Health minister says province will keep testing drinking water
Ontario Minister of Health Sylvia Jones is assuring the public the province has no intention of discontinuing private drinking-water testing by public health staff, as recommended by the Office of the Auditor General’s report.
“To be clear, there are no changes where the people of Ontario can get their well water tested for free in the province of Ontario,” said Jones April 21 in the legislature. “There are no changes to well-water testing.”
In a 2023 value-for-money audit of Public Health Ontario, the auditor general recommended gradually discontinuing free, private drinking-water testing. The proposal, the fifth of 10 recommendations made to the province, would help to save the government about $6 million that included closing down six of the 11 public health laboratory operations in an effort to “mitigate rising costs of repairs and upgrades.”
In a 2017 auditor general report about public health, a similar recommendation to discontinue free, private drinking-water testing was made. But the plan to reorganize laboratory operations in the province was upended with the onset of COVID-19 in 2020.
Hamilton is the closest laboratory that provides testing services, with others located in London, Orillia, Kingston and the largest in Toronto.
The auditor general’s report revealed that between nine per cent and 80 per cent of the laboratory tests — which also include testing for COVID-19, and H. pylori — were completed in-house, with the rest sent out to private laboratories for testing.
The Ministry of Public Health said in its response that it “will commence the phased recommendations of the plan, including the regional consolidation of the laboratories” but it provides no timeline for starting or completing the reorganization.
An April 10 letter from Bill Hodgson, chair of the Niagara Peninsula Source Protection Committee, and approved by the committee at its April 19 meeting, urged the province to reject the auditor general’s recommendation.
The organization is “concerned that the discontinuation of the free, drinking-water testing program provided by PHO will ultimately have a negative impact on the residents that rely on it in Ontario,” said Hodgson in the letter.
Hodgson said the free service “has been a valuable resource to those that do not benefit from the protections and safeguards offered by the province’s clean drinking water acts” of 2002 and 2006, “particularly in rural areas.”
The letter said information from the testing has also been critical to researchers as well that has revealed instances of bacterial contamination in private drinking water samples, including in the Niagara region.
Jones said in the legislature that Public Health Ontario has assessed and reviewed the auditor general’s recommendation and “perhaps, perhaps not (will) make a recommendation to the minister of health.”
“There has been no recommendation from public health to the minister of health. We will continue to test the well water in the province of Ontario. We’ve had it for decades.”
Hannah Jenson, deputy director of communications for the health minister, reiterated Jones’ statement, saying “what is in the auditor general’s report does not direct government action nor is it reflective of a government decision.”
Niagara’s NDP MPPS also urged the province to reject the idea of eliminating what they call a “lifesaving” service.
In an April 24 letter to Jones, Jennie Stevens, St. Catharines MPP, Jeff Burch, Niagara Centre MPP, and Wayne Gates, Niagara Falls MPP, said the free, drinking watertesting program is a “preventive measure against health crises like the tragedy in Walkerton where government cost-cutting on essential services like water testing led to disastrous outcomes.”
The former Progressive Conservative premier Mike Harris had to address an outbreak of E. coli in the Walkerton drinking water supply in 2000. It became contaminated because of improper water treatment following heavy rainfall which allowed manure from nearby cattle to flow into a shallow aquifer of a nearby well.
It was the worst E. coli outbreak in Canadian history, causing more than 2,000 cases of sickness and seven deaths.
It led to the Walkerton Inquiry, which among other revelations found the privatization of water testing by the provincial government was partly to blame for the disaster. Stricter water-treatment guidelines were established soon after the completion of the Walkerton Inquiry.
The MPPS said the province should talk to Niagara experts “to discuss alternative proposals for lab-testing efficiencies.”
In an interview, Gates said when he saw the source protection committee’s letter to the province about the possible discontinuation of the free, private drinking-water testing, it “really bothered me.”
“We should have learned from Walkerton,” said Gates. “It doesn’t make sense. We have to continue to do the testing. If we don’t, we will continue to have problems with our water. If we don’t have water, none of us will be here.”