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Latest news about the Safe Drinking Water Team
A Wiikwemkoong Elder could be featured on Canada’s $20 bill following a campaign to have an Indigenous woman featured on the note. CEO of the Native Women’s Association of Canada, Lynne Groulx, says they launched the “Change the Bill” in January, a campaign aiming to get an Indigenous woman featured on the bill to acknowledge contributions made in Canada.
It’s Tuesday, January 5, and Canada is spending billions on clean drinking water for First Nations communities. Tens of thousands of Indigenous people in Canada have spent decades without reliable access to clean drinking water. Now, the Canadian government has plans to put it right. A court-approved settlement released late last month commits Canada to spending more than $4 billion on improvements to drinking water infrastructure at hundreds of Indigenous reserves throughout the country. Another $1.18 billion will be provided in damages to some 140,000 First Nations people who have lived under drinking water advisories for longer than a year, often under orders to boil water to avoid potential contamination from bacteria like E. coli.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau no longer gives a specific date for fulfilling his broken 2015 election promise to end all long-term boil-water advisories on Indigenous reserves and it’s not hard to see why. He broke that promise when he failed to achieve the March 31, 2021 deadline he set for himself. On Monday, Trudeau said his government has eliminated 109 long-term boil advisories since coming to power in 2015 and will finish the job … eventually. Actually, they’ve eliminated 108 long-term advisories, and now have 51 (not 50) outstanding ones. That’s because the feds, as of Monday, hadn’t updated their own website to report the boil-water advisory for Okanese First Nation in Saskatchewan has changed from short-term to long-term.
It is to our national shame that many First Nations communities still don’t have access to potable water. That we have known about the problem for decades and failed to address it is a stain on our national character — one that Justin Trudeau and his Liberals made a lot of hay about addressing during the 2015 election campaign. “A Canadian government led by me will address this as a top priority because it’s not right in a country like Canada. This has gone on for far too long,” Trudeau said at the time, pledging to end all boil-water advisories on reserves within five years.
Canada is one of the wealthiest and most water-rich countries in the world. Yet many of its First Nations communities continue to lack safe drinking water — a basic human right. As of February, 61 Indigenous reserves were under long-term drinking water advisories, half of which remain unresolved after more than a decade. These water advisories warn people to either boil water before use, not to consume it, or avoid it altogether because of toxicity levels.
The pandemic has put some of the Liberal government's key deadlines of its reconciliation agenda in jeopardy, including a promise to end all long-term boil-water advisories on First Nations by next March. Last week's throne speech indicated a shift in language around the commitment to eliminate the long-term advisories. It made no reference to the 2021 deadline — which was clearly cited in the previous throne speech in 2019.
