Now is the Time for Canada to Assume our Infrastructure Responsibilities to First Nations

An Op-Ed Published in The Hill Times, October 9th 2024

All water use restrictions have now been lifted in the city of Calgary, ending 109 days of frustration for its residents. In contrast, another Alberta community south of Edmonton has just revived a 10-year-old lawsuit against the federal government to finally provide them with a functional treatment system. For now, the residents of Ermineskin Cree Nation continue to rely on bottled water for all their needs, including for bathing. 

Canada is known for excellent infrastructure. Big spaces are no match for our roads, which are everywhere. The major temperature swings at the end of spring don’t keep us from filling our swimming pools when we want to. Our world-class public education system attracts and inspires scholars from around the world. Canada’s provinces are the driving force behind our excellent infrastructure, so cheers to them.

But you know who is failing at providing dependable infrastructure for Canada’s most vulnerable population? The Federal government. For historical reasons, it literally owns the responsibility for everything on First Nations reserves south of the 60th parallel. And that includes water treatment and Emergency Response.

The inadequate state of safe drinking water on many First Nations reserves is a longstanding national shame, and Ermineskin is no exception. Even when water produced on-reserve is declared safe by the Federal government, children are often not afforded the dignity of being able to use it comfortably.

A mother in Shoal Lake 40 First Nation whose son had a recurring rash kept taking him to the doctor. “When I finally told him that we do not have treated water in the community, he said, ‘Well, there’s your problem.’” Her son occasionally asks her if they can rent a hotel room off the reserve so he can take a proper bath.

It took a lawsuit to persuade Parliament in 2021 to propose new legislation, Bill C-61. The Bill is still being debated in committee, nearly 300 days after its first reading in the House of Commons.

Before anyone calls for patience, remember that failings exposed by the Walkerton drinking water crisis in 2000 - when bacterial contamination led to the deaths of seven people and caused illness in over 2,300 individuals - were addressed with reassuring expediency. First Nations leaders have clearly expressed what needs to be done to correct Bill C-61, including underscoring the fact that First Nation peoples have a human right to safe drinking water consistent with a 2010 United Nations resolution.

The auditor-general’s recent report on Emergency Management in First Nations found that Canada invested over $825 million dollars over four years for the communities affected, responding to 598 emergencies, requiring 207 separate evacuations. To put that number in perspective, Alberta recently announced that it would provide $149M to Jasper to help the Municipality with infrastructure recovery after July’s wildfire.

Unsurprisingly, the auditor general’s report also found that $825M wasn’t remotely enough, especially since most of it was spent reacting to the disasters, rather than preventing them. Even though the First Nations affected had identified many projects that would have helped do just that, and every $1 invested in preparing for damage saves $6 in emergency response and recovery costs.

What most Canadians don’t understand is that these communities are not legally permitted to address these issues themselves. The reserves - on which nearly half a million First Nations people live - were created under the discredited Indian Act, and remain classified as federal land. First Nations are not able to expand the size of reserves, and many of them were forcibly moved from their original territory by the government, often to land that - as predicted - turned out to be more vulnerable to flooding and other emergencies.

Critics may argue that Canadian taxpayers have spent enough on First Nations’ tiny communities already, that they should move to towns or cities with all the clean drinking water they could want. But these places are their homes, with their community, and like other Canadians living in rural areas, they have the right to pursue their livelihoods and happiness. The original peoples of this land deserve the dignity of accessing infrastructure that they can count on, all the time. Canada can and must do better.