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.
Arctic lands and water aren't what they used to be. Redfern says conditions are less predictable. Annual freeze-ups are happening later, and breakups earlier. Places where ice was once frozen solid are now more precarious. All this is a grim reminder that the consequences of climate change are being felt right now. On Monday, the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released a harrowing assessment of the planet's present and future climate.
It is to our national shame that many First Nations communities still don’t have access to potable water. That we have known about the problem for decades and failed to address it is a stain on our national character — one that Justin Trudeau and his Liberals made a lot of hay about addressing during the 2015 election campaign. “A Canadian government led by me will address this as a top priority because it’s not right in a country like Canada. This has gone on for far too long,” Trudeau said at the time, pledging to end all boil-water advisories on reserves within five years.
The Liberal government will miss a target it set during the 2015 federal election campaign to lift all long-term drinking water advisories in First Nations by March 2021 — in some cases by several years — according to a survey of communities by CBC News. More than a dozen First Nations said projects to end long-term drinking water advisories won't be completed by the promised deadline.
The taps to Winnipeg's drinking water were first turned on in April 1919, but as the city celebrated its engineering feat and raised glasses of that clear liquid, another community's fortunes suddenly turned dark. Construction of a new aqueduct plunged Shoal Lake 40 into a forced isolation that it is only now emerging from, 100 years after Winnipeg's politicians locked their sights on the water that cradles the First Nation at the Manitoba–Ontario border. "The price that our community has paid for one community to benefit from that resource, it's just mind-boggling," said Shoal Lake 40 Chief Erwin Redsky.
