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A P.E.I. woman who has been lobbying for years for free well water testing may finally get what she has been looking for as part of larger discussions around the new Water Act. Little Sands resident Lynda Kelly has been writing to various provincial officials making the case for one free water test a year. Kelly said it is an important public health issue, and the $40 cost of the test may be enough to put some people off.
This past November marked 25 years since Neskantaga First Nation, located in Northwestern Ontario, was placed on a boil water advisory. In October 2020, over 250 Neskantaga residents were evacuated and transferred to a hotel in Thunder Bay after “an oily sheen was found in the Neskantaga water reservoir;” “high levels of hydrocarbons” were discovered in the water after testing. Residents were able to return after two months, but the boil water advisory remains. Chief Chris Moonias has called upon Ontario Premier Doug Ford to support Neskantaga First Nation in securing clean drinking water and properly trained water operators – Ford has yet to respond. Ending all boil-water advisories in Canada can no longer be delayed; Ford must act in accordance with the concerns of the Neskantaga First Nation immediately.
Activists in northeastern Ontario fighting for safe, clean water in First Nations communities across Canada are getting tired of broken promises. After five years and millions in spending, the Liberal government announced in early December that it would not fulfill its commitment to end all long-term water advisories on reserves by March 2021. Although some progress has been made – 97 advisories have been lifted since November 2015 – there’s still a long way to go. There are 59 active long-term water advisories in 41 communities across the country, and activists maintain that clean water should be a priority for the federal government, especially during a global pandemic. “Water is a basic human right, and nobody should have to beg for it. This is wrong, and it’s come to the point where I think it comes down to racism,” said Autumn Peltier, a teenage water-rights activist from Wiikwemkoong Unceded Territory on Manitoulin Island.
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.
The chief of the First Nation in Northern Ontario that has suffered through the country’s longest continuous boil water advisory is hopeful that water coming out of the taps in the homes of Neskantaga will be safe to drink sometime in early 2021. The question now is: Even if public health and First Nation officials pronounce the water safe to drink, will anyone trust in the purity of what comes out of their taps?
