David Piccini, Ontario's Environment Minister, singled out Hamilton for two sewage leaks and says he is ordering an audit of the city's sewage system. Other cities, he said in the legislature, have aging underground infrastructure and do not have sewage leaks, so what's up with Hamilton?
One of those cities is not the City of Ottawa, which Piccini represents as the MPP for Ottawa North. Ottawa has recently had two sewage leaks, a 300,000-litre leak in November 2021 and more recently a 42,000-litre leak in March 2022. The November leak was blamed on a sensor malfunction. Sound familiar? Hamilton's Chedoke Creek leak was caused by a sensor malfunction.
By the way, the Ottawa River is the source of drinking water for over a million people in communities in Ontario and Quebec and the ability of a river to absorb and dilute a leak is a lot less than Hamilton Harbour due to the volume of water.
The Ottawa leaks were reported in the local news media so it is impossible that Piccini was not aware of them when he stood up in Question Period, prompted by Flamborough-Glanbrook MPP Donna Skelly, to cast aspersions on Hamilton. The question is, to what end?
Is Piccini ordering an audit of Ottawa's sewage system? No, and nor is one warranted. No community wants sewage leaking into its waterways. Ottawa discovered its leaks and fixed them, the same as Hamilton. The question for Piccini and Skelly is, why beat up on Hamilton?