Cape Town, South Africa is running out of water.

Compared to Gilford Island, a Kwakwaka’wakw First Nation reserve on B.C.’s temperate rainforest coast, that sounds like an upgrade — at least in Cape Town they still have some water to drink.

Kwakwaka’wakw Hereditary Chief Bill Wilson’s mother is from that reserve. For 50 years, he has watched the water quality decline — first, as logging removed the island’s natural filtration systems, then, as a series of bungled procurements failed to deliver a water filtration system that worked.

“You have young kids breaking out in skin rashes,” says Wilson. “If it was a white community, they would have the best facilities immediately. Because it’s an Indian community nobody gives a shit.”

The David Suzuki Foundation published a new report in February on water issues on First Nations reserves. It found that while some progress has been made to correct the massive shortage of safe water on reserves, there remains a spending gap and a lack of follow-through on many of the measures recommended by governmental and non-governmental agencies.

“I am mother to a five year old; I can only imagine the frustration, the heartache, the amount of work it would take to run a household where you can’t put your kid in the bath, where you can’t wash yourself, where you’re hauling water to do dishes,” says Alaya Boisvert, co-author of the new report.

“The fact that people were so shocked that that could happen, it’s important for the Canadian public to realize that there are thousands of people living in more than 100 communities in Canada going without access to clean water, and in some cases already have been for a decade or more.”

“If it was a white community, they would have the best facilities immediately. Because it’s an Indian community nobody gives a shit.” https://t.co/CRyO8FTYHg

— DeSmog Canada (@DeSmogCanada) February 28, 2018

According to the Department of Indigenous Services, as of February 12, 81 long-term drinking water advisories are in effect on reserves south of the 60th parallel; Health Canada reports an additional 26 short-term advisories as of the end of 2017.

The federal government has pledged that they will all be lifted by 2021, but a Parliamentary Budget Office report found the government had over the previous years fallen 30 per cent short of providing enough funding to solve the problem.

The 2018 budget contains $172.6 million more over three years for drinking water on reserves.

“We’re making new investments that will accelerate work to deliver clean, safe drinking water to Indigenous communities ahead of schedule,” Finance Minister Bill Morneau said in his budget speech on Tuesday.

“We’ve already lifted 52 long term boil-water advisories, and mister speaker, we’re on track to have all others eliminated by March 2021.”

The federal government doesn’t track water issues in communities north of 60, but in the Northwest Territories, the community of Colville Lake has had a boil water advisory in place since June of 2004 due to an inability to get qualified staff. Departments responsible for water safety in Nunavut and Yukon did not return requests for information on their water advisories.

Like Colville Lake, many of the advisories are due to a lack of trained personnel, and several of the First Nations DeSmog Canada contacted were not desperate to have a new system in place; there are degrees of challenge ranging from the inconvenient to the dire.

In the Tlazten First Nation community of Middle River, residents get drinking water from Fort St. James, about a two-hour round trip away.

“Summertime, springtime it gets really bad,” says Mitchell Roberts, a public works attendant. He says residents get frustrated at the lack of safe water.

For Shoal Lake 40 reserve on the Manitoba/Ontario border, the situation is much more serious. The community has had a boil water advisory for 21 years as of this February while the construction of a treatment plant has been an emotional rollercoaster ride of promises, delays, plans, alterations, and more delays.

Cuyler Cotton is in charge of the water system project on Shoal Lake 40.

“It’s more than frustrating,” he says, breathing a tired sigh into the phone. “Living with this sort of thing on a daily basis; struggling with five-gallon jugs to waltz around when you’re trying to get a glass of juice for your 10 year old or your grandmother. For 20 fucking years. And being ignored. Being told that your expectations to have equitable treatment like the rest of Canada is too expensive.”

Cotton bristles when asked if he believes the extra $172 million in the new budget will make a difference.

“Fuck right off, build this plant — then we’ll believe you,” he says. “That’s not a question that should be directed at First Nations in Canada. It’s insulting.”

For both Cotton and Wilson, the answer isn’t more help from Ottawa in the form of external contractors and bureaucrats. It’s giving the money over to where it’s actually needed, and letting communities find solutions.

“Only the people living with the problem should be provided with the money,” says Wilson.

“Give them the damn money and they’ll fix their own problems,” echoes Cotton.

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The Trudeau government committed an unprecedented $1.3 billion in Tuesday’s Budget 2018 to protect land and water in Canada over the next five years. The funds will help Canada meet its target to protect 17 per cent of land and 10 per cent of oceans by 2020 under the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity.

“This is a very good news day for conservation in Canada,” Alison Woodley, national conservation director of the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society (CPAWS), told DeSmog Canada.

In addition to significant financial investments, the budget also outlines a new model for collaborative conservation efforts bringing Indigenous, provincial and territorial governments together.

“For the first time the government is not only investing in federal action but also recognizing the importance of partnerships, recognizing Indigenous, provincial and territorial government’s work to protect land and water,” Woodley said.

Over the next five years the federal government will invest $500 million in conservation partnerships and $800 million to support the creation of new protected areas, increased park management, protection of species at risk and to establish a coordinated network of conservation areas with other governmental partners.

“I think the great thing about this is we’re not starting from scratch,” Woodley said. “There are places across this country where Indigenous and other government have proposals underway to protect large landscapes.”

Protecting the celebrated Peel Watershed in the Yukon would be an easy win when it comes to protecting undisturbed wilderness, Woodley said.

Proposals for the South Okanagan Similkameen national park to protect rare and diminishing desert in British Columbia, plans to protect undeveloped land in the Rockies and the Indigenous-led Thaidene Nene conservation project in the traditional territory of the Lutsel K’e Dene First Nation could also represent big conservation wins, she added.

“This is a very good news day for conservation in Canada.” https://t.co/8KMcf1cyeb

— DeSmog Canada (@DeSmogCanada) February 28, 2018

Indigenous-led conservation a priority

“We are particularly pleased to see the budget acknowledge the leadership of Indigenous peoples in protecting Canada’s land and waters,” Éric Hébert-Daly, CPAWS national executive director said in a statement.

“This funding will support Indigenous governments in their conservation efforts, which will make an important contribution to reconciliation between Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples in Canada.”

Indigenous-led conservation efforts have resulted in some of Canada’s most iconic land use agreements, including the creation of the Great Bear Rainforest and the Gwaii Haanas national park.

And the creation of tribal parks in unceded First Nations traditional territory in British Columbia — like the Dasiquox Tribal Park — has helped redefinine conservation strategies to more thoughtfully prioritize indigenous land use and cultural practices.

Steve Ganey, director of the land and ocean program for the Pew Charitable Trusts, applauded the federal government for its renewed commitment to conservation but said more can and should be done to emphasize reconciliation with Indigenous peoples in all land protection efforts.

“National and provincial governments should work to support new forms of Indigenous-led conservation in their efforts to meet the biological diversity targets,” Ganey wrote in a response to Budget 2018. “This is particularly important in northern Canada, where most of the country’s intact natural areas — and many of its Indigenous communities — are located.”

Ganey added Canada should consider creating protected Indigenous lands that are managed under a self-governance structure that highlights traditional knowledge — similar to Australia.

“This is the best and perhaps only way to rapidly expand conservation efforts while honouring Indigenous rights.”

Woodley said many of Canada’s Indigenous communities are already leading the way when it comes to protecting their lands and cultural practices.

“Indigenous-led conservation initiatives can be a great tool to advance reconciliation,” she said.

Continued investment needed to protect at-risk species

Conservation efforts are key to recovering Canada’s species at risk, such as caribou and orca that have suffered critical habitat loss and degradation over the last several decades.

“The number one reason that species across Canada and globally are in danger is because they’re losing habitat,” Woodley said.

“Protected areas are a key tool, whether on land or in the ocean, for addressing species at risk.”

Canada has been harshly criticized for failing to adequately protect its endangered species, especially through the creation of strict no-go zones that would protect critical habitat from industrial development and human activity.

Aerin Jacob, conservation scientist with the Yellowstone to Yukon Conservation Initiative (Y2Y), said today’s investment in protected areas signals a change in tide.

“This type of vision shows the government is serious about protecting nature on the scale it needs to thrive,” Jacob said.

“Now the hard work lies ahead since we need different conservation approaches in different parts of Canada. This includes carefully planning where the new protected areas should be, based on intact wilderness, connectivity, species at risk and more.”

Woodley said conservation creates cascading positive effects where protected areas benefit wildlife, nature-based tourism and allow people to enjoy the lifestyles that come with landscapes that aren’t industrialized.

“This funding can deliver a whole suite of benefits to Canadians from nature conservation, economic, social and health perspectives.”

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