BY DAVID REID DOBELL
David Reid Dobell is a first-year International Development student at SAIS.
Despite possessing the world’s third largest freshwater reserves, the federal government does not supply safe drinking water to the 618 First Nations Communities in Canada (Fraser Institute 2018). In 2015, 105 reserves had an unsafe drinking water advisory that had been in effect for longer than one year (DiGiovanni 2019). Under public pressure, the federal government announced a policy of reducing the number of long-term advisories to zero by 2021 (McClearn 2019). However, the policy’s components neither resolve the structural funding gap for on-reserve water infrastructure nor offer an approach to building and maintaining systems that considers the difficult geographical and socioeconomic conditions on reserves. The government is thus sidelining sustainability in order to stay on track to meet its short-term target. Its failure to address the causes for system failure means the First Nations water crisis will continue, even if the number of long-term drinking water advisories is zero by 2021.
The federal government is accountable for designing, building, and maintaining the pipes that serve 72% of on-reserve households in Canada (PBO 2017, 12). As most First Nations communities are remote, the government cannot employ permanent operators in these communities. Instead, it subsidizes the salaries of locally engaged operators (Chu 2010). For this system to work, there must be a skilled labor force available on reserve as well as drinking water systems that the available operators can manage successfully. Neither condition is met. Few employment opportunities and sub-par public service provision by the federal government have driven skilled workers off reserves for decades (Palmater 2019). Accordingly, 73% of on-reserve water systems are listed as high or medium risk, meaning the community does not have the local resources to fix standard system problems (PBO 2017, 4, McClearn 2019).
The government’s failure to fulfil its financial obligations to invest in water systems exacerbates the problem. The engineering firm Neegan Burnside found in a government commissioned 2011 report that $290.3 million needed to be spent annually between 2010 and 2020 to provide drinking water on reserves comparable to off-reserve communities (Neegan Burnside 2011, 32). From 2010 through 2015, an average of $322 million was spent annually on drinking water and wastewater systems combined (PBO 2017, 5). The exact amount spent on drinking water and wastewater was not disaggregated by the Parliamentary Budget Office. However, if the government had in fact spent $290.3 million of the $322 million on reserve drinking water, wastewater spending would have been almost entirely neglected. There is no indication this was the case, meaning the government likely underspent on drinking water systems by tens of millions of dollars during the first half of the decade.
In 2015, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced a policy of reducing the number of long-term drinking water advisories on reserves to zero by March 2021 (Palmater). The centrepiece of the policy commitment was increased capital spending on water systems (drinking water and wastewater were not disaggregated) by $1.8 billion between 2016 and 2021 (PBO 2017, 19). The money would be deployed to “improve water infrastructure on reserves, end long-term drinking water advisories of a year or more on public systems on reserves, [and] prevent short-term advisories from becoming long-term” (ISC 2019, Water in First Nations Communities). Perplexingly, no comprehensive plan was produced with dates and actionable items for achieving this policy. However, documents made available by Indigenous Services Canada (ISC) reveal a view that greater investment would be the only requirement to fix the problem (Water in First Nations Communities, 2019).
There is nothing innovative about what seems to be a politically motivated policy announcement. By increasing funding, the government is merely moving to address chronic underspending that had been pointed out by First Nations leadership, opposition parties, and the wider public (Palmater 2019). Although the government has claimed it will establish better regulations for water management, this is simply a continuation of a process begun when a previous administration passed the 2013 Safe Drinking Water for First Nations Act. The only novel aspect of the current government’s policy is a recognition that vaguely described best-practices in rural water design need to be adapted to work on reserves. ISC announced two consultation processes in 2013, though neither has resulted in any recommendations and therefore cannot be informing current drinking water policy (ISC 2019, Consultation and Engagement).
As the government’s policy is light on implementation specifics, a proper analysis of its success can only be achieved by examining its record to date. In November of 2019, the number of long-term drinking water advisories had dropped to 57 from 105 in 2015 (ISC 2019, Water in First Nations Communities). This progress is widely attributed to funding for repairs being more widely available, which holds up to scrutiny (McClearn 2019). As a result, long-term advisories are ending more quickly. System repair or upgrades were reported as the reason for an advisory being removed in well over 90% of cases (ISC 2019, Water in First Nations Communities).
Unfortunately, this is where the optimism ends. The elevated funding that has been responsible for ending so many long-term drinking water advisories is only allocated through 2021. Alarmingly, the rate of new long-term advisories has not slowed down. The net drop in advisories of 48 actually represents 87 resolved advisories and 39 new ones. Moreover, there are currently 19 short-term drinking water advisories that will be upgraded to long-term ones if not addressed soon (ISC 2019, Water in First Nations Communities). The real weakness of the government’s policy is that it does nothing to increase the resilience of drinking water systems or the maintenance capacity of communities. When the current funding runs out, the number of long-term drinking water advisories will once again increase.
The government’s policy should have shifted ISC away from promoting “best-practices” for water system construction that do not accommodate the resource scarce situation on reservations. First Nations communities are remote, often lack proper electrical grids, and are subject to extreme weather (Palmater 2019). Decades of underfunding by the government on other public services like road and sewage lines and the proximity of many reservations to mining facilities put water systems at increased risk of contamination (Palmater 2019). ISC guides for carrying out design, construction, operation, and maintenance hardly acknowledge these realities (ISC, Protocol).
For example, ISC provides detailed guidelines about who can qualify as a water system operator on the various systems found on reserve (ISC, 2010). However, many communities are only accessible by plane and have no residents with a high school diploma. These guidelines are of no help if no one on reserve can fulfil the role. This reveals another weakness of the government’s policy: its failure to invest in maintenance capacity within First Nations communities.
Part of the government’s policy of ending drinking water advisories is funding a circuit rider program (PBO 2017, 9). It expects that a professional with 5-30 years of experience will visit each reserve four to five times per year (Chu 2010). However, there are 2,300 separate reserves in Canada and only 66 trainers in the circuit rider program (ISC 2012). Each trainer would have to conduct 139 reserve visits per trainer per year to achieve full coverage, which is impossible given the cost and distance of travel to many reserves. Clearly, the system for building local capacity to manage water systems is not effective.
In criticizing the government’s approach to drinking water management, one indigenous leader noted that “you can have the highest standards, but if there is no systematic way to get to them, then it will be meaningless” (Chu 2010). First Nations communities are thus developing their own solutions. Band councils in Deer Lake, Fort Severn, and Poplar Hill, for instance, have invested heavily in monitoring and cellphone technology to identify water quality problems early and mobilize resources and expertise quickly before they result in system failure (Wilson 2015).
What might a sustainable approach to solving the crisis look like? First Nations leaders feel it would involve the devolution of design authority to the local level. Several bands in Atlantic Canada have petitioned ISC to create their own water authority (Meloney 2019). The authority would receive a government transfer and assume all responsibility for delivery of drinking water. There is great potential in this approach because local authorities are more invested in program success and more aware of local capabilities. They can therefore be expected to achieve better results than federal agents in designing sustainable systems and management practices that reflect local expectations. While such an arrangement is likely far off, the ISC encouragingly responded to the petitions by stating that its long-term goal is to transfer the “care, control and management of ISC programs to Indigenous organizations” (Meloney 2019).
The First Nations drinking water crisis is a symptom of investment without thought for sustainability. Better training, the introduction of water systems and management structures that consider the difficult conditions found on reserves, and greater Indigenous governance is the solution. Making progress on these goals will be difficult. Yet, it will likely be easier than finding the additional billions needed over the next decade to support the federal government’s current approach to ending drinking water advisories. First Nations already know this, but safe drinking water will not be a given on reserves in Canada until the government acknowledges it, too.
PHOTO CREDIT: This photo is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported.
Works Cited
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