The Agenda with Steve Paikin (Audio) - Why Is It So Hard to Get First Nations Water Advisories Lifted?

Episode Date: December 3, 2024

Canada and its First Nations have made progress in lifting long-term drinking water advisories since 2015, when the federal government allocated billions to the task. But challenges remain at 20 First Nations communities in Ontario, which has the most number of active advisories of any province. Why have some places struggled to get those advisories rescinded whereas other communities have brand new treatment facilities and the trained staff to run them? See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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We follow one story from the boardroom to the courtroom. And seek to understand what happens when beliefs collide. Where does freedom of religion end and freedom from discrimination begin? That's this season on Queries in Good Faith, a TVO original podcast. Follow and listen wherever you get your podcasts. Canada and First Nations communities have made progress in rescinding long-term drinking water advisories since 2015. But Ontario has more such advisories remaining than any other province, and some of them have lasted for years. Why have some communities struggled to get these advisories rescinded?

And what does success look like? Let's find out. We're going to ask in Thunder Bay, Ontario, Glenn Goodman. He's director of operations for the Ontario First Nations Technical Services Corporation and in the nation's capital, Irving LeBlanc, former director of infrastructure and safe drinking water and sanitation with the Assembly of First Nations. And we're delighted to have both of you gentlemen on our program tonight. I just want to start by having our director, if you would, Sheldon Osmond,

put up a map of where things are at in the province of Ontario. And for those who are listening on podcast, this is a map of the province where the wider advisories, I guess there are red dots where we have problems, there are green dots where we've made some progress. And I guess I want to find out from you, Irving. We'll start with you. How does that map look to you in terms of where you think we ought to be today?

Well, I think it's very indicative of the current situation that there are more red dots in Northwestern Ontario. And that's supported by the Chiefs of Ontario who monitors that very closely. But also you'll see some dots below, below further down south. So it's not limited to Northern Ontario, but obviously that is the majority

of the long-term drinking water advisory still there. It is interesting Irving, we did see on that map there are a couple of red dots, three red dots actually within a short drive of Toronto actually, an hour or two, maybe two and a half. Yeah, there we go, thanks Sheldon. Why would we be having water advisory problems, maybe Glenn I'll go to you on that one, why would there be water advisory issues so close to the capital city of the province? Well, it's all related to infrastructure and the investments that are being made by the government of Canada to assist First Nation communities, specifically those three down in the Southern Ontario region. And I should add is that there are infrastructure development

projects underway with building brand new water treatment plants and almost all of the instances that you're seeing with red dots on that map. So, you know, as time is of the essence, which is an understanding and a critical point, but at the end of the day, with the amount of investment being made, that's been approximately $2 billion over the last four years when it was initially announced by the current federal government, is that it's taken some time in regards to making traction into the communities, getting them to understand exactly where those investments are best utilized to address those circumstances and get them off to long-term drinking water advisories. And it's a major piece is because not only are you looking into investments as far as

building new equipment, new water treatment plants, new distribution systems, but training is also a critical piece as well for the operators that are responsible for those pieces. Yeah, we're going to get to that training piece in a second, but I do want to, I mean, we should look at this compare and contrast decade by decade by decade. And Irving, as you look at the record of the liberal government federally over the last decade, how does that compare to previous governments? Well, this is where I'd be careful not to get into previous regime and the current regime. But the current regime definitely talks about how many long-term drinking water advisers

they have lifted, and I think that's part of their website. But they have made commitments over the years. But the problem is that the long-term drinking water advisers, as you see there today, one community has been on drinking water advisory for more than a year. It slips into long-term drinking water advisory. So it only takes a year for that record to be established. So it's kind of, as I've been looking at some

of these monthly water tracks reports, it's kind of two steps backwards, one step forward. So as some of these, probably not a good word, mature into one year, they go on to the long-term drinking water advisory and they can stay there long if they're not being addressed. Maybe I can get Glenn on that as well. How does this current Justin Trudeau government

compare to previous governments in terms of progress on this issue? Well, Steve, first I'd like to point out much, much credit to my colleague here. And, you know, we're not, OFNTSC doesn't align itself with political oversight. We're a technical service provider to provide services to First Nations throughout Ontario. But comparatively, if you talk over the last decade, the investment being made by the federal government currently in power has never been seen before. It's unheard of. And hence, you know, that type of investment

is really attributing to ending long-term drinking water advisories in the majority of the communities when we speak to the province of Ontario. Okay, I think that's worth putting on the record because I don't know if either of you have checked the polls lately and this is not a partisan comment, but the current federal government is in some trouble and never really gets any credit for anything these days. But Glenn, if I hear you right, you're saying that they've made unprecedented steps forward compared to their predecessors. Is that true? I agree with that statement Steve. Like I say there's been some significant gains made at a First Nation level in regards to water

industry related issues especially with the investment towards an infrastructure and the investments that are being made towards training. So hats off to the persons in particular that make those types of decisions at a senior level in the ministry offices. Okay, Irving follow up on that if you would by telling us what in your view are the biggest obstacles still being faced by the communities where the long-term boil water advisories

are still in place. Okay, I'm gonna date myself here, Steve. I've been working on this for quite a while, ever since Walkerton happened. I worked with the Chiefs of Ontario on that. And my time at the Assembly, we met with the former Minister of Indian Affairs for the late Prentice, and we asked him, what's it gonna take to clear these long-term drinking water advisories? And he said, it's just a matter of money. This is Jim Prentiss, the former conservative minister

of indigenous affairs? Yeah. That's right. And that's still the situation today. If there was enough money put towards it that's required, probably identified in the closing infrastructure gap, these would be addressed. And you're never going to get away from drinking water advisers. Some of them are transient. You have a burst pipe

you have to put a drinking water adviser on. But these long term ones are the ones that need to be addressed. These are the ones where people, elders, young people, others, have suffered, as you mentioned, one over 20, 25 years without safe drinking water, without being able to open the tap, even though they might have a system there, but the water is affected that you cannot use. So I think the plan, the hope is that those long-term drinking water devices should be eliminated

as promised by Justin, Prime Minister Trudeau back in 2015. Glenn, can you just give our viewers who do not live on reserves, and I'm going to assume that that is the vast, vast majority of our viewership and listenership, can you tell them what it does to a community when you know you can't turn on the tap and drink what comes out of it? It's a matter of trust, Steve. If you can imagine, we have many communities across Canada, First Nations, that are suffering

long-term drinking water advisories and effects of for decades, applicable generations. So when you speak to that trust factor is even what we deal with internally with the OFNTSC in the development of projects and proposals that are submitted to the federal government and receive approval. We build brand new water treatment plants in First Nation communities. You can imagine when you're talking two to three generations that have been on long-term drinking water advisories to get them to appreciate and understand that that water that is now coming out of their tap is safe to drink. You know, you've got to take

into consideration First Nations have been under oppression under a colonial regime for 250 years. These changes that we're speaking to that are going to move our communities positively forward, they're not going to happen overnight. It's going to take decades to make those changes and a good place to start is ending these long-term drinking water advisories. How Irving has climate change made it more difficult to make progress on these issues? Well, definitely. First Nations are being more severely impacted by floods, fires, and severe wind storms that really impacted the quality of water. And many of these drinking water advisories are shown to be type one, since serious deterioration

in water quality. So it's never ending work to monitor the quality of your water coming in, especially with the North. And we see now that the Adewapuskat First Nation is now has a litigation on their long-term drinking water advisory. They do have water, a new plant that was built somewhat recently, but the quality of the water, which is full of organics, continues to have disinfected byproducts, which result in carcinogenic trihalomethanes. And the nation, people know there is something in their water, even though Canada will tell them,

you know, you probably have to drink 10,000 gallons a year for the next 20 years for it to affect you. They know there is something in their water and that's why they don't drink it. And that's why there was a reverse osmosis plant put behind the treated water. so they are now treating the treated water so that First Nations can get relatively safe water. So that's part of that whole process of severely deteriorated source water. And that's another thing that needs to be looked at. First Nations need to take control of their source water,

not just within their lands. As the safe drinking water draft acts as in under and on First Nations land, it has to go beyond that. Well, that's a good. Yeah, let me just jump in there and say, that's a good segue, segue actually to take me to Glenn and to circle back to something we talked about a few minutes ago, which is how much

of a problem has it been Glenn to make progress on these issues in terms of a lack of expertise on reserves, in terms of a lack of training for people to actually operate and maintain the water treatment facilities they have on reserves. Talk to us about what part of the puzzle that is. Well, the difficulties that I'm experienced with in regards to facilitating support services to the First Nations, and if we could revisit your map, Steve, is if you look predominantly most of the drinking water advisories are in the far north or remote communities. And that in itself, when you make considerations of the distances, right? So to get that infrastructure in there,

even if you have a catastrophic or a major component fail in those communities, you're speaking a long distance and you're speaking to a considerable amount of time. You know, because the O&M investment hasn't been made for a lot of years through the federal government support is that we're finding that these major components that are subject to failure don't even have replacements available off the shelf in major centers or municipalities, right? So that's a key point to consider when you're working with First Nations in the training piece. We pride ourselves in what we've done and we currently manage

a program supported by Indigenous Services Canada called the Circuit Rider Training Program, where we've lined ourselves up with provincial regulations and we train operators in First Nations to become certified to provincial levels of certification for the plant that they operate in their community. But the difficulties are again, when you talk to speak to geographics, it's facilitating that training that they need directly in their community, which our circuit writer training program facilitates.

But then again, when you're dealing with old or aged equipment, it comes into placement of, consideration for when that component is going to fail, which is highly likely or a higher percentage now with the age of a lot of the plants in the First Nations. But I presume Irving that the long-term solution to this problem is having enough people on site who have the talent and skill and training

to maintain and repair these water treatment facilities when they become problematic. And to that end, I guess that means making sure that enough young people are interested in this as a potential career. How do you do that? Good question. I'm glad you brought that up.

One of my projects is to interest young indigenous students, young business students, First Nations students to become interested in water careers. And that was one of the work things I worked with Queens University where they where they work with new students coming into the university and they help them every which way every way they can to help them, make them succeed. So part of that is doing that. But as also Glenn mentioned,

when you get to the community level, working with the operators that are successful and showing the community and the young people that you can make a career out of this and that it is something that really helps community in terms of safety, providing the safety for members. So it is a good career to get into and something we hope to see more and more young students

get into those careers. Glenn, I wonder if, and again, we're going to harken back to that map, Sheldon, maybe you could put it up again, there are still too many red dots on that map. And I wonder if you can tell us, are there any First Nations on that map who are never going to have clean, safe, reliable water? You know what, I'm confident that in a very short time with the level of support services and the history and from a perspective of commitment, you know, being in myself for a relatively age, it's going to be the youthful generation that is going to replace us, that are going to realize the successes that we're

envisioning now and we're putting into place into those communities. Those communities that you see with the red and green dots, they will get off their boil water advisories, they will get off their long-term drinking water advisories, but it's gotta be a wholesome approach with support of the federal and provincial governments, First Nations holding the accountability factor with their operators, and then individual organizations such as the OFNTSC being able to facilitate that educational component that is so critical, right, is our leaders, almost 30 years ago, Steve, had the vision at the time the Walkerton situation arose.

And they seen that this could be a possible issue that would arise in a First Nation community, similar to what happened in Mockerton. So they, on their own decision, passed a resolution that aligned all the First Nations in Ontario with Ontario water regulations, which are some of the most stringent in the world. And so as we move forward, as we implement the application of the regulations and the training that is tied in with the provincial certification process and get operators to a level of certification that is necessary and be confident and have the expertise and have the background in regards to operating these major pieces of infrastructure that are now costing anywhere from 30 to 40 million dollars to build. I'm confident to see that we will

press forward and probably relinquish them all or rescind them all in the next 10 years. We should just remind our younger viewers, there have been a number of references here to Walkerton. Walkerton was the water tragedy that took place in that part of sort of central Ontario. Gosh, it's 25 years ago already, almost 25 years ago, a combination of bad policy, bad performance, bad everything that resulted in a lot of people drinking tainted water, seven dead, thousands sickened by what happened there, and obviously a commitment by many levels of government

not to have that happen again. Let's do a clip here. Minister of Indigenous Services Patty Hajdu speaking about Bill 61, the First Nations Clean Water Act. Sheldon, roll it if you would. Can you imagine that communities, and I'm sure many Canadians don't realize this, communities are at the mercy right now of the federal government in terms of the quantum of money that is spent on sufficiency of funding for water systems. That means that, for example, the amount for salaries for water operators could get arbitrarily cut by Canada.

The amount for infrastructure replacement or for repairs or for training is at the discretion of Canada. And this bill changes that reality for First Nations. Irving, in your view, is this bill going to make a difference? I was hopeful at the start. I was part of the part of the team that worked with the Indigenous Services Minister Hajdu's officials in developing. I'm going to say developing because it was not co-development as it turned out. But I was hopeful that would be that way. But as we get further into it, with all of the, all of the, I don't know what the wording that goes into some of the causes, that does not provide

commitment for funding. It just says we will work towards, we will do our best efforts to meet those requirements. And that's not going to cut it, I guess? That's not sitting well with First Nations because they've seen the government say, we'll do our best efforts for too many times. They would rather see we shall, we must. Glenn, how would you improve the bill? Well, I'm disappointed by the level of political posturing

that's currently taking place in moving this legislation forward in the House. By whom? But I, sorry Steve? Political posturing by whom? Well, there's representatives of various political entities that are sitting and reviewing the legislation and are making decisions that are, from my perspective,

delaying what is one of the most critically important pieces of the legislation as it relates to First Nations across Canada. So I'm of the opinion is that the faster we get this legislation passed, the better it's going to be supportive of First Nations and their water drinking or wastewater systems operations. Wholeheartedly in regards to developing new infrastructures, getting operator salaries where they need to be, making consideration for the source water piece

that I bring brought into our conversation. Those are all critical pieces. But again, there's that unknowing, and I agree with Bing, is that there isn't a financial commitment. And you'd like to see that? I'd like to see that is because that's one of the biggest things that we struggle with in regards to the infrastructure

and training support that we facilitate with Indigenous Services Canada to First Nations in Ontario. Gotcha. Gentlemen, I want to thank both of you for coming on to TVO tonight. I think we know a lot more about this issue now than we did 22 minutes ago. So I'll thank Irving LeBlanc, the former Director of Infrastructure for the Assembly of First Nations, who's joined us from the nation's capital, and Glenn Goodman from the Ontario First Nations Technical Services Corporation, who's joined us from Thunder Bay, Ontario. Good of you to join us, gents. Until next time.

Thank you very much. Thank you for asking me. Appreciate the opportunity. Take care.