Face of Nation : Indigenous Services Minister Seamus O’Regan said Ottawa will bring medical teams to Attawapiskat First Nation this week, after he visited the reserve in northern Ontario on Sunday, at the request of the community’s chief. O’Regan spoke on Monday to detail efforts to address immediate and long-term plans around a contaminated water supply that forced community to declare a state of emergency earlier this month.
“Right now they are frightened. Anybody in Canada can relate, when you are frightened of your water supply, that is very real,” said O’Regan, who spent hours with community members Sunday taking questions and laying out an action plan based on their concerns.
In addition to medical teams to assess children and adults with health concerns, Ottawa will bring in technicians to begin immediate work, which would include essentially flushing the entire water system, he said. The federal government says that $1.5 million has been approved for immediate repairs to the reserve’s existing water treatment plan and that clean drinking water is available from a second system. Ottawa may begin planning for a new water treatment centre altogether, he added, but talks will be ongoing with members of the First Nation.
“We are immediately going to sit down with the community for a comprehensive community plan,” he said. “Should we be looking for another water source and if so then let’s commit to building a new water treatment centre when we know we have a new and better water source identified.”
Attawapiskat Chief Ignace Gull said that, while there is a lot of work to be done before the community reaches a long-term solution with a functioning water treatment centre, he is hopeful. “I am very optimistic that we can work with the Minister,” he told “It’s an ageing infrastructure that’s old and crumbling… There’s going to be a lot of work that needs to be done to address everything that affects the immediate crisis right now.” The minister told he hears the complaints that short-term efforts are considered “Band-Aid solutions” to some.
“The feeling was that if we started work on the $1.5 million improvements to the water treatment centre as it is, that we were satisfied with them. I assured them that we are not satisfied with that,” he said, adding long-term solutions would begin immediately too. “That was the commitment I made to them. It was not either or. That we would begin both at the same time.”
The band council in the community declared a state of emergency this month when potentially dangerous levels of trihalomethanes (THMs) and haloacetic acids (HAAs) were found in tap water. Residents were warned to avoid long showers, cut back on washing dishes, and not to boil water which could emit harmful chemicals into the air. “Any Canadian who is not from Attawapiskat who visits there is deeply humbled by what they see. It’s not something that you expect to see or should see in Canada,” said O’Regan. “We need to build up the trust in the water supply.”
