Bill C-61

First Nations Clean Water Act

An Act respecting water, source water, drinking water, wastewater and related infrastructure on First Nation lands

This enactment affirms that the inherent right to self-government, recognized and affirmed by section 35 of the Constitution Act, 1982 , includes the jurisdiction of First Nations in relation to water, source water, drinking water, wastewater and related infrastructure on, in and under First Nation lands. It sets out principles, such as substantive equality, to guide the provision for First Nations of clean and safe drinking water and the effective treatment and disposal of wastewater on First Nation lands. It provides for minimum standards for water quality and quantity and wastewater effluent. It also provides pathways to facilitate source water protection.

[Chief Joel Mykat, Ermineskin Cree Nation]

[Witness spoke in Cree]

[English]

I'd like to thank the committee for inviting us to speak today about Bill C-61.

Honestly, it's very disappointing and frustrating to have to be here today. As you know, the Ermineskin Cree Nation wants an amendment to the bill to recognize first nations' right to safe drinking water. This means that all first nations people who live on reserve lands have a right to drinking water with no serious risks to human health and well-being. Nothing less will honour and uphold our treaty with Canada and respect our human rights.

This is not just a legal issue. It matters every day in the lives of real people at Ermineskin. Canada has repeatedly promised to fix first nations drinking water issues since the 1970s and has failed over and over. Canada's best efforts promised in the bill are not good enough. Our people have experienced Canada's neglect of our drinking water in their homes and daily lives for decades.

I would like Councillor Mackinaw, who has also worked on this issue for a long time, to give the committee a sense of the unsafe drinking water crisis at Ermineskin. I will then provide a short closing statement.

Sir.

[The Chair, Liberal, Patrick Weiler]

I want to call this meeting to order.

Welcome to meeting number 118 of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Indigenous and Northern Affairs.

I want to start by acknowledging that we are gathered on the ancestral and unceded territories of the Algonquin and Anishinabe peoples, and to express gratitude that we're able to do the important work of this committee on lands that they've stewarded since time immemorial.

Pursuant to the order of reference of Wednesday, June 5, 2024, the committee is resuming consideration of Bill C-61, an act respecting water, source water, drinking water, waste water and related infrastructure on first nations lands.

Before we begin, I want to ask all in-person participants to read the guidelines written on the updated cards on the table. These measures are in place to help prevent audio feedback incidents and protect the health and safety of all participants, including the interpreters.

Today's meeting is taking place in a hybrid format. All witnesses have completed the required connection tests in advance of the meeting.

I want to remind all participants of the following points. Please wait until I recognize you by name before speaking, and all comments should be addressed through the chair. Members, please raise your hand if you wish to speak, whether participating in person or via Zoom. The clerk and I will manage the speaking list as best we can.

With that, I'd like to welcome our witnesses for our first panel.

From the Ermineskin Cree Nation, we have Chief Joel Mykat, Councillor Craig Mackinaw, Dr. Wilton Littlechild and Counsel Clayton Leonard. From the Kativik School Board, we have Harriet Keleutak joining us by video conference.

Before we begin, I understand that the witnesses from Ermineskin Cree Nation have asked for 10 minutes for introductory opening remarks. The standing orders of this committee and the typical practice is five minutes. In order to have 10 minutes, we will need the unanimous consent of members in this committee. I want to ensure we have unanimous consent to do that before we move forward.

[Michael McLeod, Liberal, Northwest Territories, NT]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to all the witnesses who have joined us today. It's a very important subject.

I'm from the Northwest Territories. In my former life I was a minister with the Government of Northwest Territories, and one of my responsibilities was to provide a review of the drinking water situation in our communities. We don't have reserves, but we have indigenous communities, public communities that are not reserves. When we took a look at 27 of them, we found quite quickly that there were a number of challenges.

First of all, pretty much every water treatment plant was designed and built in a different country, so that made it really challenging to get parts. That also made it very challenging to share parts, because the neighbouring community might have parts but it wasn't the same model as what was in the other community. We saw that there was a need to make sure all the water plants were made through the same company, with the same design, so that we could get and share parts more easily, design a maintenance program with the people who built these facilities, and lock them into contracts with us so that they could provide training for our membership.

It was very difficult. In some cases there were clean sources of water, but the government would still insist on building a well, because a certification for a well operation was less than getting...from the surface water from the lake or a river, so there were all kinds of things happening. In many cases the sources of water were huge distances away. When you're talking 20 or 30 kilometres from the source water to the community, it becomes a challenge. Governments want to just put in a water truck to run back and forth rather than build an expensive pipeline, and that's challenging. To have proper testing training is another area: It was really difficult to find people to do it and to hang on to people who were trained. Many things were brought forward as issues and challenges.

As I was growing up, I lived on the Mackenzie River—I still live on the Mackenzie River—and we'd be able to go out in our canoe and drink water right from the river. You can't do that now. The water's dirty. It's not safe. There are lots of things that are out there, facing indigenous people. The big thing is to have capacity to run your own operation and to have the resources to do that.

The intention of the bill is to ensure that there's access to clean water and an adequate supply. I think the intentions are really what got my attention to this. However, I ask whether all of you feel that the measures in the first nations clean water act could support indigenous communities' ability to build capacity when it comes to operations, maintenance and training for water treatment plants. That's my first question.

[The Chair, Liberal, Patrick Weiler]

I understand there's some confusion here of the two. I was under the impression that Monsieur Lemire moved a motion for it to be one meeting and then also for it to be after Bill C-61.

[Jamie Schmale, Conservative, Haliburton—Kawartha Lakes—Brock, ON]

Thank you very much, Chair.

Thank you for the amendment from the Bloc and the NDP as well.

We agree that Bill C-61 is extremely important, and we do want to get it done as fast as possible and do the due diligence here. Therefore, we will accept the amended motion as presented:

That the committee invite the Minister of Indigenous Services Canada, the Minister of Northern Affairs and the Minister of Crown-Indigenous Relations to appear before the committee for no less than two hours—

It's one committee meeting.

—within 14 days of the adoption of this motion in relation to their priorities for the return of Parliament and their mandates.

[Sébastien Lemire, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

I have a point of order, Mr. Chair.

First, the proposal was read too quickly for us to be able to get a complete interpretation.

I had already proposed a similar amendment, except that my proposal did not specify that the meeting with the ministers would take place after the study of Bill C‑61 .

[Jenica Atwin, Liberal, Fredericton, NB]

I was wondering if that was a formal amendment that Mr. Lemire is proposing. If not, I would like to amend the motion with the following: “That the committee invite the Minister of Indigenous Services Canada, the Minister of Northern Affairs Canada and the Minister of Crown-Indigenous Relations to appear before the committee for no less than two hours following the study of the first nations clean water act in relation to their priorities for the return of Parliament, their mandate and supplementary estimates (C), should the study conclude after they are tabled.”

I can send that around in both official languages.

[Sébastien Lemire, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I so move. I propose to narrow the scope of the motion so as to hold a single meeting where all the ministers would appear. Under the circumstances, the study we are currently conducting may continue for several weeks. However, I think that the meeting with the ministers could take place soon. Given that indigenous communities have many concerns about a number of issues that affect them, I think it would be worthwhile to discuss them with the ministers in the near future, without delaying the study of Bill C‑61 for too long.

[Lori Idlout, NDP, Nunavut, NU]

[Member spoke in Inuktitut, interpreted as follows:]

I agree with people who are concerned about this issue. They want to see the ministers report to us about Bill C-61—

[English]

[Lori Idlout, NDP, Nunavut, NU]

[Member spoke in Inuktitut, interpreted as follows:]

Thank you, Chair. I agree with Sébastien and I agree with Jenica. Bill C-61—

[English]

[Sébastien Lemire, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

No problem, Mr. Chair. By the way, your French is excellent. It's very nice to hear that around the table.

I was saying that this motion is a little premature, in my opinion. I agree that it is urgent to pass Bill C‑61, or at least to debate it and make the necessary recommendations to guarantee the supply of drinking water to first nations that do not currently have access to it.

I would like to submit an idea for discussion. Are the Conservatives open to the idea of the committee inviting all the ministers to appear at the same meeting? That way, we might waste less time. Actually, it is never a waste of time, obviously, because this is important. It is the very basis of the principle of accountability in our parliamentary system. That said, would all committee members agree to call all the ministers to a single meeting? I would like to hear from the Conservatives in particular.

[Sébastien Lemire, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I also feel that the timing is off for this motion. I agree with my colleague Ms. Atwin that it is urgent to move forward with Bill C‑61 to ensure access to drinking water. On the other hand, it is also essential to have access to ministers to ask them questions about the government's priorities, particularly in the current context of the Canadian Parliament.

I would like to know whether we might agree to hold a meeting in which we could—

[Jenica Atwin, Liberal, Fredericton, NB]

Thanks, Mr. Chair.

For me, it's the timeline. We have urgency around Bill C-61. We have more witnesses we want to call and speak to, so it's that 14-day time period that's being presented. We will be hearing from the ministers on this bill. This is the minister's priority. I know that first-hand, as her parliamentary secretary.

I would be open to tweaking it. I don't think I can support it as it stands, because again, I see it as actually delaying our work on Bill C-61, when I know it is her priority to come and speak to us about it.

There are other opportunities that could come after Bill C-61. We would love to hear about those, as well as the estimates. I think that would be a better use of our time.

I wanted to put that out there for the committee to discuss.

[Jamie Schmale, Conservative, Haliburton—Kawartha Lakes—Brock, ON]

Thank you very much to our witnesses and to everyone who contributed.

Chief Whetung-MacInnes, it's good to see you again.

I know the importance of this conversation, and I'll be very quick with what I need to do here.

This is based on the conversations we're having today about the importance of Bill C-61 and based on the fact that we just had support for an emergency debate tonight in the House of Commons. Looking forward to the agenda for the first couple of months of this session of Parliament, I want to quickly read my motion and have a very brief discussion, if not a quick vote on this, if we can.

I think it's extremely important. I move:

That the committee invite the Minister of Indigenous Services Canada, the Minister of Northern Affairs Canada and the Minister of Crown-Indigenous Relations to appear individually before the committee for no less than two hours each, within 14 days of the adoption of this motion, in relation to their priorities for the return of Parliament and their mandates.

Thank you very much, Chair.

I apologize to our witnesses, but I think it would be nice to have the ministers here to talk about this and many more topics.

[Sébastien Lemire, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

This is obviously a complex debate. We often think that this kind of situation happens in rural or very remote northern areas, but that's not the case for Curve Lake.

We are therefore asking the government to make an investment and shoulder its responsibilities. One thing I remember well from our conversation was that the costs can't be passed on to a community like Curve Lake, because there aren't enough people there. For the community, there is no other alternative than a water treatment plant.

What is the federal government's actual responsibility in this matter? In concrete terms, what are your expectations of the federal government? How can Bill C‑61 help or not help first nations?