The Right to Clean Water: The Long Road to Action and Reconciliation

Indigenous peoples in Canada have repeatedly denounced the lack of safe drinking water as well as the ongoing pollution and contamination of freshwater ecosystems on ancestral lands. Despite greater calls for social justice and the respect of inherent & treaty rights, Indigenous peoples in Canada continue to see their health and livelihood depleted by the lack of safe drinking water systems and the lack of strong enforcement of Canadian environmental laws. From the tar sands to the pollution of the Shubenacadie River in Nova Scotia, the increasing rates of rare health diseases and cancers among Indigenous communities have been positively correlated to industrial pollution of the land, the contamination of the water, and the lack of safe drinking water infrastructure. For more than two decades, hundreds of Indigenous communities have lived with long-term drinking water advisories on public systems. Though 90 long-term drinking water advisories have been lifted since 2015, 28 First Nations remain without access to safe drinking water in Canada. In 2015, the Federal Government vowed to end long-term water advisories, but recently Minister Hajdu casted doubt over the government’s ability to achieve its 2025 target.

In celebration of World Water Day on March 22nd and its theme “Accelerating Change”, this conference The Right to Clean Water: The Long Road to Action and Reconciliation discusses Indigenous rights to clean waters, the path forward to Reconciliation and ensuring that Canada lives up to the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People and Goal 6 “Clean Water and Sanitation for all” of the Sustainable Development Goals.