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A northern Ontario First Nation that has lived under a boil-water advisory for nearly three decades has hired an outside consultant to find out once and for all what ails the community's water system. Neskantaga First Nation, roughly 450 kilometres north of Thunder Bay, Ont., is marking a grim milestone this month — 28 years under a boil water advisory, longer than any other First Nation.
North Bay's Canadore College has received $750,000 from FedNor to build an Indigenous clean water learning lodge. The lodge will be a testing ground for water treatment technology, and will also apply Indigenous knowledge around conservation. The funding announcement was part of a $2.8-million investment to support four initiatives at the northern Ontario college.
The water has receded near Kashechewan First Nation, which has reduced the risk to the community. Discussions are now underway to return people home. The northern Ontario community experienced its annual spring flooding from the nearby Albany River. Hundreds of residents were flown to host communities: Kapuskasing, Thunder Bay and Val Rita-Harty. The risk to the community has subsided said Wilbert Wesley, emergency management services manager for Mushkegowuk Council. He is also the custodian helping the First Nation during its evacuation phase.
Monias Fiddler says time is moving slowly for the Sandy Lake First Nation as the community feels the immense weight from the loss of three children in a house fire last month. Grant Meekis, 9; Remi Meekis, 6; and Wilfred Fiddler, 4, died when their home was engulfed in flames on the Oji-Cree First Nation in northern Ontario. Their parents and three other siblings survived the blaze.
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.
Batchewana First Nation members have received some welcome news. It was announced this past week that a ground-breaking ceremony was staged for a water treatment plant expected to be fully functional on the First Nation in northern Ontario by the end of 2021. “They’re happy,” Chief Dean Sayers said of the Batchewana First Nation members who will have access to clean drinking water in their homes.
“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.”
Indigenous Services Minister Marc Miller has overruled a senior departmental official over the framing of an investigation into Neskantaga First Nation's 25-year-long water crisis, CBC News has learned. Anne Scotton, the department's Ontario regional director general, informed Neskantaga Chief Chris Moonias on Thursday afternoon by email that the terms of reference for the investigation would be finalized soon, and that a consultant had been chosen to manage the third-party probe. There was a line in the attached document for the chief's signature.
Atlantic region First Nations Chiefs and Indigenous Services Canada (ISC) have signed a framework agreement on a ground-breaking water utility that will oversee the drinking water and wastewater operations for over half of the First Nations population in the region. The agreement will transfer control and management of water and wastewater services for 15 Mi'kmaw and Wolastoqey communities from ISC to a single First Nations-led organization, and comes with a $2.5 million federal investment to get the water authority started on recruitment, training of staff and other operational costs.
I would like to thank the Global Landscapes Forum and the United Nations General Assembly for having me here today to share my concerns and share why my people have a sacred connection to the water and the lands. I would like to start by sharing that the work I do is in honour of my late Great Auntie Biidaasige-ba. If it weren’t for her lifetime commitment and sacrifices to create the awareness and the sacredness of water, I would not be standing here today. She inspired me to do this work as she was an Elder when she began. I thought about who would keep doing her work one day; I just didn’t expect that day to come as soon as it did. She created the Mother Earth Water Walks. She walked around all the Great Lakes, more than once. She did this because the Elders began to see changes in the lands, medicines, animals and waters.
