Ten years ago Justin Trudeau pledged to resolve indigenous boil water advisories within 5 years. There are currently 33 unresolved boil water advisories still in place and new ones being implemented. It is time to resolve this national embarrassment.
There are three major issues restricting resolution to these decades old problems, bureaucracy, geography, infrastructure and skilled workforce. But which of these are the root problems? In my mind there is one huge problem and one minor problem.
THE MAJOR PROBLEM
Government bureaucracy. Governments for decades have ignored, slow walked or de-prioritized indigenous issues. Social issues in vote rich, high population centres have always superseded these problems. Nobody in Toronto sees a project to build a water treatment facility in an indigenous community on the shore of Hudson Bay, but six inches of snow on Toronto streets is a national disaster requiring immediate action by the government. It is time that Canada became a nation that recognizes the needs of all Canadians. Personally, the Liberal party promised action ten years ago and haven’t succeeded. If you can’t meet a self described priority after missing your time limit by twice your own target, then you simply don’t deserve any more time. So that leaves Pierre Poilievre and the Conservative party with this challenge. Assuming that you win election, you have three, not five and not ten, years to provide local drinking water available without boiling or being trucked in for the 33 indigenous communities currently waiting, and generating a plan for future situations.
There are of course other issues. Removal of old inadequate infrastructure, local flooding and lack of trained skilled workers. Training workers and building infrastructure are well within government capability to resolve.
THE MINOR PROBLEM
Resolving flooding issues may require local community cooperation but the technologies and brainpower required are certainly abundantly available in Canada. We know how to build dams, weirs, and flood diversion ditches.
So, in short, there is no problem, just a lack of focused effort and commitment on behalf of government. Will Canada’s next government be up to the task? For the sake our indigenous fellow Canadians, I hope so. The Liberal government has had their chance and failed, maybe a Conservative government will make this the priority it needs to be.
