Human Rights Watch takes Canada to task for unsafe water in Ontario reserves

Money alone won’t rectify the water and wastewater crisis in First Nations communities: HRW says

Thestar.com
June 7, 2016
By Tanya Talaga

One of the world’s leading human rights groups has turned its focus on the consequences of the decades-old problem of contaminated water in indigenous communities throughout Ontario.

From July 2015 to April 2016, Human Rights Watch conducted research in 99 homes located in Ontario First Nations, examining water and sanitation surveys in Batchewana, Grassy Narrows, Shoal Lake 40, Neskantaga, and Six Nations of Grand River.

They found children suffering with skin disorders, mothers who spend hours a day disinfecting bottles to feed their babies, children and adults skipping baths, and, the presence of E.coli and other pollutants in untreated water.

There are unsafe water advisories for 133 water systems - 89 in First Nations communities across Canada, according to their 92-page report, “Make it Safe: Canada’s Obligation to End the First Nations Water Crisis,” released on Tuesday.

The global rights group was surprised that Canada - one of the wealthiest, clean-water rich countries - was falling behind in their safe water and sanitation obligations. Instead, HRW found a system with two different standards - the government regulates water quality for off-reserve communities but there are no binding regulations for water on First Nations reserves.
“It is surprising how much government auditing there has been on the issue and there have been many reports written,” said Amanda Klasing, HRW’s senior researcher in women’s rights, based in Washington, D.C.

Ontario Regional Chief Isadore Day called the lack of clean water “discriminatory and unacceptable” in 2016.

“One of the most glaring gaps that exist in Canada today is that the majority has access to clean, safe water while First Nations particularly across the north have to live with ‘Drinking Water and Do Not Consume’ advisories daily, and in some communities it’s been well over 20 years,” Day said.

“When a country like ours has the capability to respond overnight, as it did with the water crisis in the municipality of Walkerton, why is there a continued water crisis taking place in our communities?”

First Nations communities are plagued with faulty or sub-standard water and sanitation infrastructure, erratic funding and decades of promises to fix things but little delivery, Klasing added.

“The lack of a regulatory regime is indicative to a different approach to these communities to begin with,” Klasing said, pointing to the complicated web of federal authorities, provincial laws and a lack of consultation regarding commercial activities impacting traditional territories and waters.

The HRW wants to know why Indigenous and Northern Affairs Canada (INAC), failed to spend funds over five recent fiscal years and sent more than $1 billion in funds back to the Treasury Board as “surplus” when it could have been used to clean up the water, the report said.

However, the rights group praised the new government of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau for promising $4.6 billion earmarked for infrastructure funds in indigenous communities over the next five years. Klasing hopes Canada can remain true to this monetary commitment.

Ontario has a disproportionate number of First Nations with dirty water. Contaminants on reserves include escherichia coli (E.coli), cancer-causing trihalomethanes, and uranium. However, some of these contaminants can be naturally occurring and in some cases it results from poor wastewater management on and off reserves, the report said.

Kasling, who visited the communities in the report, said the most troubling observation she made was of the children and elders with unexplained, red and raw-looking skin rashes.

One mother in Grassy Narrows First Nation, a community of 1,500 outside Kenora where many have complained about symptoms consistent with mercury poisoning after a paper mill dumped mercury into the Wabigoon-English River system between 1962 and 1970, described to HRW how hard it was to keep her son’s rash clean.

“I kept taking him to the clinic and they kept saying it was eczema. His belly and buttocks got really red, oozy and it spread ... I sponge him with bottled water from the jugs, clean him that way,” said the mom, Debora C., who did not give her last name. He son was later diagnosed with an antibiotic-resistant skin disease.

The HRW has a number of recommendations, including Canada adopting an independent indigenous water commission authority to monitor and evaluate water policies and that Health Canada provides greater support for monitoring private household drinking water.

The provincial government admits the number of First Nation reserves in Ontario without access to safe drinking water is “unacceptable,” and they want all residents to have access to safe, clean water.

“Although the federal government is primarily responsible for safe drinking water on reserves, Ontario is committed to sharing our considerable drinking water expertise and engineering experience with Canada and First Nations to make sustainable progress in this area, and to help eliminate long-term drinking water advisories in First Nations communities,” said Polina Osmerkina, a spokeswoman for Ontario’s Aboriginal Affairs Minister David Zimmer.