Manitoba Stronger Together
Manitoba Bill Analysis
Bill 21
The Drinking Water Safety Amendment Act
Topic:
Drinking Water and Public Health
Sponsor:
Hon. Mike Moyes
Sponsor Position:
Minister of Environment and Climate Change
Current Status:
First Reading completed — awaiting Second Reading
Date Introduced:
March 11, 2026
Offical Bill URL:
Hansard URL:
Plain Language Explanation
Manitoba currently classifies water systems mainly by how they are used and how many service connections they have. A system serving one private residence is generally private, a system with 15 or more service connections is generally public, and most other potable systems are semi-public. The present Act gives the director limited power to classify a multi-user or commercial system as private, or a system with fewer than 15 connections as public. Bill 21 would replace that limited authority with a much broader power to designate any water system as private, public or semi-public. The designation must comply with future regulations, may include terms and conditions, and requires the approval of a medical officer after consideration of the potential public-health risk. A public or semi-public designation matters because those systems are subject to existing licensing, monitoring, assessment, record-keeping and water-quality requirements. The bill also creates a new ownerless-system power. If the director cannot identify an owner after reasonable investigation, or determines that no owner exists, and the water presents or may present a health risk requiring action, the director may order the owner or controller of the land to take over, operate and manage the system for a specified period at that person's expense. The bill does not automatically classify every rural, agricultural or private well as a regulated public system. The Act's definition of a water system is limited to a well or other works used or intended to produce, treat, store or deliver potable water for domestic purposes. However, the new designation authority could reach a single-residence, shared, community or bulk-water system that falls within that definition.
What Would It Change
• Water-system definitions: A system that would normally be private because it serves one residence could instead be designated public or semi-public. A system with 15 or more connections that would normally be public could instead be designated private or semi-public. • Classification authority: The director could designate any water system as private, public or semi-public, rather than being limited to the two narrow designation situations in the present Act. • Conditions and health approval: A designation could contain terms and conditions for water safety or environmental management, and the director would need a medical officer's approval. • Licensing: The Act would state in one provision that both public and semi-public systems require a current operating licence. This largely consolidates the existing licensing rules. • Ownerless systems: A new section 12.1 would permit the director to order the owner or controller of the land to take control of and operate an ownerless system at that person's expense when the existing public-health-risk prerequisites for a drinking-water safety order are met. • Deemed supplier status: The person ordered to operate the system would be treated as its water supplier and, if the system is public or semi-public, would have to obtain an operating licence. • Enforcement and appeal: Consequential amendments would allow the new order to be enforced under the Act and appealed to the minister. • Record keeping: The word 'written' would be removed from two provisions, permitting records and related requirements to be handled in forms other than paper.
Who Could Be Affected
Owners and operators of private, public and semi-public drinking-water systems; rural residents using shared or community wells; municipalities and local governments; community clubs, campgrounds, schools, restaurants, recreation facilities and other premises with small water systems; Hutterite colonies and other multi-user rural properties; owners or occupants of land containing an abandoned, historical or ownerless water system; purchasers, lenders and insurers dealing with properties that contain water infrastructure; users of community-access or bulk-water sources where the water is potable and intended for domestic use; medical officers of health; the Office of Drinking Water; and licensed water-system operators. A purely non-potable agricultural system is outside the statutory definition of a drinking water system, but a source used or intended to supply potable water for drinking, bathing, food preparation or other domestic purposes may fall within the Act.
Why It Matters
Classification determines the regulatory obligations applied to a water system. Public and semi-public systems must hold operating licences and may be subject to construction permits, testing, monitoring, water-quality standards, periodic infrastructure and source assessments, record keeping, reporting and orders to repair or upgrade the system. Bill 21 therefore gives the director a potentially important risk-based tool, but also gives the province the ability to change the legal and financial obligations attached to an individual water source. The ownerless-system clause is particularly significant because it can impose operational responsibility and potentially substantial costs on a person based on ownership or control of the land, even when that person is not established to be the owner, builder or former operator of the water system.
New Government Powers
• The director could designate any water system as private, public or semi-public, including changing the normal classification created by the system's use or number of service connections. • The director could attach terms and conditions to a classification for water safety or environmental management. • Cabinet could prescribe the factors, limitations, restrictions and conditions governing classification. • After reasonable investigation and a finding of public-health risk, the director could order the owner or controller of the land to take control of an ownerless water system and operate it at that person's expense. • The ordered person could be deemed the water supplier and required to obtain an operating licence. • If the person fails to comply, provincial officials could carry out the order, recover the costs, and the minister could require an interim operator arrangement. • The minister deciding an appeal could confirm, vary or rescind the decision or order, substitute another decision or order, send the matter back to the director, or seek advice from the Clean Environment Commission.
Regulations Required
The most important limits on the expanded classification power are left to regulations that have not been included with the bill. Cabinet may prescribe the public-health, system-use, design, connection, volume, seasonal, population, vulnerability or other factors the director must consider and may impose limitations, restrictions or conditions on the authority. The bill does not provide the proposed regulatory thresholds, exemptions, transitional rules or compliance supports. The new definitions, the power to designate any system, the consolidated licensing provision and the new classification-regulation authority do not take effect until proclamation. Existing regulations already establish many of the licensing, sampling, testing, assessment, reporting and operating requirements that would apply after a system is designated public or semi-public.
Potential Unintended Consequences
Small communities or private organizations may close shared or public-access water sources rather than assume uncertain licensing, testing, treatment or capital-upgrade costs. Municipalities or landowners may restrict access to community wells or bulk-water sites to reduce the likelihood of being treated as a public or semi-public supplier. The ownerless-system rule could create unexpected liabilities in property purchases, estates, tax-sale properties, former institutional sites or lands containing historical infrastructure. Insurers and lenders may begin requiring additional environmental and water-system investigations. Disputes may arise over who owns the system, who controls the land and whether the director's investigation was sufficient. If regulations are too broad, low-risk systems could face disproportionate costs; if they are too permissive, a large system could be placed in a category with inadequate oversight. Uncertainty before the regulations are published may itself lead owners to close, abandon or avoid maintaining useful community water sources.
Questions and Concerns
1. Regulations not disclosed: The bill's broad classification authority is said to be limited by regulations, but the Legislature and affected communities have not been shown the proposed factors, exclusions or thresholds. 2. 'Any water system': The wording permits a single-residence potable-water system to be designated public or semi-public and a 15-plus-connection system to be designated private. The bill does not state when such reversals are justified. 3. No express advance consultation: Medical-officer approval is required, but the bill does not expressly require notice to, or consultation with, the affected owner, users, municipality or community before designation. 4. Costs of reclassification: A public or semi-public designation can trigger licences, permits, testing, monitoring, assessments, reports, certified operation, treatment or upgrades. The bill contains no statutory cost estimate, grant program, hardship provision or simplified small-system compliance pathway. 5. Ownerless-system fairness: A landowner may be ordered to assume and fund a system without proof that the person created, operated, benefited from or caused the problem. 6. Undefined terms: 'Reasonable investigation,' 'does not have an owner,' 'controls the land' and the factors governing the specified operating period are not defined. 7. Appeal structure: The appeal is to the minister responsible for the Act, not automatically to an independent tribunal, must normally be filed within 14 days, and does not automatically stay the order. 8. Immediate burden: Because an appeal does not itself suspend an order, a person may have to begin incurring operating, licensing or remediation costs before the appeal is decided. 9. Public transparency: The bill does not require a public registry of designations, reasons, orders or outcomes. 10. Scope of rural claims: Statements that Bill 21 automatically regulates every farm, irrigation or non-potable well go beyond the statutory wording. The Act applies to potable water intended for domestic purposes. The real concern is the breadth of the designation power over systems that do meet that definition, including some shared, community or bulk-water sources.
MST Analysis
Bill 21 addresses legitimate public-health and enforcement problems, but it is primarily enabling legislation: the Legislature is being asked to approve a broad power before seeing the rules that will determine how that power is used. The ability to classify systems according to actual health risk rather than connection count alone can be sensible. It may permit both stronger regulation of a small high-risk system and less burdensome regulation of a larger low-risk system. The requirement for medical-officer approval is meaningful, but it is not a complete substitute for transparent criteria, notice, reasons and an opportunity for affected parties to respond. The ownerless-system clause addresses a real gap, because a hazardous system cannot simply be left unmanaged. However, assigning the full operating and remediation burden to the owner or controller of the land—without proving ownership of the system, fault, causation or prior benefit—is a substantial transfer of financial risk from government to private landowners and municipalities. MST also considers it important to correct both extremes in the public discussion. Bill 21 does not automatically classify every rural or agricultural well as public, and non-potable systems are not captured by the statutory definition. But the power is broad enough to reclassify a single-residence or community potable-water system once the relevant provisions and regulations are in force. The appropriate debate is therefore not whether the bill literally captures every well, but whether the safeguards, criteria, appeal rights and financial protections are adequate for the systems it can capture.
Potential Benefits
• A risk-based classification system may regulate small high-risk systems more appropriately than a fixed connection-count rule. • The director could reduce unnecessary regulatory burdens by designating a low-risk system into a more appropriate category, provided the regulations and evidence support that decision. • Medical-officer approval provides a public-health safeguard before a classification is changed. • The province could address unlicensed or misclassified systems more consistently. • The ownerless-system provision closes an enforcement gap when a dangerous system has no identifiable operator and immediate responsibility must be assigned. • Clear responsibility may help ensure testing, treatment, repairs, alternate water supplies and emergency action occur when users face a health risk. • Electronic rather than exclusively written records may modernize administration and reduce paper processes.
MST Conclusions
MST supports the objective of protecting drinking water and closing genuine enforcement gaps, but Bill 21 should not proceed in its present form without substantial safeguards and disclosure of the proposed regulations. Before Second Reading or committee approval, the government should publish draft classification regulations and conduct documented consultation with rural residents, municipalities, community-well users, agricultural organizations, small-system operators and public-health experts. The Act should require advance notice, written reasons, disclosure of the evidence relied upon and a reasonable opportunity to respond before reclassification, except in a genuine emergency. It should establish risk tiers, clear exclusions for non-potable and exclusively agricultural systems, proportionate standards for small and seasonal systems, transition periods, technical assistance and grant or hardship support. An ownerless-system order should be a last resort after documented efforts to identify responsible parties, and cost responsibility should consider causation, benefit, knowledge, ability to pay and public interest. The appeal period should be extended, an accessible independent review should be available, and a temporary stay should be available before irreversible costs are incurred. MST's recommended status is: public-safety objective supported, but further review and significant amendments required before passage.
How Citizens Can Respond
Bill 21 has received First Reading and may be registered for committee presentation now, even though the committee date has not yet been set. Manitobans can submit a written brief or request to make an oral presentation through the Office of the Clerk. Citizens should also contact their MLA and the Minister of Environment and Climate Change. Suggested questions include: What exact factors will permit a private well or community source to be designated public or semi-public? Which non-potable, agricultural, seasonal and emergency water sources will be excluded? Will affected owners and users receive notice and an opportunity to respond before designation? What are the expected licensing, testing, operator, treatment and capital costs for each class of small system? What grants or hardship measures will be available? How many ownerless systems are known to exist? Why should a landowner with no proven role in creating or operating a system bear the full cost? What constitutes a reasonable investigation? Why is the normal appeal period only 14 days and why is there no automatic stay? Will the government publish all classifications, written reasons and ownerless-system orders?