The Globe and Mail reports in its Tuesday edition that Canadian financial institutions have landed in the middle of a crisis in the country's largest water provider. The Globe's Stefanie Marotta writes that Thames Water, which serves about 16 million customers in England, has been teetering on the edge of collapse for years. Large Canadian banks, pension funds and asset managers have grappled with managing their links to the flailing utility. The Canadian companies that have had exposure, or are currently exposed, to Thames Water include the country's largest lender, Royal Bank of Canada, pension fund Ontario Municipal Employees Retirement System (OMERS) and asset manager Fiera Capital. Thames Water is wrestling with a 20-billion-pound debt and has faced mounting public outrage over sewage spills. Its management has been attempting to restructure its operations. During the bank's third-quarter earnings release in August, RBC set aside $120-million in provisions -- money that banks set aside to cover potential defaults -- on a single loan, which CIBC analyst Paul Holden said in a note may be related to Thames Water. In 2017, Fiera Capital increased its equity investment in Thames Water and took a seat on the board.