It should appall Canadians that they live in a country where First Nations people have to threaten to take their own lives in order to get the government’s attention over violations of their basic right to clean water.

It should appall us all that in the absence of such extraordinary protests the well-documented water crisis in Indigenous communities is accepted as an intractable, if unfortunate, reality.

The horror stories are not new, they are regularly in the news cycle and yet it is not enough. It was not enough in July when stories emerged of a mother in the community of Attawapiskat, along the James Bay coast, who was afraid to bathe her baby in contaminated water because every time she did, her child’s nose bled. It was not enough when we learned that others in the community were afraid to wash their vegetables, their bodies and their hands. It was not enough when some took to wearing gas masks while sitting at their kitchen tables, so frightened were they of the noxious fumes emitted by boiling water.

No, it was not until two women in Attawapiskat, band councillor Sylvia Koostachin-Metatawabin and former Chief Theresa Spence, staged a 15-day hunger strike that Ontario and Ottawa finally determined that there was sufficient reason to act. Just this week a federal-provincial task force finally arrived in the community.

Attawapiskat is hardly the only nation where there isn’t a drop to drink. In the Nishnawbe Aski Nation or Treaty #9 (and parts of Treaty #5) territory, there are currently nine short-term boil water advisories and another nine long-term advisories. One of those long-term communities is Eabametoong First Nation.

Eabametoong, about 400 kilometres northwest of Thunder Bay, has one of the longest-standing boil water advisories in Canada. Chief Harvey Yesno declared a state of emergency on July 15 after water tests showed high levels of the chemicals trihalomethanes, far above federal safety standards. The water smelled and boiling it was of no use because it released the toxic gases into the air.

This water crisis, which ebbs and flows into and out of the mainstream news cycle, at its heart is not actually about water.

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It is about Canada’s failure to live up to its treaty obligations and to extend basic human rights to everyone living within its borders.

In 2019, we have First Nations people living in communities with no running water, no reliable power source, no high schools, no access to doctors or nurses or antibiotics. We have children dying of strep throat and families crowded in unsafe housing that should be condemned.

And a large part of Canada goes about its daily business, not giving a damn.

A recent 2016 Human Rights Watch report found that the Canadian government has violated a range of international human rights obligations by failing to remedy the water crisis.

Without reliable water sources, the north is in a constant state of crisis, its people unable to drink water or to use it for cooking, cleaning or for medical purposes such as dialysis. Ancient and dilapidated wastewater infrastructure adds another layer of toxicity.

It doesn’t take a doctor to figure out all these factors pose a major risk to public health. Last week, Marcey Wesley, an 8-year-old girl, told Indigenous Services Minister Seamus O’Regan, during a community meeting about the crisis, “I don’t want to die.”

Again, this fight isn’t just about water, it is about broken treaty promises and habitual neglect, leaving Indigenous people “beggars in our own land,” according to Danny Metatawabin, the spokesperson for the Attawapiskat hunger strikers and the husband of Koostachin-Metatawabin. “We are always waiting on Indigenous Services Canada to approve funding and to improve infrastructure,” he said on Tuesday.

Attawapiskat and Eabametoong are isolated communities that have to take drastic steps to get the attention of the powers that be, Metatawabin added. “It’s that attitude of out of sight, out of mind. We just can’t go to Ottawa and rally for our rights.”

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As for the water situation in Attawapiskat today, “no actual groundwork has been done,” Metatawabin said, but the task force has arrived and is working with the community.

Both Spence and Koostachin-Metatawabin are recovering well, thankfully.

Let’s hope others need not starve themselves nearly to death for Canadians and their leaders finally to pay attention.

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