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Latest news about the Safe Drinking Water Team
The Liberal government tabled much-anticipated legislation Monday that aims to improve water quality in First Nations communities, improve collaboration on water protection and codify a new First Nations-led commission. The long-promised bill, which Indigenous Services Minister Patty Hajdu is touting as the result of immense collaboration and knowledge-sharing, would apply a new framework for source water, drinking water, wastewater and related infrastructure on First Nations land.
The federal government says it's signed its first major nature agreement with a province and First Nations to mutually support protecting 30 per cent of lands and waters by 2030. In Vancouver on Friday morning, federal Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault joined B.C. Premier David Eby, several cabinet ministers from both governments and First Nations leaders to announce a $500-million commitment from both governments for an agreement that would help conserve and protect land, species and biodiversity in the province.
The First Nation that has been the source of Winnipeg's water for more than a century is suing the city and federal government, saying it's never been compensated for the harms suffered as a result of the city's water diversion system. When it was build in 1915, Winnipeg's aqueduct left Shoal Lake 40 isolated on a man-made island that was only accessible by ice road in the winter or barge in the summer.
He admitted it can be difficult, pointing to the ongoing challenge of pressuring the federal government to provide drinkable water to Canada’s remote Indigenous communities. Obed said there were 298 boil water advisories between 2015 and 2020, including four that went on for more than a year and 50 that lasted more than three months. “This is part of our job,” he said of keeping Canadian government leaders accountable to fix these problems. “Our job is to articulate and quantify what it means to eliminate an infrastructure gap. These require billions of dollars, new relationships, and on ongoing effort where you tweak it over time.”
A new display at the Canadian Museum of History in Ottawa will highlight the activism and accomplishments of Anishinaabe water-rights advocate Autumn Peltier. The display will be available for the public to view until January 8, 2023. The museum display features items related to her international advocacy for clean water rights, including the dress she wore when she addressed the United Nations General Assembly in 2018 about the issue of contaminated water in First Nation communities across the country.
With more than two dozen First Nation communities in Canada still under drinking water advisories, two Indigenous business leaders are doing their part to change that. "We wanted to create awareness of what was going on in our communities and what's still going on," Tyson Wesley, co-owner of FN Clean Water in Ottawa, told CTV National News. Driven by his own experiences with drinking water advisories, Wesley and fellow company co-owner Natasha Commanda run FN Clean Water, with the goal of bringing clean drinking water to First Nations.
A remote northern Ontario First Nation wants Ottawa to help it find an environmentally responsible way to dispose of the thousands of empty water bottles that have piled up over 27 years under a long-term drinking water advisory. Neskantaga, a fly-in Oji-Cree community with approximately 300 members located about 450 kilometres north of Thunder Bay, Ont., marked a grim milestone on Tuesday — the longest drinking water advisory of any First Nation.
A proposed settlement agreement worth nearly $8 billion has been reached in two national class action lawsuits launched against the federal government by First Nations living under drinking water advisories. The settlement, which is awaiting court approval, would offer $1.5 billion in compensation to individuals deprived of clean drinking water and modernize Canada's First Nations drinking water legislation.
Indigenous Services Canada has announced it won’t end long-term advisories until 2023 at the earliest. In 2015, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau committed to ending all long-term drinking water advisories by March 2021. When that deadline passed, the government recommitted to ending long-term advisories without a target date. This announcement comes as no surprise to many First Nations outraged by the lack of progress on ending drinking water advisories in their communities, and the growing divide and gap that exists between Indigenous and non-Indigenous communities.
