Will safe water finally flow to First Nations without it?

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Hello, I'm Neil Kirksal. Good evening. I'm Chris Houdin. This is as it happens. Tonight, coming down the pike,

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Sarad. First Nations across Canada have waited decades for legislation on clean drinking water, and And now Ottawa says it is coming at last. Today Indigenous Services Minister Mandy Galmasty introduced a bill designed to ensure that First

Nations have reliable access to clean and safe drinking water. This legislation replaces prior legislation introduced in 2023 by the Trudeau government. That bill died when parliament was pro-rogued last year, extending what had already been a long and painful wait for many communities.

The new proposed legislation comes just as the House of Commons prepares to break for this week. We reached Minister Mandy Gomes.

Minister, is this a guarantee now that First Nations are going to have clean drinking water?

The introduction of our bill today is something that is going to do multiple things. First and foremost, it's

going to recognize the First Nations inherent right and jurisdiction over development, the

protection of source water, having access to water. It's also, I think, going

to do one of the most important things that we have to do. to do one of the most important things is to support First Nations leadership and the

governance structures over what water services are going to look like, what kinds of provisions they want to determine with the attached funding for them to be able to offer this service and be able to offer clean water and community. So ultimately all of those layers, if everything goes to plan, we won't be doing stories

anymore on water advisories and issues with water on First Nations. That is the ideal outcome. This government has done a lot of work in the past 10 years in the water space.

We have been able to lift 95% of the water advisories that were in place. We were able to prevent 134 short-term ones from becoming long-term.

But there has always been water advisories in place. There is 36 of them today. That is too many.

We are going to be working with those communities to help them achieve the outcomes that they need. Our listeners have heard, you know, a previous iteration of this bill died when parliament

was pro-roged last year. The House, as you know, is set to rise in just a short time for summer break. Ultimately why is this taking so long? Well, the Prime Minister made the commitment to introduce the water legislation within

spring. We are still in spring. We have introduced some new measures that I think are important for people to understand. and formals creating this space and opportunity for

communities to work not only with federal partners but with provincial and territorial partners. Today I'm really proud that this part of the conversation is around helping communities be able to develop the infrastructure that they

need. Also giving them the tools to go into areas that they didn't have before. Decentralized water systems such as septic tanks or wells that were in community. This is applicable under the bill and I'm encouraged by the work that

communities are going to be doing? I wanted to ask about some of the language specifically because the previous bill said, quote, it is recognized and affirmed that it is a human right of every individual on First Nations land to have access to clean and safe drinking water in accordance with this act.

This new bill says it is declared to be the policy of the government of Canada to further the progressive realization for individuals on First Nations lands of the human right to safe drinking water. It was plain in the first one, it is a human right of every individual.

Now that phrase, to further the progressive realization, why change that language? The human right language is still maintained in the bill. We've added on the component of the progressive realization, which is aligned with other federal acts that are in place. This is the language that's being used in the international UN space as well.

In many communities across the country, they are starting from a different place. This is not a one size fits all. You know, we're going to be working with multiple plans. We're going to be working with multiple different types of infrastructure.

And that transformative change of what the bill is going to do is not going to be something