“Water may fall from the sky for free, but the moment we ask society to clean it, move it, measure it, protect it, and return it safely to nature, it becomes one of the most valuable public services we own.” – MJ Martin
The Price of an Essential Resource
The title sounds ridiculous because the situation is ridiculous. If a neighbour cannot afford his water bill, a get ‘well’ card is not the remedy. Yet the joke exposes a serious Canadian problem. Clean drinking water feels natural, simple, and abundant, but the service behind it is expensive, technical, and aging. Canadians are not only paying for water. They are paying for treatment plants, pumping stations, chemicals, electricity, operators, buried pipes, wastewater collection, environmental compliance, asset renewal, and emergency repairs.
Statistics Canada reported that Canadian drinking water plants produced 4,869 million cubic metres of potable water in 2021, with 88 percent drawn from rivers or lakes. Households were the largest users, consuming 2,678 million cubic metres, or 55 percent of produced drinking water. Average household use was 223 litres per person per day.
Canada Uses a Lot of Water
Canada’s water story is full of contradictions. We are a water-rich country, but we often behave as if water is limitless. Vividcomm’s summary of Statistics Canada data notes that total daily water use averaged 401 litres per person in 2021, while residential use averaged 223 litres per person per day. It also notes that Newfoundland and Labrador reported the highest per capita water use, while Nunavut and Manitoba were among the lowest.
McGill’s Water is Life material adds useful historical perspective. In the 1600s and 1700s, Montreal residents used roughly 10 to 17 litres of water per person per day, about two bucketfuls. Today, modern indoor plumbing, showers, toilets, dishwashers, washing machines, lawn irrigation, institutional buildings, and industrial systems have transformed water from a carried necessity into an invisible utility. Vividcomm’s review of McGill-related material also notes that the average Quebec resident uses about 400 litres daily, while the average Montrealer uses approximately 225 litres per day.
Why Bills Keep Rising
Water bills keep rising because water systems are old, buried, energy-intensive, and capital-hungry. A municipality can defer pipe replacement for a few years, but it cannot defer physics. Pipes corrode, valves fail, pumps wear out, treatment standards rise, and climate change makes drought, flooding, and source-water quality harder to manage. Labour, chemicals, materials, construction, electricity, and financing costs all move upward.
Statistics Canada figures summarized by Vividcomm show that Canadian water utilities spent $936 million on capital upgrades in 2021, up 9 percent from 2020, and $1.3 billion on operations and maintenance, up 4 percent from 2019. Major operating costs included labour, materials, and energy.
The Cost of Leaks
One of the most frustrating reasons water costs rise is that treated water is being lost before it reaches customers. Water Canada reported that many Ontario municipalities estimate leakage of at least 10 percent, while actual assessments in some cases suggest much higher losses. Toronto has reported leakage of 10 to 15 percent, equal to 103 million litres per day, enough to serve a system of about 250,000 people.
That is not just wasted water. It is wasted treatment, wasted pumping energy, wasted chemicals, and wasted capital. Water Canada also reported that fixing leakage in one York Region section saved 139,000 cubic metres of water annually, $426,000 in costs, 102 megawatt hours of energy, and 4.1 tonnes of carbon dioxide.
What Can Be Done
The solution is not cheap water for everyone. Cheap water hides the true cost of service and encourages waste. The better answer is full-cost pricing with fairness. Municipalities should install modern meters, detect leaks faster, replace old mains strategically, use pressure management, publish clear asset-management plans, and support low-income households with targeted affordability programs.
Water is essential, but the infrastructure that delivers it is not free. A get well card will not help the neighbour. Better data, better pricing, better conservation, and better compassion might.
About the Author:
Michael Martin is the Vice President of Technology with Metercor Inc., a Smart Meter, IoT, and Smart City systems integrator based in Canada. He has more than 40 years of experience in systems design for applications that use broadband networks, optical fibre, wireless, and digital communications technologies. He is a business and technology consultant. He was a senior executive consultant for 15 years with IBM, where he worked in the GBS Global Center of Competency for Energy and Utilities and the GTS Global Center of Excellence for Energy and Utilities. He is a founding partner and President of MICAN Communications and before that was President of Comlink Systems Limited and Ensat Broadcast Services, Inc., both divisions of Cygnal Technologies Corporation (CYN: TSX).
Martin served on the Board of Directors for TeraGo Inc (TGO: TSX) and on the Board of Directors for Avante Logixx Inc. (XX: TSX.V). He has served as a Member, SCC ISO-IEC JTC 1/SC-41 – Internet of Things and related technologies, ISO – International Organization for Standardization, and as a member of the NIST SP 500-325 Fog Computing Conceptual Model, National Institute of Standards and Technology. He served on the Board of Governors of the University of Ontario Institute of Technology (UOIT) [now Ontario Tech University] and on the Board of Advisers of five different Colleges in Ontario – Centennial College, Humber College, George Brown College, Durham College, Ryerson Polytechnic University [now Toronto Metropolitan University]. For 16 years he served on the Board of the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers (SMPTE), Toronto Section.
He holds three master’s degrees – in business (MBA), communication (MA), and education (MEd). As well, he has three undergraduate diplomas and seven major certifications in business, computer programming, internetworking, project management, media, photography, and communication technology. He has completed over 80 next generation MOOC (Massive Open Online Courses) [aka Micro Learning] continuous education programs in a wide variety of topics, including: Economics, Python Programming, Internet of Things, Cloud, Artificial Intelligence and Cognitive systems, Blockchain, Agile, Power BI, Big Data, Design Thinking, Security, Indigenous Canada awareness, and more.
Martin in a volunteer, a photographer, a learner, a technologist, a philosophizer, and a romantic optimist.