A committee at city hall voted Wednesday to ask the province for permission to remove fluoride from Calgary's tap water. (CBC) A Calgary city council committee is recommending that fluoride be removed from the drinking water.

The utilities and environment committee voted five to one Wednesday to ask the province for permission to stop putting the chemical through the taps.

About 70 people made presentations at city hall during an all-day public meeting on the issue.

Opponents like James Beck argued that while the city offers assurances that the levels of fluoride are safe, it can't control how much people drink.

"Each dose itself will vary tremendously because our water intake varies tremendously. And then there are groups within the population such as diabetics who drink more water than usual, and people with kidney disease and infants who are particularly susceptible to some of the toxic effects," he said.

But Dr. David Keegan, a family physician, told the committee that fluoride should stay in Calgary's drinking water.

"Fluoridation helps everybody ... it helps little kids and helps older people," said Keegan. "The people it helps most, though, are people who are not able to get as great access to ... other ways to get fluoride, who aren't able to pay for fluoride enamel [from] the dentists or so on."

The issue now goes to city council for a final vote.

The city has held six plebiscites on the issue over the years, with 53 per cent of Calgarians voting in 1989 in favour of adding fluoride to the water.

The most recent plebiscite was in 1998, when 55 per cent of Calgarians who voted chose to keep fluoride in drinking water.