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A new human rights report released this week highlights Canada’s failures to address long-standing abuses, including the failure to provide clean drinking water to First Nations. The report published by the Human Rights Watch group outlines the lack of safe water access in indigenous communities across the country, despite the federal government’s promise in 2015 to end all drinking water advisories on First Nations reserves by 2021.
Lately, my home community has been on my mind as I recently read reports that the Canadian government had missed its own deadline to end all boil-water advisories on First Nations reserves. I imagined the extra pandemic risks that came with a lack of clean, safe water. I wanted to find out if there was anything being done about this clear violation of basic human rights.
Dozens of indigenous communities across Canada have still no access to drinking water more than a year into the coronavirus outbreak as the country’s liberal government has officially failed to deliver on its own five-year deadline to lift all drinking water advisories in First Nations reserves. Canada’s Auditor General Karen Hogan presented a report in February documenting the total failure of successive Canadian governments -- including Justin Trudeau’s -- to provide for Indigenous communities’ most basic needs, insisting that “Access to safe drinking water is a basic human necessity,” according to the US-based World Socialist Web Site (WSWS).
With tears in her eyes, Peltier has also pressed Prime Minister Justin Trudeau directly about the ongoing threat that oil pipelines pose to the environment, specifically clean drinking water. “I’m kind of still holding him accountable because I’m not going to forget that,” she said. “When you think about Canada, you don’t imagine having a crisis or issue this big because we’re looked at as a rich country." The Trudeau government promised to end all long-term water boil advisories on First Nations reserves by March 2021. As of last March, 88 were lifted, but 61 still remain. Even through the pandemic, Peltier’s activism hasn’t stopped. Along with completing her school work, she’s also been empowering other youth through online events and speaking engagements.
