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Latest news about the Safe Drinking Water Team
Leaders and community members in the Kanien'kehá:ka (Mohawk) of Kanesatake are demanding help in decontaminating a dump site that could affect water quality in one of Quebec's most popular lakes. Mohawk Council of Kanestake Grand Chief Victor Bonspille said he is in contact with Canada and his community's environmental protection office to find a solution to toxic water leaking off a now-closed recycling operation in the community west of Montreal.
Leaders from an Oji-Cree First Nation in Treaty 9 in Ontario say they want the Canadian government to take action to properly compensate all their community members enduring a long-term boil-water advisory, after learning most of them won't be eligible for a class action settlement. In December 2021, Canada's Federal Court and Manitoba's Court of Queen's Bench jointly approved an $8-billion settlement for First Nations living under drinking-water advisories lasting longer than one year.
Chief and Council of Wunnumin Lake First Nation are calling on the Government of Canada to ensure that compensation is provided for community members who have suffered from boil water advisories but are being denied compensation under the terms of a settlement agreement for class-action litigation on Canada’s failure to provide safe drinking water in First Nations communities.
Members of Norway House Cree Nation raised concerns about information sharing, environmental impacts and community employment at a consultation for a potential nickel mine in the area. Last Thursday, Flying Nickel Mining Corporation and the Government of Manitoba hosted a public consultation around the Minago Nickel Project — a possible development following a memorandum of understanding that was signed by the First Nation's chief and Flying Nickel in February. The mine could be under construction starting in 2024.
First Nations Chiefs, community members, and representatives came together with federal bureaucrats at the Ontario Joint Gathering hosted by Indigenous Services Canada in Toronto on Oct. 25 and 26. The two-day gathering at the Chelsea Hotel in Toronto was an opportunity to strengthen relationships between the Canadian government and First Nations governments, with a series of Federal and First Nations speakers reporting to delegates. Over 45 participants registered over the two days, with 100 attending virtually.
A Canada-wide Indigenous water initiative is providing young people with an opportunity to tackle water problems in their communities. According to Kimberly Brown, a Tsimshian water engineer in training and a member of the Lax Kw’alaams Band in British Columbia, the goal of the challenge is ” to create Indigenous youth who want to become water engineers or scientists…” “It’s just the opportunity for eight communities to participate and solve their own water issues, and it’s judged by their own communities not sure, so it’s very Indigenous-led and Indigenous supported.”
Neskantaga First Nation is taking Ontario to court looking for "ground rules" on how the province should consult and accommodate Indigenous communities that are in a state of crisis. The remote Oji-Cree First Nation, located about 430 kilometres north of Thunder Bay, has been under a boil-water advisory for 26 years and a state of emergency since 2013, when seven people died by suicide in less than a year. Those issues have been compounded by the pandemic, leaving Neskantaga ill-equipped to engage in what the province has presented as consultation on a project to build a road through its territory to the mineral-rich Ring of Fire, community leaders say.
Rebecca Zagozewski, executive director of the Saskatchewan First Nations Water Association, said she has seen contractors save on costs when building water treatment plants on reserves by using obsolete parts and failing to include maintenance manuals, ventilation or chemical rooms, and bathrooms. “Engineering companies will put in their bids obviously as low as they can go,” said Zagozewski.
This time of year, with the temperature plunging below -20 C, a snowmobile and an ice chisel are required tools for anyone in Tataskweyak Cree Nation in need of fresh water. There’s the bottled stuff, trucked into town courtesy of the federal government, but the weekly shipment of 1,500 cases is only sufficient to meet basic consumption needs. For cleaning, cooking and basic hygiene water, many residents need a supplementary source. And rather than use their tainted tap water, they follow a snowmobile trail several kilometres to Assean Lake, pails in hand.
“They cut corners every day, every day,” said Justin Gee, vice-president of First Nations Engineering Services Ltd. Gee said he encountered these recurring problems while overseeing the work of a construction firm, Kingdom Construction Limited (KCL), building a water treatment plant 10 years ago in Wasauksing First Nation, along the eastern shore of Georgian Bay, about 250 kilometres north of Toronto. “You have to be on them every step of the way,” said Gee, who was the contract administrator on the project. “You can’t leave them on their own.”
