What if Ottawa spends $2B on water for First Nations and it still isn’t safe for everyone to drink?

Thestar.com
August 2, 2018
Alex Ballingall

KITIGAN ZIBI, QUE.--A green dot.

That’s the symbol the federal government uses for this First Nation in the Gatineau River Valley. An online map that tracks one of the Liberal administration’s signature pledges--to rid First Nations of warnings that their tap water is dirty and unsafe--marks Kitigan Zibi with a green dot, like a traffic signal, indicating Mission Accomplished.

Go ahead. Drink the water.

Except half the community still can’t.

“My kids never drank from the tap,” said Celine Brozeau-Ottawa, the local health and safety technician who tests the water for the First Nation located about a two-hour drive north of Canada’s capital, directly beside the Quebec town of Maniwaki. Even with a new, multimillion-dollar water system, hundreds of people in Kitigan Zibi remain under a do-not-consume order that has persisted since 1999.

“People are so used to it,” Brozeau-Ottawa said. “You put your jugs out on Wednesday morning and you get your water.”

Like each of the 72 First Nations living under long-term water advisories, the story of why 292 of the 592 homes in Kitigan Zibi can’t drink or cook with their tap water is particular to the community: in this case, a combination of single homes spread sparsely across a vast area, and private wells tainted with uranium and radium that occurs naturally in the bedrock below.

But the situation here also brings up a crucial question about the Liberal government’s $2-billion push to bring clean water to all First Nations by March 2021: is this going to be enough, or yet another failed attempt to remove an inequity that has long blemished Canada’s international reputation and put the health and quality of life of thousands at risk?

Charlie Angus, a New Democrat MP from Timmins-James Bay, a northern Ontario riding that is home to several First Nations that live under water advisories, said he isn’t holding his breath. He pointed to a 2017 report from the Parliamentary Budget Officer that determined the additional $1.8 billion over five years for water systems that was announced in the 2016 budget--on top of existing spending--would only cover 70 per cent of what’s needed to remove all long-term water advisories. The report also said expected operation and maintenance costs for water treatment plants were “considerably more” than the actual and planned spending at that time.

Earlier this year, in its 2018 budget, the government earmarked another $172.6 million over three years for improved water infrastructure and operation training for First Nations.

Even so, Angus said the fact that Kitigan Zibi still only has clean water for half its residents is a sign the government’s plan isn’t up to snuff.

“We need a standard that’s across the country, that says every person in this country is going to have clean water,” he said.

“That shouldn’t be that hard in a country as rich as ours.”

In an interview with the Star, Indigenous Services Minister Jane Philpott said she’s confident the government’s target will be met. As of the end of July, 72 long-term water advisories were in place on First Nations across Canada, which Philpott’s department defines as advisories that have been in place for at least one year. While 67 of them have been removed since the Liberals took power in November 2015, 34 have been added to the list.

“There’s not a one-size fits all approach, where you can fly in a generic water system and plunk it down in a community,” she said.

Problems with drinking water on First Nations have gone unaddressed for decades. In 1995, the federal government estimated that 25 per cent of First Nations in Canada had water systems that posed potential health risks. Ten years later, Canada’s Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development released a report that declared hundreds of millions of dollars in initiatives to fix water systems on reserves did not “substantially (reduce) the health and safety risks” of drinking water on First Nations.

In 2016, Human Rights Watch found some reserves had drinking water that was contaminated with E. coli and chemical compounds linked to cancer. It also surveyed people who reported skin infections like eczema that were thought to be linked to dirty water. In Grassy Narrows, a First Nation in northwestern Ontario, mercury from an old mill contaminated soil and river sediment and caused health problems for decades.

In its report, Human Rights Watch declared the Canadian government “violated a range of international human rights obligations” by failing to adequately address these issues.

Asked how her government will finally remove long-term drinking water advisories, Philpott said one of the biggest changes is to move away from a model based on short-term funding, where First Nations received money for water infrastructure on a year-to-year basis, to one where the government approves larger chunks of money for increments of several years.

One example of sporadic or absent funding is in Wabaseemoong First Nation in northern Ontario. Corrosion of the 30-year-old underground pipe system is causing “chronic water main breaks,” while pumps in the community’s waste water treatment plant have fallen into disrepair, according to a briefing note Philpott received from her department last October. The note says the First Nation repeatedly asked for money to address these problems in recent years, but that those requests “proved unfruitful.”

A boil-water advisory in Wabaseemoong will become a “long-term” drinking advisory if it’s not lifted by Aug. 11.

And that’s exactly the type of neglect the government is now trying to avoid, Philpott said.

“Indigenous people have faced discrimination in terms of adequacy of funding for all kinds of things, whether it be education systems, health systems, water systems,” she said. “You need to put the resources there and face the inequities head on.”

Part of that is an ongoing review of a long-standing funding formula, where First Nations have to come up with 20 per cent of the maintenance and operation costs of their water treatment systems. Melanie Debassige, executive director of the Ontario First Nations Technical Services Corp., said many communities struggle to fulfil that, which contributes to water systems falling into disrepair.

“People are already living in poverty,” Debassige said. “How do you cover 20 per cent?”

Philpott agreed the formula is problematic, and suggested the government is prepared to change it to help First Nations.

“You can’t have a formula that is doomed to failure,” she said. “We are determined to make sure communities get the resources necessary.”

But as Kitigan Zibi demonstrates, even when water systems are built and maintained, it’s possible that some residents of First Nations will still live without clean tap water. This issue, like so many obstacles to reconciliation, reflects how tangled and deep are the roots of Indigenous injustice.

Driving her Dodge truck down a forest road on the reserve this spring, Brozeau-Ottawa described how, in 2011, 12 years after the do-not-drink order was issued, a new public water system was set up to provide half the community with water from wells dug closer to the Gatineau River, where the uranium wasn’t showing up. The government spent $16 million between 2009 and 2015 to install sewers and a new waste water treatment plant in the community, and then another $4.9 million to extend the water system to 34 more residences in 2016-17, according to Indigenous Services.

Last December, do-not-drink orders in place since 1999 at the local school and two community centres in Kitigan Zibi were lifted--hence the green dot on the government’s map declaring victory over long-term advisories in the community.

But almost 300 homes remain outside the reach of the new water system, with individual wells drilled into the bedrock that has natural traces of uranium and radium, department spokesperson Martine Stevens said in an email. These homes receive bottled water at a cost of $72,900 per year, Stevens said.

This seeming disparity doesn’t clash with the government’s goals because these homes don’t fall under the commitment to remove all long-term drinking advisories. That promise only relates to “public systems” on reserves. Stevens said the government doesn’t report on individual wells like those that connect to the 292 homes in Kitigan Zibi.

Brozeau-Ottawa brushed aside questions about whether the government should extend the system to the rest of the community. She said there have been talks to do so but no commitments.

“It took all this time, but at least we’re finally being looked at,” she said, adding that “the more isolated communities” with bacteria in their water should be the targets for immediate help.

But even as the Liberal government makes progress on its commitment to remove long-term advisories on “public systems,” the first sentence of the government’s Budget 2018 “Reconciliation” makes a bolder pronouncement.

“It is unacceptable that any person living in Canada should be unable to safely drink the water that comes out of their taps,” it reads.

For the time being, Brozeau-Ottawa and half of Kitigan Zibi have to accept precisely that.