Kristen Villebrun and Wendy Bush hoped they wouldn't have to pray for Chedoke Creek, but four years after they first raised alarm about the water's condition, they were part of an Indigenous full moon ceremony to do just that. About 50 people showed up near Princess Point on the dark and frigid Monday evening for the monthly ceremony, which was particularly special as it focused on Chedoke Creek. The body of water that runs into Cootes Paradise had about 24 billion litres of sewage and storm water runoff leak into it due to a gate being left open.
The chief of the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation is voicing his concern over yet another incident at the Kearl oilsands facility, located about a 90-minute drive north of Fort McMurray. In a statement issued Thursday, Chief Allan Adam said the Nov. 13 incident, involving water, has “once again impacted the environment on our traditional territories.”
Two decades of boil water advisories are over for Hiawatha First Nation after the completion of the first phase of the community’s new water treatment plant and distribution system. A grand opening was held earlier this week for the new plant and system situation in the First Nation located 30 kilometres south of Peterborough. Chief Laurie Carr says the system is a symbol of change for the community which has long advocated for better long-term solutions for boil-water advisories across Canada.
The former executive of a now-bankrupt mining company has been fined nearly $30,000 for environmental violations dating back to 2015 — an amount that has led to competing appeals from both sides. The charges follow a July 7 ruling from B.C. provincial court judge David Patterson, who said Benjamin Mossman was "actively or passively involved" in releasing excess zinc and other substances into woods and wetlands on Banks Island in Gitxaała First Nation territory. He was fined $29,994, according to the B.C. Conservation Officer Service, which led the joint investigation into the allegations in the initial stages.
A day after resigning as mayor of South Bruce Peninsula, Garry Michi has apologized for his comments about a local water treatment plant and people in the First Nation community in Ontario. "I deeply regret the words I used during a personal conversation and the subsequent impact they have had," said Michi in an email to CBC News.
The mayor of South Bruce Peninsula has resigned after he was caught on tape making racist comments about a nearby First Nation community, the Ontario town announced in a statement Tuesday. Garry Michi was recorded in an audio clip posted Friday by an anonymous individual questioning the federal government's decision to fund a water treatment plant on the Chippewas of the Nawash Unceded First Nation, also known as Cape Croker.
The First Nation that has been the source of Winnipeg's water for more than a century is suing the city and federal government, saying it's never been compensated for the harms suffered as a result of the city's water diversion system. When it was build in 1915, Winnipeg's aqueduct left Shoal Lake 40 isolated on a man-made island that was only accessible by ice road in the winter or barge in the summer.
Today, Northwest Angle No. 33's Angle Inlet community site held celebrations following the completion of a new water treatment plant for Angle Inlet. Chief Darlene Comegan and the Honourable Patty Hajdu, Minister of Indigenous Services, announced today that with the water treatment plant complete, the community lifted three long-term drinking water advisories. The new centralized water treatment plant will provide reliable access to safe and clean drinking water for 100 residents. The water treatment plant meets the community's current needs and has the capacity to support future population growth over the next 20 years.
A First Nation on Vancouver Island has been legally barred from accessing one of its primary traditional food sources for the past 25 years, one of 154 shellfish harvesting sites closed by federal law in B.C. due to poor water quality. Some of those sites may be safe at times, a recent audit concluded, but they cannot be reopened because the federal agency in charge of testing those waters is understaffed. As a result, it devotes the majority of its limited resources to commercial harvesting areas. Shellfish beds First Nations have relied on for as long as their people have existed haven’t been given such high priority.
The Tsawout First Nation, located 20 kilometres north of Victoria, B.C., has declared an Indigenous Protected and Conserved Area (IPCA) for 155 kilometres of ocean in its traditional waters. The area will be called QEN'T Marine Protected Area. QEN'T — pronounced "qwant" — means "to be looking after," "caring for," or "protecting something or someone" in SENĆOŦEN.
A new copper plaque on the boulevard along Broadway at Donald Street aims to educate Winnipeggers about the source of their drinking water and the community surrounding it — Shoal Lake 40 First Nation. "For years Winnipeg members, their citizens, were able to … turn on their tap," said Chief Kevin Redsky of Shoal Lake 40 First Nation at the unveiling of the plaque on Friday. The plaque pays tribute to Shoal Lake as the source of city water since 1919, when the Winnipeg aqueduct was completed. It explains how the project impacted the First Nation community and its relationship with water. "The 24-year boil water advisory, the sickness created bathing our own children, not being able to drink safe water," Redsky said.
A southwestern Manitoba First Nation is using $12 million in federal funding to ensure on-reserve members have access to potable water for generations to come. Minister of Crown-Indigenous Relations Marc Miller was in Sioux Valley Dakota Nation, located 260 kilometres west of Winnipeg, Tuesday announcing $12 million in federal funding to help build water and wastewater system upgrades.
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.
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.
Darryle Sinclair is one of many evacuees from Peguis First Nation who could be stuck without homes for years while plans for future home builds and flood mitigation efforts continue. "We have to move and relocate," Sinclair said. "For a replacement home, we have to wait until everything's ready and gets back to normal. It's tough." But as of now, he doesn't know when that will be.
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.
Leaders from an Oji-Cree First Nation in Treaty 9 in Ontario say they want the Canadian government to take action to properly compensate all their community members enduring a long-term boil-water advisory, after learning most of them won't be eligible for a class action settlement. In December 2021, Canada's Federal Court and Manitoba's Court of Queen's Bench jointly approved an $8-billion settlement for First Nations living under drinking-water advisories lasting longer than one year.
The First Nations Drinking Water Settlement provides compensation for First Nations impacted by long-term drinking water advisories that lasted continuously for at least one year between November 20, 1995 and June 20, 2021. Compensation is available for individuals and includes additional compensation for health harms (Specified Injuries) sustained by those following drinking water advisories. Personal representatives can claim on behalf of eligible minors, those with mental incapacity (under disability) and those who passed away on or after November 20, 2017. The deadline for individuals to submit a claim is March 7, 2023.
The Katzie First Nation is suing B.C. Hydro and the province for allegedly breaching legal commitments to mitigate damage caused by the Alouette hydroelectric dam. In a news release, Chief Grace George said the Alouette watershed, about 50 kilometres east of Vancouver on the north side of the Fraser Valley, is an area that's been "significant to Katzie First Nation members ... since time immemorial."
The Prairie Blood coulee winds through a property on the Kainai Nation, also known as the Blood Tribe, in southern Alberta. On a warm fall day, about a dozen people haul willows, mulch, dirt and water to several spots along a dry creek bed. Some pound large posts into the ground. Technicians from Blood Tribe and volunteers from local environmental groups are building five beaver dam analogs, which mimic a natural logjam. They hope to restore the stream flow to help the landowner care for his animals and have more water for wildlife as the area experiences a decade-long drought.
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.
