"They did find that we should be filtering our water in the schools," she said, adding that the band office has agreed to carry out further tests. Roy said the quality of the water source, Mistissini Lake, is very, very good, but down the line in the school the water quality drops noticeably. The students also studied four different types of filtering options, including some traditional methods, such as using moss or a heavy cotton, as well as modern charcoal filters. In their evaluation, the students also took into account cost and environmental impacts of the different filtration methods. 

Manitoba Chief speaking at United Nations 2023 Water Conference - AFN Manitoba Regional Chief Cindy Woodhouse is speaking at the United Nations in New York this week about long-term drinking water advisories – a problem that persists in First Nations communities across Canada. Alex Karpa reports.

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.

Biigtigong Nishnaabeg held celebrations today to formally announce the construction of a new raw water intake and treatment plant. This new plant will provide a safe and reliable source of potable water capable of meeting the community's current and future needs. The announcement was made today by Chief Duncan Michano and Patty Hajdu, Minister of Indigenous Services.

A Dene Nation water summit being held this week has taken on new urgency as delegates deal with the fallout from Imperial Oil’s Kearl tailings spills. The northern Alberta oil sands mine continues to operate but has now been ordered by the federal government to take immediate action to stop months-long seepage of wastewater. A separate release of millions of litres of tailings at the same site was also revealed last month.

Jon Widney can't help but smile as he talks about the way students studying to be water treatment operators are being taught today. "It would have been an easier learning process, that's for sure," said Widney. Widney is an instructor in the water and wastewater operator program at Yukon University in Whitehorse. That process he's referring to is a new learning tool the university is developing in partnership with the Calgary NGO Water Movement.

A local First Nation says it's "disappointed" Teck Coal is seeking to reduce the $16 million in fines it was assessed by the B.C. Ministry of Environment in January for polluting waterways in B.C.'s East Kootenay. In January, the province imposed three administrative penalties on Teck Coal Limited, a subsidiary of Teck Resources, citing the company's failure to have water treatment facilities ready by a required date.

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?

After decades of seeing their lands sold off by the province and exploited by resource companies, Blueberry River First Nations won a landmark case in 2021. A B.C. Supreme Court judge ruled the province had breached the nation’s treaty rights by allowing so much disturbance it was impossible for the community to maintain its way of life. That ruling led to an agreement with the province in January that gives Blueberry River the power to determine where and how new development proceeds. The implications go far beyond Treaty 8 territory. The nation sits on what researchers call a “carbon bomb” — that, if fully tapped, would become Canada’s largest source of greenhouse gasses and among the largest in the world.

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.

NSF, a leading public health and safety organization, announces the launch of protocol, NSF P524: Water Quality Test Devices for Drinking Water. This is the first-ever protocol that provides a standard third-party validation of the performance of water quality testing devices (WQTD) used in drinking water, ensuring public health protection by providing assurance that these crucial devices perform according to the manufacturer’s claims.

Indigenous Services Canada (ISC) is working to deal with drinking water issues on a First Nation near Prince Albert. People living on the Lac La Ronge Indian Band (LLRIB) side of Little Red Reserve are being given bottled water due to a number of issues with the water infrastructure in the community. Curtis Bergeron, director for strategic water management at ISC in Ottawa explained the ministry is currently working with LLRIB to find a permanent solution to the water problems. Currently the water coming from the water treatment plant on the Montreal Lake side of Little Red is not considered safe for consumption. Many residents in the community as well have water holding tanks which are damaged and do not keep their water clean.

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. 

Tamara Brass lives at the Key First Nation. She told Yorkton This Week she enrolled in the course because of an interest in how people were accessing their water. On the Key First Nation Brass said about 80 per cent of residences access water through a treatment plant not unlike the one in Yorkton, only on a much smaller scale. The remaining residences have their own source of water. The Yorkton plant tour was one Brass said she found interesting in terms of the level of maintenance and testing employed to ensure water quality, adding it was good to get a look at what happens “behind the scenes” in terms of water quality.

The Canadian government is facing new calls to stop violating the rights of First Nations, Inuit and Métis people as UN Special Rapporteur on the rights of Indigenous Peoples Francisco Calí Tzay kicks off his 10-day visit to Canada. Calí Tzay and his delegation will tour Canada from March 1 to March 10. The Special Rapporteur’s mandate includes reporting on the human rights situation of Indigenous Peoples worldwide and addressing specific alleged cases of violations of Indigenous rights.

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.

This year's HER for SHE initiative spotlights five Canadian women  working to build a better future through their passion, activism, and work in their communities: Autumn Peltier, Indigenous Rights and Water Activist; Fae Johnstone, 2SLGBTQIA+ Advocate; Rita Audi, Gender and Education Equality Activist; Naila Moloo, Climate Tech Researcher; and Kélicia Massala, founder of Girl Up Québec.

Kush Sharma, director of municipal modernization and partnerships for the Municipal Information Security Association of Ontario, reported that 92 per cent of respondents to a recent poll of members said municipalities should first focus on critical infrastructure — such as the water system, public transit, solid waste and the voting system — before what they called traditional IT. “What you don’t want is the water system to be breached. If Microsoft Office 365 and your documents go down, or maybe you can’t process some financial statements, that can be fixed. But if your water system goes down there are life-safety issues. If we can try to balance the resources we have as municipalities and focus on the critical infrastructure components …. that would be a good start.”

Q: Black and Indigenous people are often the ones most affected by climate change, and yet they're not necessarily at the table in negotiations for solutions. How do we change that? A: We live in the most multicultural country in the world, we have the entire world within our borders. So that gives us access to a plethora of knowledge. But the issue that we tend to have is, when we invite people to the table to have discussions, it's in a very Western framework. We have a one-hour meeting where we're going to discuss X, Y, Z. But a lot of cultures don't work that way. There are a lot of Indigenous cultures that need to meet and spend weeks building relationships and having meals together without talking about business, and then slowly bring up business here and there.

Mistreatment of Innu people by colonial governments continues today, said an elder and activist who has fought for decades to protect the Innu's traditional culture and land in Labrador. "I will start on how we have been treated by the white man, and the treatment is still ongoing today," said Tshaukuesh (Elizabeth) Penashue, on Thursday when she began her testimony at an inquiry examining how Innu children and families have been affected by the child protection system.