Processing: Clean water for everyone….

BY OMNIYA ALI

Even in the midst of a global pandemic, several First Nations across Canada struggle to find clean, safe drinking water. With more than 100 drinking water advisories existing in First Nations at any given time, Canada is violating UN-recognized human rights to water and sanitation. Most recently Neskantaga First Nation, a remote Oji-Cree First Nation band government in northern Ontario has been pushed to the final straw of evacuation. Although evacuation draws attention to the alarming state of the water contamination, it is not a recent event. Neskantaga First Nation has endured 25 years without safe drinking water; however, they most recently have stopped receiving any running water at all. As expressed by NDP MPP Sol Mamakwa “We cannot have this kind of apartheid system of access to clean drinking water.”

The evacuation of about 200 people from Neskantaga First Nation took place on the week of October 19^th, yet a plan to restore running water to the community has yet to come. With a quarter-century of depending on a boil-water advisory under their belts, the people of Neskantaga believed there could only be better outcomes from here. However, the system has proven to them otherwise. Due to the breakdown of two electrical pumps, most homes in the isolated First Nation received no water at all, while the few that did received contaminated water. According to Chief Chris Moonias, some residents are already reporting headaches and skin infections from the water.

“It should say a lot,” Chief Chris Moonias told Matt Galloway in an interview with The Current. “It should say to … Canadians that, you know, this is not the country you believe it is.” While campaigning for elections in 2015, the Liberal party under Trudeau’s leadership, promised to end all First Nations boil-water advisories within five years. Five years later in 2020, 63 long-term drinking water advisories still exist. “They’re using COVID-19 as an excuse. How come they didn’t do it last year, two years ago, 2018 when we were promised? In 2016, we were promised that our water treatment plant would be finished in spring of 2018. Minister [Carolyn] Bennett, at the time, told my daughter right in her face that you will have clean drinking water in spring of 2018,” Chief Chris Moonias explained.

Although the deadline was placed for March 2021, doubts have been expressed from the affected communities due to the lack of acknowledgment during The Liberal party’s September throne speech. Upon directly being asked about the situation in Neskantaga, Trudeau replied saying it is difficult to end boil-water advisories, “otherwise other governments would have done it.”

As an alternate solution, the Liberal government has been promoting public-private partnerships (P3s). historically, P3s cost more, lead to the privatization of water, and cause a loss of community control and jobs. Therefore, P3s cannot be the answer to the drinking water crisis in First Nations. “To me, that speaks to systemic racism. It’s not that government individuals are individually racist. It’s that the system itself is really not caring,” Assembly of First Nations Ontario Regional Chief Rose Anne Archibald said. Archibald also expressed that the problem is not superficial, it stems from chronic underfunding by all governments. She suggested that a long-term financial commitment is needed to address the humanitarian crisis.

“Government after government has failed First Nations.” – Ontario Regional Chief Rose Anne Archibald