There are still 28 boil water advisories left on First Nations in Canada. That's according to Indigenous Services Minister Patty Hajdu. She says the challenge now is making sure there are qualified people to operate the water treatment systems. "A lot of it comes down to water operators," Hajdu said on Wednesday after her visit to Northwest Angle #33.

Jenifer Redsky and her sisters run Oceah Oceah — a First Nations paddling company with a mission to connect people “with and to water” in Tkaronto (Toronto). “As an Indigenous woman, we’ve always been taught that we have a special connection to the water,” said Redsky. “My sisters and I really believe that by doing the work that we do, by giving people lessons, teaching them the skills, bringing them down to the water, we’re increasing people’s connection to the water, their relationship to the water, how they treat the water and how they protect it alongside us.”

Shawn Chorney offered to be the first to take a drink of water from the pond at the Education Centre this summer. The vice president of Canadore College’s Enrolment Management, Indigenous and Student Services, helped launch and open its new Water Teaching Lodge. The lodge is located in the First Peoples’ Centre in the main campus off College Drive. The lodge and the construction of an operational water treatment facility on campus will provide a new approach to clean water and technology that prioritizes Indigenous teachings about water.

“Few could recall any recent actions taken by the government of Canada specifically related to ensuring access to clean drinking water,” said Canadians Views. Indigenous people also told pollsters more immediate concerns included inadequate housing, lack of high-speed internet, crime rates, and “a strained relationship with law enforcement.”

First Nations Finance Authority (FNFA) is urging Canada to embrace a new and innovative method of funding Indigenous infrastructure based on partnership rather than paternalism to keep its promise to bridge the infrastructure gap between First Nations and the rest of Canada by 2030. "The federal model for funding infrastructure has failed to deliver the housing, clean water and other critical infrastructure that will improve the living conditions in First Nations communities," said FNFA President and CEO Ernie Daniels. "We believe there is a better way, a way that works with First Nations as partners rather than the colonial approach that's rooted in the almost 150-year-old Indian Act."

The federal government is providing bottled water and mental health services to First Nations struggling to deal with a spill from a tar sands tailings pond that went unreported for months in northern Alberta. “They’re devastated and their communities are devastated,” Indigenous Services Canada Minister Patty Hajdu said at a press conference in Ottawa on Monday. “They’re afraid that the water is contaminated.

Almost three years after a major Saskatchewan irrigation project was announced, the head of a group representing rural municipalities says the provincial government should "get on" with it — while an organization that represents First Nations says the province should have consulted with those communities more. But where is the Lake Diefenbaker project now?

First Nations and Indigenous individuals can breathe a sigh relief as the deadline to submit for compensation with the First Nations Drinking Water Settlement has now been extended. The First Nations Drinking Water Settlement is a settlement (agreement) between the Government of Canada (Canada) and certain First Nations and their members. Any Indigenous individual or First Nation affected by a long-term drinking water advisory that lasted for at least one year between November 20, 1995, and June 20, 2021, will now have until March 7, 2024, to submit their claims.

The B.C. government has announced what it says is significant funding to help protect the province's freshwater supply in partnership with Indigenous people. On Monday, Nathan Cullen, B.C.'s minister of water, land and resource stewardship, said $100 million is being invested in a watershed security fund co-managed by the B.C.-First Nations Water Table (BCFNWT), which includes members from the government and B.C. First Nations. 

In 2021, Federal Court approved a class-action settlement between Canada and several First Nations that were subject to long-term drinking water advisories from 1995 to 2021. Now, settlement negotiators have extended the deadline for First Nations to submit a claim until March 7. If the Band Council Acceptance Resolution that a First Nation files with the settlement administrator is accepted, it will receive a $500,000 base payment and be eligible for additional payments of up to 50% of the amounts paid to eligible individuals in the community.

The Ross River Dena Council is doubling down on work to establish an Indigenous Protected and Conserved Area, according to the First Nation's chief. "It's a pretty important area that we need to conserve to protect our interests for future generations," Dylan Loblaw told CBC News. "We need to have that balance." According to a funding proposal to the Canada Nature Fund, the First Nation wants to protect roughly 41,000 square-kilometres in central-east Yukon. The proposed area would extend from the Pelly River valley to the Selwyn-Mackenzie Mountains along the continental divide. The First Nation's group trapline — used by community members for generations — comprises a significant portion.

“It’s definitely a concern expressed by community members seeing changes in water, traditional foods and changes in their health. “More data and information is necessary to answer these questions… but there are toxic sludge and tailings ponds here… these leak into the watershed,” said Lepine. Last summer, APTN News reported on a story where Keepers of the Water, an Indigenous environmental group, raised alarm over the proposed dumping of treated tailings pond water from the Alberta oil industry into the Athabasca River.

The Canadian province of British Columbia (B.C.) announced a land, water and resource management agreement with the Blueberry River First Nations Indigenous group on Wednesday that will restart development in the vast Montney shale play, but also limit new oil and gas activity. New well licenses in B.C.'s Montney have been frozen since June 2021, when a landmark B.C. Supreme Court decision ruled in favour of a Blueberry River claim that decades of industrial development had damaged their traditional territory.

A new human rights report released this week highlights Canada’s failures to address long-standing abuses, including the failure to provide clean drinking water to First Nations. The report published by the Human Rights Watch group outlines the lack of safe water access in indigenous communities across the country, despite the federal government’s promise in 2015 to end all drinking water advisories on First Nations reserves by 2021.

Human Rights Watch has again given Canada's treatment of Indigenous people a failing grade. As Heather Yourex-West explains, the organization is highlighting how the protection of Indigenous women and girls is falling short, and the lack of access to clean drinking water for First Nations.

A prominent human-rights group says Canada is failing to address long-standing abuses, delivering a rebuke of what it calls the federal government’s inadequate climate policy and violations of the rights of Indigenous people and immigration detainees. Human Rights Watch says more than two dozen First Nations remain under long-term drinking water advisories, despite Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s promise to bring that number down to zero.

A new federal initiative aimed at helping Indigenous communities protect their lands and water is a "win-win for everyone," according to some Northerners. "It benefits the programs and the communities that they serve, but that benefit and that value grows beyond those communities," said Dahti Tsetso, deputy director of the Indigenous Leadership Initiative, which supports Indigenous Guardian programs across Canada and in the North. Tsetso has also been director of lands and resources for the Dehcho First Nations in Fort Simpson, N.W.T.

Numerous people who lived on a First Nation in Canada - including Saskatchewan - that had a long-term drinking water advisory for more than a year are eligible to submit a claim for compensation. The First Nations Drinking Water Settlement provides compensation for both individuals and First Nations Band Councils that were impacted by long-term drinking water advisories that lasted continuously  for at least one year between Nov. 20, 1995,  and June 20, 2021.​ The deadline to apply is March 7, 2023. 

Those who are a part of an Indigenous community may have an opportunity to make a claim for compensation. Last year, the courts approved a settlement between Canada and First Nations who were subject to a drinking water advisory that lasted at least one year between Nov. 20, 1995, and June 20, 2021. The settlement includes compensation for impacted First Nations and eligible individuals, as well as commitments to fund the construction, operation and maintenance of infrastructure needed to provide regular access to clean, safe drinking water in their homes in a quantity sufficient for everyday use, reads a news release from organizers of The First Nations Drinking Water Settlement.

The Atlantic First Nations Water Authority has signed a transfer agreement with Indigenous Services Canada to take over water and wastewater management in 17 First Nations in the region. The communities will still need a ratifying vote to officially come aboard but Chief Ross Perley of Neqotkuk, a Wolastoqey community 120 kilometres northwest of Fredericton, said the agreement signed Nov. 7 in Halifax represents much-needed empowerment for First Nations.