House Hansard - 325

44th Parl. 1st Sess.

June 5, 2024 02:00PM

Jun/5/24 6:36:58 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, it is always a privilege to stand in our House of Commons to debate topics, and tonight we have an incredible topic to discuss. Before I start, I have to recognize the Brooks Bandits in my community for winning the cup this season. When we talk about water, it is life. We have heard that said tonight. Rain is the critical piece because, without it, we do not have fresh water where we need it. Rain is the critical start to it. Since humans evolved a couple of hundred thousand years ago, the use of fresh, clean water has been vital. Human migration has led to sources of fresh water. People always move to where they can get fresh water, such as rivers, lakes and freshwater sources, because it is so critical. As migration began to settle into specific areas, water was also conserved. Where people did not have running water and lakes, they looked for springs. Then they learned how to drill or dig wells. Part of the culture was to always look for fresh water to survive. The Romans understood that they needed to build aqueducts to catch rain, which carried water through towns and cities. The longest aqueduct in the ancient world was over 400 kilometres long. Modern advances in sanitation, industrialization and sanitation-based practices have led to an explosion of the use of water, and with it, a growth in populations. As populations grew, people moved into rural and remote areas, where they always experienced difficulty finding water. However, indigenous people in this part of the world knew where fresh water was. It was essential not only to their survival as human beings, but also to their spiritual needs. In the world I live in, in recent times as a municipal leader, regional water was an issue because we had communities on boil water advisories. The consultations we held in a small area of communities did not happen overnight. It took months. It took years for people to understand that, to get rid of a boil water order, we needed to have hours of consultation. I will mention that I will be splitting my time today with the member Fort McMurray—Cold Lake. Consultation is so critical. At one point in time in our regionalization, we had a water treatment plant in the city I was the mayor of, but we needed to give that resource up to become part of a regional water system. I remember that the editor of the local newspaper never forgave me for giving up what he said was a resource for one community to be used regionally. It took a long time for that consultation process to happen. It took three years before those communities would no longer have any boil water advisories. That takes consultation, something that has been missing in this situation and something we need more of. The recent government's history is that, in 2001, the then Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development began surveying water and waste water systems in indigenous communities across Canada to establish a baseline of information on existing drinking water infrastructure. That was just over 20 years ago. However, we knew the situation had existed for a long time, not just for over 20 years. In 2003, the Government of Canada announced the first nations water management strategy and allocated $1.6 billion between 2003 to 2008 to it. It launched a plan of action for first nations drinking water, which was built on the first nations water management strategy, and it allocated an additional $60 million between 2006 and 2008 to address the findings of the 2005 report of the commissioner of the environment. That was only 20 years ago. In 2008, the government introduced the first nations water and waste water action plan. According to a summary of the investments, “An additional $330 million was allocated to support the FNWWAP, which reinforced the PAFNDW while adding new objectives, including a commitment to consult with First Nations on new legislation as well as the commissioning of a national engineering assessment of the status of First Nations water systems across the country.” In 2013, the Safe Drinking Water for First Nations Act was created by the government to support the development of federal regulations to improve first nations' access to clean, reliable drinking water and the effective treatment of waste water. I did not see anything, in all those dates that I read, about consultation. What I referred to in our communities and our municipalities took years, but I am not hearing about consultation. From 2015 to the present, the federal government spent $5.7 billion. Over $11 billion was spent between successive governments, and we are still facing the same problem: the boil water orders, unsafe drinking water in a developed G7 country. It took the Liberal government nine years to introduce the legislation to protect clean water for first nations. In the press conference when the minister announced the proposed bill, she referenced a first nation that she says would benefit from the bill, without having met with it enough for consultation. I say that, because I have met with the Blackfoot Confederacy chiefs who say they did not get consulted at any significant level on the proposed piece of legislation. What little they had suggested, they believed the minister had ignored. Those are not my words. They came from the chiefs of the Blackfoot Confederacy, which is a huge part of southern Alberta. Canada is blessed with clean, fresh and safe drinking water. It is home to 20% of the world's fresh water. We have rain. We have 7% of the world's renewable water supply, yet safe clean drinking water has been unavailable for many of our indigenous communities. This is not acceptable. An effort to provide fresh clean water for indigenous communities across the country— Mr. Blake Desjarlais: I have a point of order.

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House Hansard - 325