For at least four years, Ontario officials have known that the provincial safety limit for lead in drinking water doesn’t go far enough to protect the public, newly released documents show.

But despite internal proposals about taking action, and dialogue with municipalities regarding changes, no new lead quality standard has been introduced.

Officials at the Ontario Ministry of the Environment met to discuss reducing the province’s lead limit from 10 parts per billion (ppb) to match the federal Health Canada standard of five ppb as far back as June 2021, documents show.

The internal presentation documents — one of which is titled “Minister’s Briefing” and contains what it describes as “confidential advice” on lead in drinking water — were obtained through a freedom of information request by the

Canadian Environmental Law Association

(CELA) and shared with the I

nvestigative Journalism Bureau

.

Lead is a neurotoxin that reaches drinking water through corrosion in pipes and plumbing fixtures. Most dangerous to children, it has been linked to reduced IQ and neurodevelopmental problems in adolescents, as well as health risks including cancer, kidney harm and cognitive decline in adults.

In the June 2021 presentation, provincial officials say that updating the standard for lead would “further reduce the potential for lead exposure and enhance protection of the most vulnerable groups.

“As no level of lead exposure is considered safe, health risk experts support lowering the lead standard to 5 ppb,” the documents add.

According to the presentation slides, officials discussed implementing a new water quality standard for lead by January 2022.

But while the presentation said targeted consultations had begun, and that input from these consultations would be used to build new “draft regulations” concerning lead, no new provincial regulations surrounding water levels have been put in place.

Four years on, it remains unclear whether the province is still considering toughening its lead standard.

Ontario’s Ministry of the Environment did not respond to repeated requests for comment.

The five-ppb guideline was first introduced by Health Canada at the federal level in 2019. Most provinces now heed the new federal standard, but Ontario is still using a limit of 10 ppb.

On June 11, 2021, an IJB analysis revealed that nine per cent of all lead tests in Ontario’s schools and daycares exceeded the federal safety guideline of five ppb.

At the time, in response to reporters’ questions, the environment ministry said in a written statement that “The province is reviewing its current policies and consulting on further actions to reduce levels of lead in drinking water.”

On June 29, 2021, 18 days after the IJB investigation, the briefing presentation discussed toughening the lead limit to meet the federal threshold.

“There are opportunities to streamline and strengthen Ontario’s lead action plan,” the presentation says. “Ontario’s current standard is less stringent than the new guideline and the province has been criticized for not adopting it.”

The presentation states that updating the lead quality standard would “ensure that Ontario remains a leader in drinking water protection.” The documents are partially redacted and do not show specific proposals beyond an implementation timeline.

Though it says the “toxicity of lead is well known,” the presentation also states that at that point, Ontario’s Chief Medical Officer of Health had “not received any reports of lead toxicity in Ontario children that have been linked primarily to drinking water in the last 10 years.”

While the documents indicate provincial officials have been discussing lead in drinking water for years, lead test results have reached levels that some experts say pose dramatic and widespread health risks.

Data from 2023-24 shows 26 municipalities in Ontario reported at least one lead test that exceeded the provincial limit of 10 ppb. Using the federal government’s more stringent five-ppb guideline, the number of municipalities that were reported to have exceeded the level jumps to 38.

Last year, the IJB published a

groundbreaking report

that revealed nearly half of Ontario’s schools had exceeded lead levels between 2020 and 2024. The IJB has made that data publicly searchable on its

Lead Tracker,

allowing parents and students to search all test results for five years by name of school or daycare.

Dr. Bruce Lanphear

, an early-childhood health and lead-poisoning expert from Simon Fraser University, said that lowering the provincial limit in 2022, as officials discussed in the documents, could have had a “noticeable impact” on lowering the lead levels in children’s blood.

Miriam Diamond, an environmental sciences expert and professor at the University of Toronto, told the IJB that government inaction on lowering Ontario’s lead standard is a public health failure.

“You’ve got our civil servants doing their work as they should and the frustration is the best advice is not being translated into action,” she said. “It’s painful to see our authorities not following the evidence when people’s health is at risk.”

Partial pipe replacements ineffective

Underground lead-service lines, which connect buildings to water mains, are the prime source of lead in drinking water.

In Ontario, municipalities are responsible for ensuring tap water doesn’t exceed the province’s lead standards. If it does, the presentation briefing seen by the IJB points out, municipalities have to “develop comprehensive lead service line replacement programs and/or lead corrosion control plans.”

However, this process is expensive, and complicated by the fact that these lines are jointly owned by municipalities and homeowners, leading to fractured responsibility between residents and officialdom.

A new CELA report released today says the majority of Ontario municipalities make it optional for property owners to replace lead-service lines on the owner’s side of the property line.

Replacing only the part of the line the municipality is responsible for “leaves dangerous lead infrastructure in place” and increases the risk of lead exposure in the short-term, says the report.

CELA has called on the Ontario government to pass a law that would prohibit partial lead pipe replacements and outline financial support plans to cover replacement costs for residents.

“Given their powers over water systems and property standards, Ontario municipalities are in a unique position to enable faster and more effective removal of lead drinking water infrastructure,” CELA notes in its report.

Some Canadian municipalities, including Saskatoon, Québec City and Montreal have mandated full replacement of any lead piping used for drinking water.

In Ontario, Hamilton has a bylaw prohibiting residential buildings connected to the city water supply from having lead pipes, unless the city portion of that water system itself contains lead.

Meanwhile, the agency responsible for water in the Halifax Regional Municipality has pledged to replace all lead pipes by 2038, “at no cost to the property owner.”

The CELA report’s lead author, Julie Mutis, said that mandating full lead pipe replacement is a “matter of changing the status quo.”

“Lead in water is something that is not flashy. You can’t see it, you can’t taste it. But it’s always having a society-wide impact … We hope that there are municipalities out there that are excited about doing … the right thing about lead.”

— With files from Masih Khalatbari.

The Investigative Journalism Bureau (IJB) at the University of Toronto’s Dalla Lana School of Public Health is a collaborative investigative newsroom supported by Postmedia that partners with academics, researchers and journalists while training the next generation of investigative reporters.

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OTTAWA — Two separate paths to party renewal — and three very different contenders — have emerged as the race to choose the next leader of the federal NDP begins to take shape.

While still in its opening weeks, the contest is already shaping up as a referendum over whether the NDP should double down on courting middle-class moderates or focus its energies on reconnecting with its traditional blue-collar base.

“We’re starting to see two clear visions for the party emerge,” said former NDP strategist Erin Morrison, now a vice-president at Texture Communications. “One’s saying it’s got to be a bigger tent, and one’s saying we have to get back to our core roots of who we are as a party.”

“Those visions are not necessarily mutually exclusive, but they are different in terms of their focus and the strategy moving forward,” said Morrison.

National Post spoke with

three of the four

leadership candidates — Edmonton MP Heather McPherson, third-generation party scion Avi Lewis and British Columbia labour leader Rob Ashton — to get their thoughts on the big question at the heart of the race that will be decided next March. (The fourth, Campbell River, B.C., city councillor Tanille Johnston, didn’t respond in time for publication.)

McPherson said she was happy to be the big-tent candidate, pointing to the simple arithmetic of the NDP’s current circumstances.

“My offer … is that I want us to win more seats, because I think when more New Democrats get elected, more good things happen for Canadians. And so, for me, I think we need to start welcoming more people to come and sit around the table,” said McPherson.

The NDP had its worst result ever, in April’s federal election, sinking to just seven MPs, five fewer than the number needed for official party status. The party also saw its vote share drop by more than 10 per cent from the 2021 election, falling to a paltry 6.3 per cent.

McPherson said that it was impossible for the party to regain lost ground while subjecting its ranks to

increasingly stringent purity tests

.

“Ultimately, what we are is a political party, and ultimately as a political party, we need to win. The only way we help Canadians is if we win,” she said.

McPherson has already received some backlash for her efforts after her September campaign launch sparked a minor uproar online, with fellow NDP MP Leah Gazan writing on social media that McPherson’s dismissal of ideological “purity tests” was

a racial dog-whistle

.

“‘Purity test’ … protects the status quo, which has historically privileged white, male, and able-bodied workers as the default voice of the working class,” wrote Gazan in a widely shared post.

Interim NDP leader Don Davies told reporters last week that he wasn’t worried by “divisions” within his caucus over the leadership race and, in fact, welcomed such “robust discussions.”

”You know, we’re a very democratic party … and sometimes democracy can expressed in robust ways,” said Davies.

Gazan has

ruled out a bid

for the NDP leadership.

Lewis says he respects McPherson but has a different take on the NDP’s electoral collapse, arguing that ex-leader Jagmeet Singh’s 2022

supply and confidence agreement

with then prime minister Justin Trudeau created confusion about what the party stood for.

He said he saw this confusion firsthand when he ran unsuccessfully for a

seat in downtown Vancouver

.

“From knocking on around 10,000 doors myself … I can tell you that Canadians, at least in Vancouver, were super confused. Jagmeet seemed so angry at Justin all the time, and yet he was still supporting him and keeping his government in place,” said Lewis.

He added that, as a result of this confusion, voters didn’t see the NDP as a “serious alternative” to the Liberals.

Lewis said that the way forward for the NDP isn’t to tack to the mushy middle, but to speak uncomfortable truths about the structural factors making life so unaffordable for everyday Canadians.

“I believe that the NDP’s role in our democracy is to have the correct diagnosis, because we are the party that is critical of capitalism. And I think without being critical of the economic system in which we live, you actually can’t understand why things are so hard for working people,” said Lewis.

Lewis has come

out of the gate swinging

, promising to break up major grocery, telecom and banking oligopolies, and slap a wealth tax on high-net-worth Canadians.

He says that the revenue accrued from making those at the top pay their fair share will help fund big-ticket social policies like a national rent cap, public option for groceries, and expanded national prescription and mental health care coverage.

Lewis, the son of former Ontario NDP leader Stephen Lewis and grandson of former federal leader David Lewis, described his own upbringing in Toronto as “upper-middle class,” but said this wouldn’t make him any less of an effective voice for workers.

He said the proof of his connection to workers, in Canada and across the world, is in his

extensive body of work

as a journalist and documentary filmmaker focused on telling the stories of the left behind.

“The notion that I am somehow ill equipped to speak in the language of working people is just a caricature. It’s what I’ve been doing all my life as a journalist, and I’m very proud of the incredible breadth and range of connections I’ve had with people, from peasant farmers to factory workers to migrant workers,” said Lewis. “I have connected with every single kind of person there is, because that’s the work.”

Lewis still acknowledged that his family pedigree makes him the “nepo baby” in the race, and said he could handle the name calling.

“‘Nepo baby’ is fine and cute. I mean it’s not my fault, but I wear it … I’m okay with the epithet,” said Lewis.

One candidate who’ll have no trouble demonstrating his

blue-collar bona fides

is newcomer Ashton, currently the B.C.-based president of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union Canada.

Ashton, a burly, plainspoken career longshoreman with a Santa-esque white beard, is quickly being embraced

as the vibes candidate

among

the most online segment

of the party. A 2023 clip of him

declaring a “class war”

while decked out in a vintage Montreal Expos jersey — a

gift from longshore workers

at the Port of Montreal — made the rounds on social media as he jumped into the race earlier this month.

Like Lewis, Ashton hasn’t shied away from class rhetoric on the campaign trail.

“I’m running because I’m sick and tired of watching working people get screwed,” said Ashton

at his leadership announcement

near Toronto.

Ashton told the National Post that his blue-collar background, and ability to communicate with other workers, would help the NDP reverse the Pierre Poilievre-led Conservative party’s gains

with working-class voters

.

He says that career politician Poilievre’s appeals to Canadian workers lack authenticity.

“I don’t think Pierre Poilievre’s drank more than one cup of coffee in a lunch room in his life,” said Ashton.

Ashton has said he’ll take time to speak with party members before rolling out a detailed set of policies.

Lewis, for his part, said he not going to try to out-everyman Ashton.

“If this NDP leadership race is a personality race, and if we’re being chosen by our biographies as reported by the mainstream media, then we’ve already lost,” said Lewis.

Lewis said he was more focused on substance than image.

Clement Nocos, director of policy and engagement at the Broadbent Institute, says that image does matter in social democratic politics, as shown by the frequent criticisms Singh received for wearing expensive suits

and toting luxury items

.

“There’s one thing to be said for aesthetics … or maybe what our right-wing opponents like to call virtue signalling,” said Nocos.

Nocos said this criticism was unfair, as Singh has explained that he

dressed meticulously to overcome

implicit racial bias. He nevertheless conceded that Singh’s sartorial choices weren’t always “communicated properly” to the public and ended up becoming a distraction.

Progressive blogger and lapsed NDP voter Evan Scrimshaw said Ashton is the most likely of the three candidates to coax him back into the fold.

“Ashton’s got to put a lot of meat on the bone, still but he at least understands that the NDP needs to centre economic class as their defining axis, and seems to be hinting towards less purity tests on social progressive shibboleths,” said Scrimshaw.

Scrimshaw voted Liberal in April, after voting NDP in 2021.

He called McPherson “continuity with a different face” and panned Lewis’s costly promises as “unserious.”

The three contenders will share a stage at the leadership campaign’s first candidates forum, set for

Oct. 22 in Ottawa

.

National Post

rmohamed@postmedia.com

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Americans are far more likely than Canadians to believe “religion has a positive influence on societal values,” according to a new poll.

The survey, conducted by Leger for the Association for Canadian Studies, found just over a third (34 per cent) of Canadians agreed with the statement, compared to 53 per cent of Americans.

There were noticeable geographic and demographic differences within both countries. In Canada, the lowest levels of support for the view of religion’s positive impact on society came from Quebec (20 per cent) and British Columbia (28 per cent). By comparison, Ontario (44 per cent) and the Atlantic provinces (38 per cent) were far more likely to agree with the statement. Pollsters dug deeper and found that within Quebec, the francophone community was far less likely to agree (14 per cent) with the statement than anglophones (31 per cent).

As Canadians prepare to gather on Monday to celebrate Thanksgiving, which was founded as a Protestant Christian holiday, Jack Jedwab, the president and CEO of the Association for Canadian Studies, said the divergent perceptions of the value of religion highlight important national differences.

“Despite both countries saying they separate ‘church from state,’ Canada is far more likely to see secularism as good for societal cohesion,” Jedwab told National Post in an email.

“The gap in terms of religion being seen as a positive influence in the two countries is wider than I would have expected, and while there is some generational divide on the issue in the United States, there isn’t one in Canada.”

Americans living in western (35 per cent) and northeastern (26 per cent) states were most likely to disagree that religion has a positive social influence.

In both Canada and America, men were more likely than women to see religion’s positive social influence.

While rates of support for the statement steadily increased by age group in America, in Canada, it has two major peaks, those aged 35 to 44 (37 per cent) and people over 65 (38 per cent).

“I would add that in Canada, where there was once a generational divide as regards the influence of religion, the survey confirms that it’s no longer the case,” Jedwab said. “Ontario is the only part of the country that is closer to America’s majority view that religion has a positive influence on society, and that’s likely attributable to the higher percentage of immigrants that have a more positive view of religion.”

Jedwab underscored the difference in views between immigrants and citizens in both countries. In Canada, newcomers (50 per cent) were far more likely to see religion’s positive impact than people born in the country (31 per cent). By comparison, American immigrants and citizens had views that were closer to one another. Fifty and 53 per cent agreed with the statement, respectively.

“Immigrants in both Canada and the U.S. have similar views around the positive influence of religion, and the gap, therefore, between the two countries is largely a result of the difference between the domestic-born population,” Jedwab said.

The online poll of 1,627 Canadians and 1,014 Americans was conducted between Aug. 29 and 31. A margin of error cannot be associated with a non-probability sample in a panel survey for comparison purposes. A probability sample of 1,627 respondents would have a margin of error of plus or minus 2.52 per cent, 19 times out of 20. A probability sample of  1,014 respondents would have a margin of error of plus or minus 3.95 per cent, 19 times out of 20.

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