Wednesday marks World Water Day, a day raising awareness of the more than 2 billion people around the world living without access to safe water, including many First Nations communities in Canada. The federal government says 138 long-term drinking water advisories have been lifted since November 2015, although some short-term boil water advisories have also slipped into the long-term category during that timeframe.

He admitted it can be difficult, pointing to the ongoing challenge of pressuring the federal government to provide drinkable water to Canada’s remote Indigenous communities. Obed said there were 298 boil water advisories between 2015 and 2020, including four that went on for more than a year and 50 that lasted more than three months. “This is part of our job,” he said of keeping Canadian government leaders accountable to fix these problems. “Our job is to articulate and quantify what it means to eliminate an infrastructure gap. These require billions of dollars, new relationships, and on ongoing effort where you tweak it over time.”

A northern Ontario First Nation that has lived under a boil-water advisory for nearly three decades has hired an outside consultant to find out once and for all what ails the community's water system. Neskantaga First Nation, roughly 450 kilometres north of Thunder Bay, Ont., is marking a grim milestone this month — 28 years under a boil water advisory, longer than any other First Nation.

As a years-long boil water advisory continues to drag out, there’s cautious optimism that clean water will be flowing to residents of Oneida Nation of the Thames. But it won’t be any time soon. In fact it could be a number of years yet before the community can lift its boil water advisory. "Over the holidays I heard from a lot of community members feeling a sense of hopelessness, but also a sense of guilt," said Oneida Councillor Brandon Doxtator, who oversees environmental issues for the community." Just taking a five minute shower has caused community members to be worried about their part of exacerbating the problem," he said.

There is currently no timeline for the restoration of water service at Wabaseemoong Independent Nations after accidental contamination forced the northwestern Ontario community's water supply to be shut off last month. The shutdown occurred on Dec. 23, after a water pipe burst in the building that houses the community's water reservoir, leading to a flood, said Curtis Bergeron, director of strategic water management with Indigenous Services Canada.

Tragedy five years ago that claimed the lives of a father and his four children on the Oneida Nation of the Thames in Ontario has the community insistent that the federal government work with them to meet their water needs. On Dec. 15, the First Nation declared a state of emergency and ordered community members to start conserving water. The water alert was issued after a member reported his tap water was coming out brown, consistent with a high iron content. An investigation indicated that the level of the aquifer from the Thames River that feeds into the Oneida water tower is low. The tower services 546 homes and 22 community buildings.

Leaders of an Indigenous community near London, Ont., are calling for the federal government to work with them to help solve chronic water supply problems after a state of emergency was issued Tuesday due to low water levels. Residents of Oneida Nation of the Thames are under an order to conserve water and limit its use with the community's water tower at an all-time low. The tower is the primary source of water for the 546 homes and 22 buildings in the territory.

The world is "running out of water," Makasa Looking Horse says, and if we don't take action soon, it will be too late. Looking Horse, from Six Nations of the Grand River in Ontario, is one of the hosts of the Ohneganos Ohnegahdę:gyo – Let's Talk about Water podcast, which won a 2021 David Suzuki Foundation Future Ground Prize. The prize recognizes youth-led movements. It's a podcast created, the Suzuki Foundation says, to "engage Indigenous communities and disseminate research findings by facilitating meaningful discussion about water issues and climate change."

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has announced $800 million in funding over seven years for large Indigenous-led conservation projects covering almost a million square kilometres of land. "Communities have been clear — safeguarding lands and waters will help build a strong future for generations to come," Trudeau said Wednesday. "As a government, our role is to listen and support that vision."

A new display at the Canadian Museum of History in Ottawa will highlight the activism and accomplishments of Anishinaabe water-rights advocate Autumn Peltier. The display will be available for the public to view until January 8, 2023. The museum display features items related to her international advocacy for clean water rights, including the dress she wore when she addressed the United Nations General Assembly in 2018 about the issue of contaminated water in First Nation communities across the country.

A band member from the Ojibways of Onigaming First Nation’s work to protect his community and provide them with safe and clean water is being honoured and recognized by the federal government. Brian Indian of Onigaming First Nation has been awarded the 2022 National First Nations Water Leadership Award, recognizing his 17 years of service as one of the community’s only certified water operators.

Anishinabek Nation celebrated the graduation of 14 interns from the Georgian Bay Drinking Water Internship Program recently. In association with the Ontario Water First Education & Training Inc. and Waabnoong Bemjiwang Association of First Nations (WBAFN), Gezhtoojig Employment & Training, the paid internship program started in June 2021. It offers great opportunity as it recruits young Indigenous adults to be in the drinking water treatment industry. The program gives students the knowledge and experience to obtain entry-level certifications required to begin careers in water treatment. Through the skills they obtain in this internship program, students become qualified personnel, supporting communities much like our own, on the the unceded territories of the Secwépemc and Ktunaxa peoples and the land chosen as home by the Métis peoples of B.C., in having access to safe, clean drinking water for the foreseeable future.

Serendipity seemed to strike the participants in an Indigenous water ceremony in Niagara-on-the-Lake, held by the Niagara River — the ceremony kicking off a project that's all about just how important water is for us all. As participants raised their voices in song, rain starting falling on them outside the Fort George National Historic Site’s navy hall — which did not go uncommented on by the ceremony’s leader, Linda Manitowabi of Wiikwemkoong First Nation.

Autumn was only 12 years old in 2016 when she met with PM Justin Trudeau to address his unfulfilled promise to "protect the water". Since then, she remains vocal on the global stage and at home to advocate for clean drinking water. As the Chief Water Commissioner for Anishinabek Nation in Ontario, Autumn is an outstanding example of what youth are capable of as today's leaders, and the immense impact can achieve.

The First Nation has long been among the most vocal critics of plans to build a proposed road that would connect the Ring of Fire mineral deposit to the highway networks and manufacturing might of Ontario’s south. Now, they’re working to start a sturgeon stewardship program in an effort to protect the fish from proposed development. Even with the most optimistic of estimates, shovels for the proposed Ring of Fire project are years away from going into the ground, but people in Neskantaga First Nation feel a growing sense of urgency.

People in Shoal Lake #40 First Nation are proud of what they've accomplished in recent years. The community in northwestern Ontario, near the Manitoba-Ontario border, built Freedom Road, connecting their once-isolated community to the Trans-Canada Highway, and completed a water-treatment plant that's helped them emerge from a 24-year boil-water advisory. This spring, the community was honoured by the Ontario Public Works Association with the Public Works Project of the Year for Small Municipalities and First Nations award for their new water-treatment plant.

Neskantaga First Nation on Sunday marked its 10,000th day under a drinking water advisory, the longest period of time any First Nation in Canada has lived under such an advisory. The community of around 300 people approximately 450 kilometres north of Thunder Bay, Ont., has survived without safe, clean tap water for more than 27 years.

In one of Ontario's newest electoral ridings, residents hope whichever party forms the next provincial government will fix a longstanding sense of neglect and address a wide range of issues disproportionately felt in the far north. Kiiwetinoong — which means north in Ojibway — is the largest riding in Ontario by geographic area, but one of the smallest in terms of population. It was one of two new ridings created for the 2018 election, and the majority of the population is Indigenous.

A northwestern Ontario First Nation that was under a boil-water advisory for 24 years has received this year's award for building the province's best small drinking water system. The Ontario Public Works Association presented the 2022 Public Works Project of the Year for Small Municipalities and First Nations award to Shoal Lake #40 First Nation, at a ceremony in Mississauga, Ont., Tuesday. The award recognizes the new Shoal Lake #40 water treatment plant as having uniquely provided opportunities for local procurement and employment.