by climate change, we have to invest massively in these collective assets.
The final point concerns the Canada Water Agency. Earlier, during the meeting with the first group of witnesses, there was talk about reduction at source. That is the best way to eliminate contaminants. We could tell you about good technologies, and the possibility of adding filters at the tap. However, the best solution is not to add filters, it is to eliminate the contamination at the source. We don't need perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, and we can regulate them. I think the Government of Canada is demonstrated good leadership in this regard. We have to continue our efforts, but we also have to do this for other families of compounds.
We have to succeed in creating this Canadian agency. Réseau Environnement, as a member of the Coalition québécoise pour des eaux saines and the Canadian Coalition for Healthy Waters, had recommended that this agency be created, and we are pleased with the progress made. However, we now need to back up our ambitions with resources. Réseau Environnement advocates an investment of $1 billion over five years for the Great Lakes and the St. Lawrence, and revision of the Canada Water Act. We will be paying close attention to the situation over the next few months.