Lead in Drinking Water

The Ottawa-Carleton District School Board has a problem with dangerous levels of lead in drinking water at some of its schools, according to a new report from the Canadian Environmental Law Association (CELA). More than 100 samples of drinking water from OCDSB school taps exceeded the provincial lead maximum in 2024/25, according to the report.

For at least four years, Ontario officials have known that the provincial safety limit for lead in drinking water doesn’t go far enough to protect the public, newly released documents show. But despite internal proposals about taking action, and dialogue with municipalities regarding changes, no new lead quality standard has been introduced.

A leading group of environmental lawyers has asked the province to immediately address high levels of lead in drinking water at three school boards now under government control.

The Ministry of the Environment says Ontario has ‘stringent testing’ for lead in drinking water, and immediate action is taken to protect children.

In the past four years, nearly half the province’s public schools have had at least one test for toxic lead in drinking water exceed the federal safety guideline, an analysis by the Investigative Journalism Bureau has found. That lead-laced water could have impacted more than 800,000 students in roughly 2,300 elementary and high schools in that time even as new evidence reveals the toxin’s devastating impacts on human health.

Are you a parent living in Ontario? Your child may be exposed to drinking water at school or in daycare that exceeds the federal safety guideline for lead content. In collaboration with the University of Toronto’s HIVE Lab, we’ve developed an interactive database that allows you to check lead test results for Ontario schools and daycares between 2019 and 2023. Simply enter the name of a school or daycare in the box below and press enter. The results will appear automatically.

Hours after the Investigative Journalism Bureau (IJB) published a report exposing widespread provincial lead test failures in schools and daycares on Thursday, NDP environment critic Sandy Shaw voiced her outrage at Queen’s Park.

More than 40 Ottawa-area schools and daycares have repeatedly exceeded the federal lead safety guideline for drinking water.

The IJB’s investigation into lead levels in drinking water at Ontario schools and daycares has attracted extensive media attention throughout the province. Here is a repository of the coverage.

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.

The IJB releases short audio briefs explaining the stories we report. They’re meant to be a quick way to learn what we’re working on. We hope that you’ll listen. First up in this new feature is reporter Inori Roy discussing the recent investigation into lead in the drinking water of Ontario schools and daycares.