Ontario introduces bill to ensure safe water
Date: 31-Oct-02
Country: CANADA
"Today we are taking another step to ensure that the tragic events that happened in Walkerton never happen again," Ontario Premier Ernie Eves said, referring to the rural community of Walkerton, where the deaths occurred and where water contaminated with a deadly strain of E. coli also made thousands sick.
The Safe Water Drinking Act comes in response to recommendations from the Walkerton Inquiry, a probe by Ontario Justice Dennis O'Connor into how the town's water became infected.
O'Connor's inquiry called for Ontario to spend C$280 million ($180 million) to upgrade systems to ensure safe water. It found that implementing the reforms would cost between C$7 and C$19 per household per year in Ontario, Canada's most populous province with more than 11 million people.
The water bill will require that all water-testing laboratories be licensed, a first in Canada.
Among other reforms, it will create a new position of chief drinking water inspector and new standards for water testing, treatment, distribution and quality.
Critics have lambasted Ontario's governing Conservatives for being responsible for the Walkerton tragedy because they gutted the Environment Ministry's budget after they came to power in 1995.
When Eves announced his latest budget in June he promised C$500 million over the next two years to ensure safe and clean drinking water.
He has tried to reach out to environmentalists, teachers and public employees who were were alienated by the hard-line, pro-business policies of his predecessor Mike Harris.
