Water and wastewater operators play a critical role in ensuring drinking water safety by helping to prevent and reduce risks to water and wastewater systems. Access to ongoing training, mentoring and support is key to building First Nations' capacity to manage water systems, and recruit and retain qualified water operators. Indigenous Services Canada (ISC) and Yukon University today announced a new program delivery model to enhance water and wastewater operator training and support in the region.

Seven homes on the Muscowpetung Saulteaux Nation, approximately 65 kilometres northeast of Regina, were recently evacuated after floodwater from a nearby stream moved in earlier this week. It came after over 100 millimetres of rain fell in the area late Monday and through the day Tuesday. Jim Pratt, an emergency coordinator for the First Nation, told CBC the heavy rain filled the stream with water. When it began backing up at culverts running underneath Township Road 210 — a gravel road upstream from Muscowpetung — it started running over the road. The road and culverts eventually gave way.

Today, Jenica Atwin, Member of Parliament for Fredericton, on behalf of the Honourable Dominic LeBlanc, Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs, Infrastructure and Communities, and Gabriel Atwin, Chief of Kingsclear First Nation, announced federal funding for further development of the Southside Subdivision in Kingsclear First Nation. This funding will allow for Phase 5 of the Southside Subdivision to move forward. It will involve clearing a wooded area to continue the construction of Muwin Crescent and extending the existing municipal water, sanitary sewer, and roadway for the development of an additional 28 building lots. Once complete, this project will provide residents access to both reliable water and wastewater infrastructure and support further residential development in the community.

Two communities will be awarded as they work together to protect water in the Qu’Appelle River System. The Village of Lebret and Star Blanket Cree Nation have been chosen to receive a Calling Lakes Ecomuseum ‘Water Award’. “The Village of Lebret was pleased to partner with Star Blanket Cree Nation on this wastewater project,” stated Ralph Blondeau, Lebret Mayor in a media release.

Filmmaker Kevin Settee's four-part documentary series is an ode to one of the world's largest freshwater lakes and the people and communities who care for it. The series profiles the resilience and ingenuity of four Indigenous communities: Matheson Island, Poplar River First Nation, Fisher River Cree Nation and Camp Morningstar. Using an "own voices" approach, Settee connects with people who are responding to various external challenges such as climate change, the COVID-19 pandemic and industrial encroachment.

The Conservation through Reconciliation Partnership has officially launched a new initiative titled the Knowledge Basket. It will provide resources to communities and officials involved with Indigenous Protected and Conserved Areas (IPCAs). These are lands and waters where Indigenous governments have the primary role in protecting and conserving ecosystems. “Indigenous governments are at the forefront of protecting the largest, healthiest and most biodiverse areas across Canada,” said Steven Nitah, a core member of the Indigenous Circle of experts who helped develop the Knowledge Basket database.

All levels of government need to come together to help solve flood-related infrastructure issues on Manitoba's largest First Nation, community leaders said. "There is serious work to do," William Sutherland, Peguis First Nation's director of emergency management, said in an interview Sunday as the flood-battered community north of Winnipeg was toiling to again try and shore up structures, roads and homes as water levels rise from recent rainfall.

On June 15, grade nine students from Six Nations Polytechnic (SNP) and the STEAM Academy program donned their waders to join researchers Charles de Lannoy, Karen Kidd and Waterloo Biology Professor Mark Servos to conduct experiments in the Grand River. In its first year, this joint initiative led by McMaster University and the University of Waterloo, is a land-based experiential learning approach to science and engineering. The event is a pilot for a micro-credential course in which the students could eventually gain a McMaster University credit by the end of high school.

The House of Commons is close to adopting Canada's first-ever legislation on environmental racism — environmental hazards that disproportionately affect Indigenous, Black and other racialized communities. Bill C-226 comes up for a vote today and is expected eventually to pass through the House of Commons with the support of the Liberals, the NDP and the Green Party. Those parties hope the bill can be fast-tracked through unanimous consent and bypass several procedural hoops. That's not likely without the support of the two other opposition parties.

Water is life. Don’t mess with it. That’s the message from one Indigenous cultural anthropologist and water researcher: nothing can live without water, yet we’re destroying it at a rapid pace. In 2015, the federal government campaigned to end all long-term drinking water advisories in First Nations communities by 2020. Two years after that promised date, water advisories are still present in 94 First Nations communities, with Neskantaga First Nation, an Ojibwe community more than 430 kilometres northeast of Thunder Bay, Ont., surpassing 10,000 days under a boil water advisory this week.

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.

Across Canada, 29 Indigenous communities remain under a boil water advisory. Before residents in those communities can brush their teeth, drink a glass of water, cook food, or have a shower, they have to put water in a pot, bring it to a rolling boil, and let it cool — just so they don’t get sick performing many of these everyday activities. Under a commitment by the federal government to permanently eliminate all boil water advisories, 132 have been lifted in the last seven years. But until every Canadian has access to clean, potable drinking water, there is still much work to do, said Steph Romaniuk, faculty in the School of Environmental Studies at Canadore College in North Bay.

Cheekbone Beauty is using lipgloss to call out lip service paid by federal governments when it comes to providing safe drinking water to Indigenous communities. The fact that reserves, First Nations and Indigenous communities have struggled for access to clean drinking water has been known for years, and fixing the issue has been a focal point of major party platforms in the last three federal elections.

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.

Peltier says world leaders are always shocked and surprised when they hear her describe the water situation for First Nations in Canada. She says Canada is viewed by the outside world as a safe, rich country but feels First Nations people are treated like “animals.” Peltier says it seems to be ok for First Nations to go 20 years without clean drinking water but if that were to happen in any Canadian city, it would result in a state of emergency, that would be handled quickly.

Science, art, and the great outdoors. Megan Leung describes these three things as her greatest passions in life. Growing up in Mohkinstsis — on the traditional territories of the Treaty 7 region, located in the Canadian Rockies of Southern Alberta — the hydrologist, artist, and MSc geography student at the University of Calgary has always been in awe of her surroundings. It’s a love that inspired both her art and her academic path. For years though, Leung felt those passions were completely divergent parts of her life.

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.

Five times over the past 16 years, the Fisher River has spilled its banks at Peguis First Nation. The river channel is so small and the terrain in Manitoba's northern Interlake is so flat, it doesn't take much for floodwaters to spread far and wide across the Anishinaabe and Cree community. Every time there's a flood, the provincial and federal governments respond with some form of help. Depending on the severity of the flood in question, that assistance has included sandbags, pumps, billeting in hotels and even the replacement of dozens of flood-damaged homes.

At first, Rebecca Labillois thought it was just another routine storm roaring across the Bay of Chaleur. "But then the power went out," she says."The water just kept on flooding in, and it flooded all the way up here and up to my house." It was Dec. 6, 2010, and massive waves of water were engulfing the homes along Beach Road and Olympic Drive at Ugpi'ganjig First Nation, also known as Eel River Bar, in northern New Brunswick.