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.
Environment and Climate Change Canada also made a submission proposing changes to the amendment sought over water quality monitoring and mitigation. "What is at stake is whether it's acceptable to put the environment in jeopardy because safeguarding the conditions are not easy for a project to comply with," said Saxby who has lived in Squamish since 2001. "If a project isn't able to comply with its conditions, it should not be able to continue."
Within an Anishinabek News article from 2013, the author was concerned that word games were being used to extinguish Native rights. The Department of Justice experimented with various wording for non-derogation language for use in the 2015, Safe Drinking Water for First Nations Act, which contradicts promises made to Indigenous peoples in the treaties. For example; “For greater certainty, nothing in this Act or the regulations is to be construed so as to abrogate or derogate from any existing Aboriginal or treaty rights of the Aboriginal peoples of Canada under section 35 of the Constitution Act, 1982, except to the extent necessary to ensure the safety of drinking water on First Nation lands.”
