Water pollution in Canada is generally local and regional in water-rich Canada, and most Canadians have "access to sufficient, affordable, and safe drinking water and adequate sanitation." Water pollution in Canada is caused by municipal sewage, urban runoff, industrial pollution and industrial waste, agricultural pollution, inadequate water infrastructure. This is a long-term threat in Canada due to "population growth, economic development, climate change, and scarce fresh water supplies in certain parts of the country."
Comprehensive government initiatives The Canadian federal government launched a number of initiatives to respond to water pollution including the Freshwater Action Plan (2017), and the $1.5 billion Oceans Protection Plan (2018). These focus on improving water resource management, reducing pollution at the source, taking action on toxic substances, monitoring water quality, investing in infrastructure, and developing regulations like the Wastewater System Effluent Regulations. In June 2024, the Canada Water Agency, was established through the Canada Water Agency Act. Formerly, a branch within Environment and Climate Change Canada, the agency oversees the Freshwater Action Plan.
On December 11, 2023, Bill C-61, First Nations Clean Water Act, was introduced in Parliament. As of December 2024, it was still in the committee review phase. The Bill aims to address the long-standing water crisis in First Nations communities, where many lack access to safe and adequate water systems. Bill C-61 acknowledges clean drinking water as a basic human right and establishes a framework for water and wastewater services co-developed with First Nations.
Overview While most Canadians have access to clean water, locally and regionally there are cases of "public beach closures, contaminated sediments, algal blooms, aquatic weed infestations, fish kills, shellfish harvesting closures, boil-water advisories, outbreaks of waterborne illnesses, and contaminated ground water", according to a 1998 report from British Columbia.
Water pollution is caused by municipal sewage, urban runoff, industrial pollution and industrial waste, agricultural pollution, inadequate water infrastructure.
Surface water pollution There are two major types of water pollution in Canada, surface water pollution and ground water pollution.
Ground water pollution
Groundwater contaminants point sources include municipal landfill sites, industrial waste disposal sites, "leaking gasoline storage tanks, leaking septic tanks, and accidental spills". Distributed, or non-point sources include "infiltration from farm land treated with pesticides and fertilizers". Ground water pollution affects water supplies as the contaminants eventually reach rivers, lakes and oceans.
Sources Sources of water pollution include point sources, nonpoint sources, and trans-boundary sources.
Point sources In Canada, there are many monitoring programs in place to trace and regulate point source pollution, where pollutants can be traced to a "single identifiable source". By 1998, BC for example, reported that most "end of-pipe" point discharges from industrial and municipal outfalls" were generally regulated and controlled.
Nonpoint source pollution
Nonpoint source pollution (NPS) cannot be easily traced to one source, making them more difficult to regulate. They are released gradually into the water system from many different sources. NPS accounts for a "substantial amount of water pollution in Canada", the problem has not been addressed as vigorously as point-source emissions (pollution from a single identifiable source).
NPS pollutants from largely unregulated sources, include land development and agriculture. By 1998, British Columbia reported that NPS was the major "cause of water pollution in that province by 1998 and that these pollutants "pose significant and growing threats" to water resources.
The main types of NPS are sediment, nutrients, toxic contaminants and chemicals, and pathogens.
The major sources of NSP are urban and highway run off, the agricultural, forestry, and mining industries, marinas and boating activities. Fertilizer runoff, and agricultural waste water are examples of NSP in the agricultural industry. In urban areas, stormwater is an NSP, as is surface runoff on highways.
Popular beaches on the coast of New Brunswick, such as Parlee Beach, and Murray Beach Provincial Park have been contaminated by upstream sources, which may include "municipal sewage, or runoff from farms or forest clearcuts." The province initiated new water quality testing protocols for eight provincial parks including Parlee Beach, Murray Beach, Mactaquac Provincial Park, New River Beach, Mount Carleton, Oak Bay, New Brunswick, Miscou, and Val-Comeau because of "their popularity and because some of them had problems in the past".
Trans-boundary sources Transboundary pollution is water pollution that originates in one region or country but threatens water quality in another jurisdiction. An example is the contamination of the Columbia River by Teck Resources in Trail, British Columbia that contaminated the river downstream in the American State of Washington.
The American Chemical Society reported in July 2020, that new forms of Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFOAs) were detected in the Arctic Ocean. They reported "higher levels of PFAS" in the "water exiting the Arctic Ocean compared with the water entering the Arctic from the North Atlantic". These are considered to be "forever chemicals" because of their "persistence, toxicity, and widespread occurrence in the blood of general populations." PFASs are not manufactured in Canada and importing, selling, or using of PFOS or PFOS-containing products has been banned with some exceptions, since 2008.
Causes Municipal sewage According to Marq de Villiers in his 2003 non-fiction Water: The Fate of Our Most Precious Resource, until the 1970s approximately a third of Canadian municipalities dumped raw sewage into rivers with no waste-water treatment. By 2011, there was no national regulatory body for drinking water. Water pollution by sewage is one of the main culprits involved in polluting drinking water. By 2009, advocacy group Ecojustice estimated that raw sewage dumping in Canada represented approximately 200 billion litres a year. By 2009, the Halifax Regional Municipality in Nova Scotia was still dumping human waste directly into the Halifax harbour. Errors and inadequacies in sewage facilities resulted in 190 million liter raw sewage spill into the Ottawa River in 2004, and the release of "partially treated sewage water into the Red River in Winnipeg, Manitoba in 2011.
Sewage is not a waste product and it can be converted into wealth economically in a circular economy by using the aquatic life cycle of mosquitoes and non-biting midges. Organic matter in the sewage is consumed and transformed as adult mosquitoes and midges which can be used as fish/poultry meal.
In October 2015, Montreal intentionally dumped eight billion litres of raw sewage from an same interceptor sewer in the St. Lawrence River, the city made international headlines. It had been a common practice to dump sewage into the St. Lawrence prior to the 1980s. Montreal dumped 10 billion litres of wastewater into St. Lawrence in the spring of 2003, 7.6 billion litres in the fall of 2003, and 770 million litres of untreated wastewater in the fall of 2005. Heavy rains in Toronto has an older sewer systems that is overwhelmed often by heavy rains. The City is then forced to "bypass water-treatment plants and send raw sewage into Lake Ontario. In July 2013, a flash flood resulted in a billion litres of sewage and storm water overflowed onto city streets flowing into Toronto's harbour.
Halifax, Nova Scotia dumped raw sewage into the harbour prior to the construction of their new construction of their new wastewater treatment plant in 2008. There was some sewage discharged "unknowingly, when sewer lines were cut during construction".
Winnipeg, Manitoba dumped approximately 185-million litres of raw sewage into "Winnipeg's rivers since 2004 due to the city's antiquated combined-sewer system". The required massive upgrades to Winnipeg's sewage system would cost $4 billion.
Since 1894, Victoria, British Columbia began dumping raw sewage into waters that flow towards Puget Sound, United States. By 2015, the Victoria and Esquimalt region in British Columbia were dumping approximately 130-million litres of raw sewage every day into the Juan de Fuca Strait, which leads to the Pacific Ocean. This practice ended by January 2021, with the completion of a new $775 million sewage McLoughlin Point Wastewater Treatment Plant in Esquimalt that can treat the "equivalent of 43 Olympic-sized pools of waste daily".
Urban runoff
Canada has been studying the sources of urban runoff—stormwater and snowmelt—pollution for decades because it "contributes significantly to the deterioration of surface water quality in many locations". The major pollution source in urban runoff is from the "vehicular transportation-related activities and metallic building envelopes." By 1986, the federal Department of Environment had initiated a research program to identify, identify, and trace toxins to their sources, particularly in relation to urban runoff.
CBC's French-language service Radio-Canada reported that after heavy rainfall, Montreal's raw sewage mixes with rainwater and is allowed to flow directly into the St. Lawrence River and the Rivière des Prairies. Surfers in the area have gotten ill because of the polluted waters, which in some places, has coliform bacteria levels "20 times higher than the acceptable levels for swimming."
Industrial pollution and industrial waste
Agricultural pollution
Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada reported in 2014 that the agricultural sector contributes to water pollution through "surface runoff of pesticides, fertilizers and manure, or leaching of nitrogen into groundwater" which eventually is discharged into surface water bodies. These dissolved contaminants from agricultural activities enter into lakes, rivers or oceans.
According to a 4 August 2010 Drumheller Mail article, tests undertaken by University of Calgary researchers found an anabolic steroid, Zeranol—which is an estrogen-like compound—in samples taken in 2006 from the Tolman Bridge and Morrin Bridge on the Red Deer River, Alberta. The Zeranol "could be affecting the fish gender". The researchers said that this "contaminant comes from farms' cattle because it is not used in human medicine and therefore is not likely to come from municipal sewage treatment plant, the other possible source of contamination". According to a 2020 article in the journal Ambio, researchers have focused on the presence of "analytics compounds such as endocrine-disrupting chemicals (EDCs) or pharmaceuticals" in our water systems.
Inadequate water infrastructure
Long-term Drinking Water Advisories (DWA)s