Introduction to Indigenous peoples’ access to safe drinking water

Despite the importance of water to Indigenous peoples, most First Nations communities are victims of the historically extractive and abusive nature of Canada’s colonial approach to using natural resources. That explains why the water supplied to many of Canada’s 600+ First Nations communities on lands known as reserves is contaminated, hard to access, or at risk due to faulty treatment systems.

Further, although the federal government regulates water quality for off-reserve communities, it has not produced or enforced binding regulations for water on First Nations reserves. Systems have been (are!) designed, constructed, and operated on reserves without the same legal standards and protections adopted for all other Canadians.

There are three types of drinking water advisory (DWA) classifications:

• Boil water advisory/order: Water is fine to drink and use after boiling.

• Do not consume advisory/order: Water cannot be consumed.

• Do not use advisory/order: Water cannot be used or consumed. 

Some of the advisories are short-term, while some have lasted for over twenty years. Indigenous Services Canada provides some data on active long-term advisories on this site. 

A very brief history of the past 30 years of Federal Water Legislation 

Between 1995 and 2007, a total of 162 drinking-water advisories were in effect for more than one year.

Canada’s First Nations Water Management Strategy (2003 to 2008) and the Plan of Action for Drinking Water (2006 to 2008) were meant to address the construction and renovation of treatment facilities, the operation and maintenance of those facilities, and on-reserve training of facility operators.

In 2008, Canada introduced the First Nations Water and Wastewater Action Plan, the successor to both. In 2009, Indian and Northern Affairs Canada began an "engagement process" that led to the development of a legislative framework for drinking water and wastewater in First Nations communities, and in 2010, the First Nations Water and Wastewater Action Plan was renewed, committing to build and renovate on-reserve water infrastructure.

However, in 2011, the National Assessment of First Nations Water and Wastewater Systems report concluded that more than one-third of First Nations adults did not perceive their main water supply in their home to be safe for drinking year-round.

The Safe Drinking Water for First Nations Act (SDWFNA) came into force in 2013, in response to the situation and the international attention and pressure it was receiving. The Act set out a process for developing regulations, but did not specify water quality parameters, standards, or actions to improve water quality.

Although the federal government had committed to lifting all long-term DWAs by March 2021, the deadline was missed, and the Act was repealed in 2022 in alignment with the Safe Drinking Water Class Action Settlement Agreement with the Federal government as defendant. This Agreement included $1.5 billion in compensation for individuals deprived of clean drinking water, an infrastructure commitment of at least $6 billion to support reliable access to safe drinking water on reserves, the creation of a $400-million First Nation Economic and Cultural Restoration Fund and the creation of a First Nations Advisory Committee on Safe Drinking Water.

In September of 2022, Shamattawa First Nation (located in northern Manitoba) launched a new class-action lawsuit over continuing long-term drinking-water advisories, with the federal court certifying it in early March 2024. It resulted in repealing the SDWFNA, and the resulting Bill C-61 including issues with it as raised by First Nations across Canada.

At its final reading of the summer, Chief Ouray Crowfoot from the Siksika First Nation called for amendments to Bill C-61 to recognize that first nations have a human right to safe drinking water.

"First Nations have a human right to safe drinking water" - Chief Ouray Crowfoot, Siksika First Nation

He said, “The legislation is supposed to end Canada's shameful legacy of neglect, underfunding and discrimination against first nations' access to safe drinking water, but it falls short. Canada commits to best efforts to ensure first nations have safe drinking water. In light of Canada's century of failure on safe drinking water, first nations must not be asked to accept and trust that Canada's best efforts will be effective. Many first nations across the country share this concern with Bill C-61.”

Why can’t they drink the water like they used to?

Because of source contamination.

Often, for example, this is due to mining or other extractive activities upstream of FNs. For example, mercury in Grassy Narrows, Oil Sands, and Mount Polley Tailings Dam Breach.

Grassy Narrows

From the 1960s to the early 1970s, a chemical plant at the Reed Paper mill in Dryden, Ont., located upstream of the Grassy Narrows and Wabaseemoong communities, dumped 9,000 kilograms of mercury into the English-Wabigoon River. 

The mercury contaminated the water and poisoned the fish as well as the people from these communities, who relied on the fish as a staple in their diet. The impacts of mercury poisoning are intergenerational, because it passes in utero from mother to unborn child, and through breastmilk.

Today, many decades later, the community members continue to suffer from the physical and mental health impacts of mercury contamination, which includes difficulty seeing, insomnia, exhaustion, visual disturbances, fatigue, and numbness in the limbs as well as intellectual disabilities, emotional and motivational disturbances and depression. 

The Grassy Narrows First Nations’ boil water advisory was lifted in October 2020.

However, the Wabaseemoong long-term water advisory is still in effect, and people young and old in both communities continue to suffer from mercury-related illnesses, and to die from them.

Research published in The Lancet found “an association between long-term Hg exposure from freshwater fish consumption and premature mortality in this First Nation community.” 

The mill has since changed owners several times, and these include Weyerhaeuser, Resolute and Domtar, all large pulp and paper companies with a combined $9.3 Billion in revenue in 2023.

Oil Sands

Alberta's Athabasca River, and the larger delta, sit atop the world’s largest known reservoir of crude bitumen. There are documented high rates of cancer and other diseases just downstream in the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation in Treaty 8 territories, with no explanation as to the source.

In February 2023, Indigenous communities downstream from Imperial Oil’s Kearl Mine, roughly 75 kilometres upstream of Fort Chipewyan, learned of a massive spill of 5.3 million litres from the mine’s tailings area. (In mining, tailings or tails are the materials left over after the process of separating the valuable fraction from the uneconomic fraction of an ore.)

Kearl is a bitumen mine capable of producing 240,000 barrels per day. The mine’s industrial operations generate tailings which contain dissolved iron, arsenic and naphthenic acids, among other byproducts of the extraction process including water, sand, clay, residual bitumen and various chemicals. 

Meanwhile, Indigenous leaders found out that another, long-term spill at the same Kearl Mine site had been leaking for at least nine months prior to the major incident in February.

Just one month after the Kearl Mine spill, Suncor reported six million litres of tailings water that exceeded guidelines had been released into the Athabasca River from its Fort Hills oil sands mine.

In the same area, there are 30 tailings ponds operating across nine oil sands projects that cover 300 square kilometres of what was once northern boreal forest. 

The tailings water released in the February 2023 spill exceeded federal and provincial guidelines for arsenic, sulphates, and hydrocarbons and contained toxic levels of naphthenic acids and arsenic.

Celebrities including Leonardo Dicaprio, Neil Young, Jane Fonda, director James Cameron, and activist Greta Thunberg have all visited Fort Chipewyan to help amplify these concerns. In 2014, Archbishop Desmond Tutu called the oil sands “the world’s dirtiest oil,” at a press conference with Chief Allan Adam in Fort McMurray.

Almost 80 per cent of people who live in Fort Chipewyan consume traditional foods and medicines harvested from the land and water. Dr. John O’Connor as a physician in Fort Chipewyan for nearly 16 years, alerted officials about heightened rates of both rare and common cancers, and a study has revealed cancer rates there are about 30 per cent higher than expected.

Mount Polley Tailings Dam Breach in August 2014

A 4-km2 sized tailings pond breached in the early morning, spilling 17M m3 of water and 8 Mm3 of tailings/materials into Polley Lake, Hazeltine Creek and Quesnel Lake, a source of drinking water and major spawning grounds for sockeye salmon.

Hundreds of tonnes of nickel, arsenic, lead and thousands of tonnes of copper were released upstream of Soda Creek Indian Band and Williams Lake Indian Band.

No charges or fines have been laid in response to the disaster.

The Mount Polley mine is an open pit gold and copper mine in operation since 1997 and is owned by Imperial Metals.