Advocates using World Water Day to put focus on fight for clean water in Indigenous communities
Posted March 22, 2023 4:36 pm.
For many Canadians turning on the tap and filling up your glass doesn’t seem like a huge deal, but for others, especially those in Canada’s Indigenous communities, it’s not that simple.
How to provide access to clean and safe water is one of the main topics that will be discussed at the UN Water Conference in New York for World Water Day on Wednesday.
“When it comes to water with Indigenous communities in Canada, there are a variety of different issues and not every community has the same challenges. Some don’t have infrastructure, and some may not have proper water filtration or water treatment, others it’s as simple as there’s no connection between homes in the water source,” said Professor David Atkinson with the Urban Water Research Team from Toronto Metropolitan University.
Atkinson, along with his team, will be participating in an event at the conference that focuses on resiliency, Indigenous water and climate change.
He currently works with Inuit communities in the Canadian Arctic who prefer to collect water from the land and face different challenges than the Indigenous communities in the south. He tells CityNews climate change is one of the main causes of these challenges.
“Because the Arctic has been so cold and the water is coming straight from snow melt, it’s incredibly clean. So for thousands of years, they’ve been drinking water this way and with colonialism we’ve come in and told them where to get their water from and we’ve chlorinated that water often over chlorinating it,” explained Atkinson. “Climate change is changing that. The water is warming up, there’s less snow. With warmer water and less snow, there’s a higher risk of bacteria and viruses and algae growth.”
Although there is no cookie-cutter solution to solve all water issues, water advocate Autumn Peltier said the government needs to step up.
“I think some of the changes that need to be made are the government paying a lot more attention to Indigenous issues surrounding boil water advisories and just water issues in Indigenous communities in general,” said Peltier.
As of Feb. 3, there are 32 active long-term drinking water advisories across 28 communities in Canada.
Peltier is currently working with the Dreamcatcher Foundation to help provide temporary solutions to provide clean water in Indigenous communities.
CityNews followed the founders of Dreamcatcher as they went house-by-house on Six Nations of the Grand River, where more than 80 per cent of residents don’t have access to clean drinking water, as they installed temporary water filters as an interim solution.
RELATED: Fight for access to clean water for all Six Nations of Grand River residents
Peltier said finding permanent solutions is definitely not easy.
“That’s why I kind of encourage collaboration within everybody, whether that be Indigenous or non-Indigenous. Everybody needs to collaborate and partner and come together because everybody’s stronger in numbers. And the more ideas, you have the more support, the closer and faster we can get to finding solutions.”
Atkinson agrees collaboration is key to coming up with long-term solutions as each community needs something different. .
“We need to realize that Indigenous communities are incredibly diverse across this country, each with their own challenges and needs … We need to first ask what these communities want,” said Atkinson.
“Listening to Indigenous communities is the first thing and working together with them to find solutions. Once we understand what their challenges are, then we can start to come up with working with them to find solutions … and then we need to empower them to lead the way on their solutions.”
The UN Water Conference 2023 wraps up on March 24.
