The federal government of Canada has been promising for decades to restore clean drinking water to First Nations communities. It is a basic human right Canadians expect and deserve, and it is a top priority for all municipal governments. This same concern is not extended to the First Peoples of our country.
According to the Indigenous Services Canada website, four communities had that promise fulfilled over the past year – one in Saskatchewan and three in Ontario – and 28 remain on the list.
Political leaders refer to these situations as “challenging” and “complex”, and I’m sure they are, but surely things could move faster if there was the real will to make it happen. I remember when the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami occurred and Canada rightly sent the DART (Disaster Assistance Response Team) unit to Sri Lanka to assist their citizens. The DART were said at the time to be water restoration experts and produced 3.5 million litres of drinking water a day during that relief mission.
Perhaps the government could declare an emergency here and speed things up a bit? I’m sure if the water in downtown Ottawa was suddenly declared undrinkable, or if bathing babies in it gave them sores and rashes, something would be done pretty quickly. We can and must do better.
