Tag Archives: Water

Therefore you will joyously draw water

1 Reply

Lunch today was a Famous Pepper’s Spud Islander pizza (yes, it has slices of potato on it). We got one to go from FP’s new Summerside location and decided to find a shady spot in Memorial Park to snarf it down.

St. Mary’s Anglican Church on the left and the church hall on the right, with a brown picnic table under a tree in front of the hall and green grass.
St. Mary’s Church and Hall

We parked in front of St. Mary’s Church Hall across from the park and spied a nice little picnic table under a tree in front of the hall. Next to it was what looks like a newly installed water tap, free for all to use, and I would guess specifically targeted at unhoused people who often use the park as a gathering place. Pizza consumed, I topped up my water bottle, and we were on our way.

Seeing this thoughtful act of love and care for others filled me up way more than the pizza did. I think if church had included this type of social action when I was a young person, I could very well have still been a believer.

A wooden post that has a water tap attached and a sign that reads: Community Water Fountain. Free Fresh Clean Drinking Water. Therefore you will joyously draw water from the spring of salvation. Isaiah 12:3 Provided by the Parish of St. Mary and St. John.
A sign that reads: Community Water Fountain. Free Fresh Clean Drinking Water. Therefore you will joyously draw water from the spring of salvation. Isaiah 12:3 Provided by the Parish of St. Mary and St. John.

If you are looking for a quiet, green, welcoming space in Summerside, I can’t think of a better spot.

A park with green grass, trees and shrubs, a sidewalk in the foreground, a white church in the background and a person painting a canon in the middle of the photo.
Memorial Park. Someone came along and started to paint a canon, as you do.

Long-term drinking water advisories

28 advisories as of July 6, 2023

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.