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.
When Autumn Peltier was 12 years old, she made headlines for speaking out about the lack of clean water in Indigenous communities. Since then, she's become a world-renowned water rights advocate. Her inspiring story is now being told in a new children's book, Autumn Peltier, Water Warrior, written by New York Times-bestselling author Carole Lindstrom, with hopes of inspiring young readers to join in the movement for change.
Dozens of employees at primary and secondary schools in Nunavik are sounding the alarm about the region's deteriorating water supply, saying the situation is putting their students at risk, a union report seen by Radio-Canada shows. Thirteen of the 14 towns in Nunavik don't have an aqueduct or sewer system. People there normally rely on tanker trucks to supply drinking water and remove wastewater. But in recent months there have been supply interruptions because of broken infrastructure, a lack of trucks and a worker shortage, problems that were worsened by the pandemic and a harsh winter last year.
BlackBerry announced the release of a new tool that will help address flood risk and clean water monitoring. The company is working with the University of Windsor on the project -- which runs on BlackBerry's AtHoc critical event management platform -- and testing it in Canada. In a statement, BlackBerry explained that Indigenous peoples across Canada are disproportionately impacted by flooding and a lack of clean water, which prompted the two organizations to join forces. The technology "provides autonomous year-round monitoring and an intelligent early warning system, collecting and processing large amounts of sensor data, and generating alerts based on the data insights."
Canadian Indigenous water activist Autumn Peltier, 15, addressed hundreds of international guests at UN headquarters in Manhattan on Saturday, where she urged the global community to respect the sacredness and importance of clean water. "I've said it once, and I'll say it again: we can't eat money or drink oil," said the activist from Wiikwemkoong First Nation on Manitoulin Island in northern Ontario. Peltier spoke at the Global Landscapes Forum, a platform on sustainable land use founded by UN Environment and the World Bank that's dedicated to achieving development and climate goals.
