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.”

Despite tireless advocacy, the federal government is still denying Indigenous communities much of the funding they have requested for discovering the remains at former residential schools and healing programs. Across the country, there are still 32 long-term boil water advisories in effect in 28 communities, and at least 45 short-term drinking waters advisories in Indigenous communities. More troubling, as Indigenous women and girls face an ongoing genocide, the government has failed to build new shelters to help Indigenous women and gender-diverse people and children flee violence.

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.