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Water Advisory: The Water Crisis in Canada's First Nation Communities

by ivyding0222

Canada, one of the wealthiest countries in the world, is also one of the most water-rich. On an annual basis, Canadian rivers discharge over 9% of the world's renewable water supply, and no country in the world has as much of its surface area covered by freshwater as does Canada.

The province of Ontario shares the Great Lakes—which contain 18 percent of the world's fresh surface water—with the United States. While most Canadian citizens have easy access to sufficient, affordable, and safe drinking water as well as adequate sanitation, many indigenous people still suffer from a chronic water crisis. The water supplied to First Nations communities on reserves is contaminated, difficult to reach, or potentially dangerous due to poor treatment systems. The government oversees water quality for off-reserve communities, but has no binding regulations for water on First Nations reserves. Ninety water advisories—put in place by First Nations on the advice of Health Canada— were in effect in 45 of Ontario's 133 First Nations reserves.

Crisis

As sustainable access to safe, clean water in First Nations continues to be a pressing issue in Canada, drinking water advisories alert communities when their water is not safe to drink. In Canada, these advisories are highly concentrated in First Nations communities. They exist for 134 water systems, 90 of which are in the province of Ontario, in 85 First Nations reserves across Canada. Many of these drinking water advisories for reserves are in effect for years, if not decades. They are symptomatic of a larger systemic crisis in which many First Nations people face everyday challenges in accessing adequate drinking and hygiene water—a fundamental human right that most Canadians take for granted.

Nobody understands the evolving challenges and needs more than the people who live there. Drinking water challenges are complex: in some communities, local concerns may be around infrastructure, for others, source water contamination. And numerous communities have challenges recruiting and training young Indigenous adults to join the drinking water field

Precarity

On First Nations reserves, contaminants in drinking water included coliform, Escherichia coli (E. coli), cancer-causing Trihalomethanes, and uranium. Some of these are naturally occurring, while others are likely the product of inadequate wastewater treatment on and off reserves, and still others are the result of organic material in polluted source water reacting with chemicals supposed to disinfect it. Exposure to these pollutants can cause major health consequences ranging from serious gastrointestinal disorders to an increased risk of cancer.

Because of the everyday hardship of living under a water advisory, some people become frustrated and drink water without boiling or otherwise treating it, putting themselves at risk of exposure to toxins. Others use tainted water for bathing or for domestic tasks, such as washing dishes or clothes. Many households reported cases of skin infections, eczema, psoriasis, or other skin problems, which they believed were associated with water conditions in their homes. Whether or not a direct causation between exposure to the water supplied to their households and these conditions can be established, the water crisis does decrease the quality and quantity of water available for hygiene.

Aside from health concerns, the water crisis in First Nations has an economic impact on communities. One in every five First Nations families in Ontario relies on a private well for drinking water, and 57 percent of the families rely on a household septic system. The cost to monitor quality and maintain the safety of these systems can be difficult to afford, and the capital costs required to restore failed systems are often prohibitively high, which further exacerbates the cost of living for low-income households.

Amanda Klasing, senior researcher at Human Rights Watch

Action

The drinking water crisis on reserves can be resolved, and yet it has persisted for decades. Canada has frequently acknowledged its many challenges in addressing the problem. Since 1977, the federal government has investigated, made recommendations, and committed funds to remediate the water and wastewater situation on the reserves. Nonetheless, the situation remains critical. The government's own audits reveal a trend of overpromising and underperformance, with insufficient monitoring of whether money invested yields favorable results. Simply put, billions of money invested over decades have not resulted in safe drinking water for thousands of First Nations people living on reserves.

Change

The right to water entitles everyone, including all Indigenous residents without discrimination, "to have access to sufficient, safe, acceptable, physically accessible and affordable water for personal and domestic use." The federal and provincial governments must take additional steps as soon as possible to address their roles in this crisis. Along with infrastructure investments, they should address a broader set of issues that contribute to the water crisis, such as a lack of binding regulations on water quality on First Nations reserves, persistent underfunding and arbitrary budgeting for water system costs, a lack of support for household water and wastewater systems, deteriorating source water conditions, and a lack of capacity and support for water operators.