Image Credit: CFJC Today

By Adam Donnelly

TRUTH AND RECONCILIATION

Despite PM’s promises, local First Nation still struggling with water quality

Oct 20, 2021 | 5:04 PM

KAMLOOPS — For most Canadians safe, clean drinking water isn’t a concern.

However, there are still many Indigenous communities that don’t have that basic amenity. While we think of remote reserves far from populated areas having this problem, there’s one community just outside of Kamloops that still cannot ensure the safety of its water supply.

“When we took office in 2015, there were 109 – or, 105 long-term boil water advisories,” Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said in his remarks at the Tk’emlups Powwow Arbour. “We’ve now eliminated 118 long-term boil water advisories, with about 50 remaining to go.”

Just a few days before the Prime Minister visited Tk’emlups te Secwepemc, Chief of the Whispering Pines/Clinton Indian Band tweeted a video of a water truck delivering drinking water to his reserve, not far from the city.

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“The reason I tweeted that is because I’m frustrated with talking to the Department of Indian Affairs,” Chief Mike LeBourdais explains. “Because no one there has any responsibility or authority.”

The Whispering Pines/Clinton Indian Band shouldn’t have any issues with its water supply. In 2014, they got a water treatment upgrade. However, what was installed didn’t come close to the system the band asked for to meet the needs of its members.

“I think it was $4.4 million, and that would have been modular. It would have provided us with safe drinking water for the current structures on the reserve. We had a comprehensive community plan, and it would have met the needs of all of that, for $4 million,” LeBourdais says. “Indian Affairs kept cutting that back to I think about $1.4 million.”

The water treatment facility at Whispering Pines only services six structures on the reserve – that’s eight homes. In the meantime, the band can’t proceed with planned growth because it can’t get approval to build homes without a supply of clean drinking water.

“You have the Government of Canada – CMHC (Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation) provides mortgages for homes – but they won’t provide homes unless there’s clean drinking water,” LeBourdais says. “INAC (Indian and Northern Affairs) fails to provide clean drinking water. There hasn’t been a house built here since ‘95.”

Under the best circumstances, the water should be safe to drink. However, due to the cuts that were made to the original plan, it can become unsafe very quickly.

“This system has so many flaws and had so many things cut out of it, at any given time it could fail and we’re worse than when we started,” Water System Operator Benjamin Beach explains. “We’ve had INAC, we’ve had other members that provide our funding and that cut our funding for the system we wanted – we call them out here, I give them my tap water all the time, and they refuse to drink it.”

According to LeBourdais, the problem could be solved by amending the Indian Act and giving jurisdiction back to First Nations.

“Every Indian Band struggles with this,” LeBourdais says. “We don’t have the jurisdiction on our reserves. We need that jurisdiction, we need that authority so we can build water systems like the City of Kamloops has, so we can provide safe drinking water and a safe environment for our people.”