Province needs to step up on water rates

Water rates were front and center last week.
Several citizens were upset with the second increase this year, pushing the annual water bill for a homeowner to nearly $1,000 per year in Rainy River.
However, after hearing water rates quoted for other communities in the district, I think people are missing the big issue here... water rates are expensive everywhere in Ontario.
Since the tragedy in Walkerton, Ont. last decade, the provincial government has ratcheted up the regulations on local water treatment facilities. These actions were a reaction to the loss of life in Walkerton with improperly treated water made it into the drinking system and people became sick and died.
Later it was discovered that staff at that plant were not doing their jobs properly. Had they done so the tragedy may have been averted.
So the reaction to the problem there was to make every plant in Ontario follow much stricter treatment protocols, which forces communities to pay much higher water rates. Water rates do not make towns profits. They are strictly cost recovery.
At first the pain in the pocket book was nominal. But now in many cases people are paying more for water and sewer than they do taxes for all the other services in their town's combined.
I think it is high time the province steps up to the plate and begins funding all or at least a good portion of this essential service. We can't live without it, but many folks can't afford to pay for it. And it is not just in Rainy River this is a problem.
–Until then,
Ken