Ottawa won’t meet boil-water promises
At least 22 water advisories in 10 First Nations communities will remain beyond March
OTTAWA — The federal government says it will not meet a marquee pledge by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to lift all boil-water advisories in First Nations communities by March 2021.
Indigenous Services Canada says at least 22 long-term water advisories in 10 First Nations communities will remain in place beyond that deadline, which was set following an ambitious 2015 Liberal election promise to lift them all within five years.
“What communities want is not an Ottawa-imposed deadline,” Indigenous Services Minister Marc Miller said Wednesday during a news conference in Ottawa.
“It’s a long-term commitment to access to clean water.”
The COVID-19 pandemic has thrown a wrench into efforts to upgrade water systems and carry out on-site training, with supply chains snarled and construction put off as some reserves opted to restrict travel, the department said at an earlier briefing.
“COVID has really changed everything,” Miller said. “Because of COVID, many projects lost a full construction season.”
He called the continued lack of access to clean water in scores of First Nations communities “totally unacceptable,” but did not set a second deadline.
The complexity of projects, which can include infrastructure overhauls and depend on increasingly unreliable winter roads, have added to the delay, he said. It has also been a challenge to hire and retain operators on remote sites.
The department says 97 boilwater advisories have been lifted since 2016, while 59 remain in place in 41 communities as the problem of unreliable drinking water persists.