McKenna Deighton photo illustration / Toronto Star
More than 120 journalists. Hundreds of interviews. Thousands of documents. Tens of thousands of pieces of data. One conclusion: Canada has an insidious problem with lead in drinking water. A groundbreaking national investigation involving 10 media organizations and nine universities exposes new revelations about the scope of the public health risk flowing from our taps.
The most recent data shows one in 10 water quality tests from Ontario schools and daycares found lead levels above Health Canada’s maximum accepted concentration of 5 parts per billion (ppb), a Toronto Star/Investigative Journalism Bureau investigation has found.
An open letter written by Hamilton MP Bob Bratina says the government “can and must” direct a portion of infrastructure spending designed to revitalize the post-COVID-19 economy into the “national public health crisis we face in the form of lead-contaminated drinking water.”
In the past three years, more than a third of schools and daycares that tested for lead — 36 per cent — had at least one exceedance of Health Canada’s guideline of 5 parts per billion (ppb)
The water distribution system on Oneida territory — operated by the community with regulatory oversight from Indigenous Services Canada — has failed to meet provincial standards dating back to 2006
For more than 15 years, politicians and health officials in the township of New Tecumseth have known the tap water in Tottenham, population 5,000, contained suspected carcinogens called Trihalomethanes
More than 2,400 Ontario schools and daycares exceeded the current federal guideline for lead in drinking water in the past two years, a Toronto Star/Ryerson School of Journalism investigation has found.
Have questions about how to get the lead out of your house? From Halifax to Vanvouver, we’ve rounded up answers from Canadian cities
Former senior City of Toronto engineer Liza Ballantyne posed an intriguing question to the city’s associate medical officer of health in December 2017: When the city has residents test their tap water for lead, why does it tell them first to run or “flush” their taps for five minutes?
Inside their downtown Montreal duplex, Stéphanie St-Onge and her three young children have spent their entire lives unwittingly drinking tap water laced with lead.
When Ontario municipalities test for lead in homes, they are supposed to follow clear ministry regulations requiring faucet aerators remain attached when water samples are taken.
Provincially published results of lead tests at the tap show that only one in five municipalities have reported any results over the last two years
Hundreds of thousands of Canadians are consuming tap water laced with high levels of lead leaching from aging and deteriorating infrastructure.
