NDP Leader Andrea Horwath is demanding the Premier take action after an investigation revealed more than 2,400 schools and daycares exceeded the normal amounts of lead in drinking water. Horwath says the repairing of drinking water systems at schools was better under the previous Liberal government, “the repair backlog was 15.9 billion dollars under the Liberals and now it stands at 16.3 billion dollars. Hardly surprising since one of the first things this Premier did was to cut 100 million dollars from school repair budgets. Will the Premier reverse his cuts and immediately fund the necessary school repairs to get the lead out of our children’s water?”
Ontario Education Minister Stephen Lecce responded saying, “this government is allocating 13 billion dollars over the next decade to improve schools in every region of the province of Ontario. We are also maintaining a 1.4 billion dollar allocation to maintain our schools.”
Many schools in Thunder Bay and the region well exceeded the national and provincial levels of lead in drinking water. However, there’s reassurance from the Catholic school board in the wake of reports the lead levels in school drinking water are too high. Pino Tassone is suggesting the figures quoted appear to be outdated, taken from tests done in 2016.
Tassone says over the last three years they have hired a consultant to do regular testing on the drinking water at all their schools. He says some of the higher numbers shown come from sinks that are not used for drinking and signs are posted so staff and students do not drink from them. The Director of Education states drinking water at all schools is safe.
The Lakehead Public School Board tells us they were made aware of the findings since the regulation has been in place since 2017. They’ve been monitoring their water quality since then and have taken action on those fountains that did fail. The official says they increase their flushing of the pipes and resample the water, they add filtration or replace the fixture if that is what the problem is.
The public school board notes parents don’t need to be concerned since they have taken action and their fountains are marked with green tags showing they are safe to drink and have been tested.
