Water Haller: Federal Government’s Disappointing Disinterest
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Canada’s Competition Bureau has just "flushed" our hopes for federal support and leadership to address the economic, environmental and health threats of flushable wipes. We all know how much damage these self-proclaimed "flushable" wipes have wreaked on our systems and our municipal budgets. So on behalf of Canadian utilities, we reached out to the federal government to address these false claims of products being "safe to flush” and "sewer and septic safe.” But sadly, our requests were dismissed…and without even a cursory review.
For over 35 years now, the CWWA has been recognized as the national voice for Canada’s water and wastewater utilities. We are the first called upon by multiple federal departments and agencies to provide critical input on developing federal policies and programs for water. We have worked very closely with Health Canada on Drinking Water Guidelines, Environment & Climate Change Canada on Effluent Regulations and on Climate Action Plans, Public Safety Canada on Flood Risk and Cyber Security – and I can list many, many, more examples. I thank all of these federal professionals for reaching out to us as respected stakeholders and governmental partners. But sadly, the Federal Competition Bureau has never heard of us and has no interest in knowing anything about us.
Long story short – we have worked for over 10 years with professional utility organizations around the world to develop an internationally accepted standard for the term flushable. This global cooperative effort of water professionals developed the IWSFG specification. Recent legal action in the US has recognized the IWSFG specification as the acceptable standard when labeling a product as "flushable”.
So here in Canada, the CWWA, along with our colleagues at Friends of the Earth, submitted a formal complaint to the federal Competition Bureau calling for an investigation into the inappropriate labeling of products as "safe to flush”. We received an acknowledgement and a confirmation that they would open an investigation…and then silence. We waited almost 2 years before we received another letter informing us that they changed their minds and decided not to investigate this complaint. In that letter, they stated it was too confusing as there were, "a number of competing guidelines,” and that "at this time, enforcement action of the Act does not appear to be the most effective means of addressing the issue of what can be safely disposed of in sewer systems”.
We responded to this letter agreeing that there were "a number” of guidelines, but that number was just two – there was the IWSFG scientifically verified standard (developed by the professional owners and operators of wastewater systems) and the INDA guideline created by the manufacturers themselves (whose goal to is maximize sales profits). We also pointed to the US legal action that has proven to be the ONLY effective way of addressing this issue. We asked them what research, if any, they had conducted as they had not reached out to CWWA or to ANY wastewater professionals in Canada.
So, we appealed to the Minister responsible, Hon. François-Philippe Champagne, to order an investigation, but this request was promptly denied – a most disappointing response. We had a very clear situation of products not meeting an internationally recognized standard and that these products were knowingly causing many millions of dollars in damages and threatening the health of communities and the environment. Meanwhile they are pursuing charges against high-profile Keurig for claims of "recyclable” pods that ARE recyclable in some communities, but not ALL communities. And immediately after dismissing our complaint, the Bureau announced another high-profile investigation into the RBC with complaints that some of their ad campaigns are considered "greenwashing.” Good luck finding an internationally accepted definition of that and achieving anything but publicity.
I don’t normally get too political in this column, and I have repeatedly praised our federal colleagues for including us as partners in federal policy development. But this has been a most-disappointing encounter.
See you at the National in Halifax next week!
Do not miss the greatest networking opportunity for Water Leaders in Canada!
We haven’t been able to meet since before the pandemic, so this will be a fun and exciting event to share knowledge in our technical program, share business cards in the Marketplace, and share laughs at the Kitchen Party! Last chance to get registered:
National Water and Wastewater Conference - Canadian Water and Wastewater Association (cwwa.ca)
