First Nations boil-water issues ‘complicated,’ says Morneau

OTTAWA—Finance Minister Bill Morneau says the “enormously complicated” effort to end all drinking-water advisories in First Nations communities across Canada isn’t being held back by a shortage of money.

In response to a university student’s question on Thursday in Guelph, Ont., Morneau acknowledged that fulfilling the Liberals’ 2015 campaign pledge has been a big challenge and won’t be finished quickly.

“The idea that we have places in this country that don’t have access to clean drinking water is just unacceptable in 21st-century Canada,” Morneau said at the University of Guelph after being asked if he had considered diverting more money into the program.

“This is not something that we’ve looked at from a constrained-funding approach. Every dollar that we need to spend in this to get it done we are spending.

“This has been a long-term challenge — and the challenge is not only putting the money in to actually get the (water) systems up and running, but it’s the ongoing maintenance.”

The Liberals have vowed to make sure all long-term water advisories on reserves lifted by March of 2021 — and they have committed about $2 billion over several years toward investments like water and wastewater infrastructure to get there.

The federal government says 78 advisories about potentially tainted water have been lifted since Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Liberal government took office in November 2015, but 62 remain in place.