The Clean Water and Wastewater Fund (CWWF) was a three year (April 1, 2016 to March 31, 2019), $1.9 billion contribution program that provided funding to provinces, territories and municipalities to support community water and wastewater infrastructure and to enable municipalities to meet the requirements of the federal Wastewater System Effluent Regulations.

Between April 1, 2016 and March 31, 2019, the number of approved projects under CWWF, INFC’s contribution and claims paid were as follows:

CWWF program overview (April 1, 2016 to March 31, 2019)
2,394 projects	$1.9 billion in federal contributions	$907 million in claims paid

Source: Infrastructure Canada Financial Report, April 3, 2019.

Claims for CWWF projects continued to be paid and outcome reports received after this period, though these were outside of the scope of this evaluation.

Infrastructure Canada’s evaluation of CWWF assessed the extent to which the program addressed drinking water, wastewater and storm water infrastructure needs, progress towards program outcomes, and the extent to which projects were inclusive.

Key findings

CWWF has addressed needs for drinking water, wastewater and storm water infrastructure.

Source: Infrastructure Canada Financial Report, April 3, 2019.

Text description of figure 1

Figure 1: Number of approved projects by identified needs/ priorities

This figure presents the number of approved projects by category and by province and territory. The distribution is as follows:

• Newfoundland 96 water, 34 wastewater, 2 stormwater
• Prince Edward Island 11water, 28 wastewater and 8 stormwater
• Nova Scotia-41 water,34 wastewater
• New Brunswick 56 water, 60 wastewater and 13 stormwater
• Quebec 141 water, 37 wastewater and 11 stormwater
• Ontario 544 water, 469 wastewater and 341 stormwater
• Manitoba 32 water,27 wastewater
• Alberta 51 water, 15 wastewater
• British Columbia : 103 water, 68 wastewater et 9 stormwater
• Saskatchewan 59 water, 49 wastewater,
• Yukon 12 water, 8 wastewater
• Northwest Territories 2 water, 2 wastewater
• Nunavut 0 projects

CWWF has made progress towards wastewater treatment infrastructure meeting federal regulatory requirements, system optimization and improved asset management and the rehabilitation of water, wastewater and storm water infrastructure.

For future programming, drinking water programming terms and conditions could take into consideration the location of drinking water advisories and of Indigenous populations off-reserve in order to better align funding to need.

The evaluation went beyond assessing the extent to which CWWF met the requirements for gender-based analysis in program development and implementation, to examine program results and external data through an inclusiveness lens more broadly. The intention of this analysis was not to draw conclusions on the relevance or effectiveness of CWWF, but rather to use available data to identify potential areas to consider in the development of future infrastructure programming. The analysis revealed that the need for water infrastructure was not always targeted through provincial distribution of CWWF funding.

When looking at drinking water advisories and Indigenous populations off-reserve, CWWF funding was not always distributed by provinces to locations with the highest reported rates of drinking water advisories.

The evaluation has no recommendations, as issues related to the program’s performance measurement are being addressed through the Investing in Canada Infrastructure Program’s performance measurement strategy.