NEWS Residents of Ontario First Nations Aurlifted because of Inadequate Water- Treatment Facility Evacuation sheds light on other desperate living conditions on reserves across the country Dave Weatherall, Canadian University Press TORONTO (CUP)—The ongoing airlift evacuation of 1,900 Aboriginals from the northern Ontario reserve of Kashechewan has exposed the inadequate water-treatment issue on First Nations reserves in Canada and is shedding light on the dire living conditions in other reserves across the country. Two days after the beginning of the evacuation of the entire community to Sudbury from their reserve near James Bay because of the high level of E. Coli bacteria in the reserve’s water system, just how widespread the water- treatment issue on reserves is exposed for public scrutiny. The numbers are staggering. Of the 858 First Nations reserves in Canada, 95 are currently under a Health Canada water-boiling advisory. Of that total, 51 have been under the advisory for over a year, while seven have been under the advisory for over five years. While the majority of First Nations reserves in Canada under a water-boiling advisory because of high levels of bacteria in their water supply are located in Ontario, Health Canada spokesperson Chris Williams said there are an additional 44 reserves outside the province that are also under the advisory. “We can’t make the list of communities available until we have the permission from those communities,” said Williams. The total of 95 reserves is up from the 65 reserves under the advisory in 2000, despite a 2003 federal govern- ment National Water Strategy that pledged $600 million to improve water-treatment facilities in reserves across Canada. Ministry of Indian Affairs spokesperson, Michael Roy, said that while the number of boiling water advisories may be up, the number of reserves considered “high-risk” for their water standards has dropped since the implementa- tion of the federal strategy. “The number of communities in Ontario that were high risk has dropped from 61 to 51 since 2003,” he said. Roy hesitated when asked why so many of the water-treat- ment systems on reserves that are considered hazardous are located in Canada. “I would venture that there is a higher population of First Nations people in Ontario than anywhere else,” he said. Eva Johnson is familiar with the problems facing abo- riginal communities trying to establish effective water-treat- ment facilities. She works for the Kahnawake Environmental Protection Office just outside Montreal and said the federal Indian Act doesn’t provide enough money for reserves to meet provincial housing standards. “We had to purchase a sewage-treatment system from Ontario for a new house on the reserve because we could- n't afford the one that meets Quebec government stan- dards for sewage treatment,” she said. Because the sewage treatment doesn’t meet Quebec standards, the house’s sewage is now collecting in a septic tank and cannot be flushed into the nearby river because it doesn’t meet provincial governmental treatment standards. “We have difficulty understanding that rationale, seeing as the Quebec government okays dumping raw sewage into the St. Lawrence river because it is a fast moving body of water,” she said. “Squabbling between provincial and federal govern- ments inevitably distracts from addressing the chronic under-funding of reserves when it comes to environmental and housing issues,” said Johnson. The end result is an emergency situation like Kashechewan that inevitably costs more to fix than it would have to prevent. “The cost of re-locating those people is going to be far more than it would have cost to build an adequate water- treatment system upstream instead of downstream,” she said. “They need to stop passing the buck and starting passing the bucks. We need to build sustainable communi- ties in order to prevent outbreaks like the one in Kashechewan from repeating themselves.” The situation in Kashechewan is hardly unique in Canada. In 2000, 65 Aboriginal communities across Canada were under a boil-water advisory. Additionally, the Walkerton report—prepared after six residents died of E. Coli in the Ontario town—found that 22 water treatment plants on Ontario reserves were “high-risk.” But water-treatment issues aren’t the only housing stan- dard issue facing First Nations communities in Canada. Wade Healy is an English student at the University of Calgary and hails from a reserve about 100 km east of the city where he now studies. He knows first-hand what the living conditions on First Nations reserves are like. “My sister still lives on the reserve and she has mould all over her ceiling,” he said during a telephone interview. “She’s notified the Community Health Services several times, but so far no one’s come to look at it.” Healy is also concerned about conditions in more out- lying reserves. “The reserve I’m from is relatively close to an urban centre, so it’s usually not too hard to get proper attention from the authorities, but the farther north you go, the easi- er it is to ignore the problems, because they’re more isolat- ed” he said. A Health Canada study conducted in 2000 found that only 56.9 percent of homes on First Nations reserves met federal housing condition guidelines. Johnson said a lack of adequate funding means housing planning suffers. Health Canada identifies mould as a factor in respirato- ry illness and an irritant for people who suffer from aller- gies. “Anywhere you don’t have proper drainage, mold can develop,” said Johnson. She said a comprehensive, national review of the living and environmental conditions in all First Nations reserves is needed. “We need a uniform standard for water-treatment sys- tems for all reserves in Canada,” she said. “We don’t have that at the moment and look at what’s happened.” arrested. Last week, Rosa Parks died of natural causes last week in the United States. Parks made headlines when, on December 1, 1955, she refused to give up her seat to a white man on a bus in Montgomery, Alabama. Under the racist Jim Crow legislation of Southern segregation, Parks was in violation of the law and was The incident, and her example of resistance to the systemic discrimination against Blacks in the United States, incited other Civil Rights leaders like Martin Luther King to take up a boycott Rosa Parks remembered for her contribution to the US Civil Rights Movement Nicole Burton, News Editor against the Montgomery bus system that would last for nearly 400 days. The battle was waged with hundreds of African Americans walking across Montgomery to get to their destinations. When the 42-year-old Rosa Parks was asked how she felt about walking everywhere, she replied, “My feet are tired, but my soul is rested.” The Other Press sincerely hopes that Rosa’s feet aren’t tired anymore. Her courage has become a symbol to equal rights advo- cates the whole world over. Rosa Parks was 92 years old.