[Witness speaks in Algonquin]
Hello. My name is Jay Odjick. I'm an artist, writer, and television producer from the Kitigan Zibi Anishinabeg community, about an hour and a half up the road.
I'd like to talk about a few different things. I'm here primarily to talk about the state of drinking water in first nations communities. I'd also like to talk about opportunity. I'd also like to talk about belief.
Belief is a very important thing. At times, for me as well as many other first nations people, I believe it can be hard for us to believe in government. I am looking around the room, though, and I'm seeing people. I believe in you, because I believe that if we were to reach out we could touch one another. Tangible things are things that I can believe in.
As it relates to opportunity, I'd like to thank you all for the opportunity to be here and to recognize that we are on unceded Algonquin territory. It's an opportunity for me to speak because I'm not an elected official of any first nations community, or group, or organization, but I am a community that has had a long-term no-consumption advisory.
The reason I'm a bit nervous to speak is that our community of Kitigan Zibi is not exactly representative of the problems many first nations communities face as related to their drinking water. Many communities are faced with a bacteria-based problem, whereas in Kitigan Zibi our problem has always been radiation—and I'll talk about that a bit more. I'll also talk a bit about the other first nations communities and the issues they face.
Insofar as the situation or state of first nations' drinking water goes, it's important to note that we have seen progress. We've seen progress due to diligent work, including the erection of facilities designed to handle these problems, the current government's commitment to eradicating drinking water advisories in first nations communities by 2021, and the hard work of people in first nations communities and the testing that's been done.
It can be hard to find accurate numbers, and I think for a lot of people that's a major thing because you really have to know where to look. In terms of progress, I know for us in Kitigan Zibi the uranium in our water was identified in approximately the mid-1990s—1994, I believe. Along with that, radon has been a major problem for us as well.
In terms of progress, in 2015 there were approximately 100 to 135 long-term drinking water advisories in first nations communities. Now, it's important to note that 135 number does not mean nations or communities; that's the total number of advisories. Some communities have more than one. I'm familiar with the few that even have two or three.
According to the INAC website, as of March this year the most contemporary numbers are that there are 78 long-term advisories, and that 57 of them have been lifted in the last couple of years. That's good. I think that's really encouraging. The thing we have to take into account is that while many of us are encouraged, many of us are still angry. I think what we have to understand is that anger is justifiable. It's hard to look at pictures, for example, of kids from Kashechewan with the skin conditions that been identified as being caused by exposure to their own water. If there's one thing we're supposed to be able to trust in this world, I think it's our water. They say water is life. That should be true, but it isn't always the case.
To be more encouraging, I believe that Bill C-326 could potentially play a role in meeting the 2021 goal. When I read the bill there were a few questions that came to mind. The bill is about meeting Canada's guidelines for drinking water and the standards of the other OECD member countries. My question question is primarily whether Canada can do that if we include first nations' drinking water and the state of it in our reports. I don't know the answer to that. I'm just some guy. The secondary question would be about it being a lofty thing to aspire to. It's a lofty aspiration, especially with the 2021 deadline of eradicating those DWAs, and there are people who are dubious about it. Speaking for myself and no one else, I'd rather have lofty aspirations than the opposite.
I think that with Bill C-326, it's important to look not only at the drinking water standards of nations outside of Canada but also at the status of drinking water of the nations within Canada, and by that I mean our first nations. I hope Bill C-326 can play some role in that.
The other thing that's important to note is that one of the major challenges facing first nations as far as drinking water goes is the jurisdictional quagmire, the same one we face in so many other regards, of what jurisdiction it falls under, whether it's provincial or federal. I think the message we'd all like to send is that the federal government must claim responsibility.
The other question as it relates to first nations drinking water, at least from what I've seen in my own community, is the most relevant thing: what are we testing for? As I said, our problem is not bacterial in Kitigan Zibi; our problem is based on radiation. I'd like to speak a little bit to the realities of that.
In the 1990s, when we found the uranium, we began working as diligently as we could. We had obtained funding from Health Canada to test for the uranium. Admittedly, I'm not the best person to speak to this, but this is what I know, what I've read, and what I've been told by people, my chief and people who've worked on this project. We've done a good job as well, with the aid of the federal government, in bringing this number down. Based on the information I have here, at the time, in the 1990s, radon was present in 43% of homes, with 8% of those homes being between three and ten times the safe levels. As of today, that number has gone down to around 17%, so we've seen success.
The way we treated the uranium in the water was to use a type of resin. The resin would basically take the uranium from the water. How does it do that? We began to be concerned that the resin was actually absorbing the uranium and thus becoming radioactive. At some point somebody asked, “What about septic tanks? What about septic fields? What about leach beds?” At that point, two or three wells in Kitigan Zibi were tested for the presence of radium, and we found it. To what extent? That's where things get interesting.
We went back to Health Canada and said, “Look, we treated the uranium. There is also radium. We don't know how much, and we don't know at what level.” Health Canada at that point said that the cheaper option would be bottled water. Since then, the majority of households in my community have consumed bottled water. The cost to the community is roughly, as far as I'm told, about $1,800 a week. Again, I'm not an elected official, and also for sure not a mathematician, but I think at some point, when you look at these costs and at the population rising, that will stop being the cheaper option. We have to go with the better option, the human rights option.
In closing, I'd like to say that I believe in people above all else. I believe that we could reach out and we could touch one another. I believe in you. I believe you're listening, and I believe you care, or you wouldn't be here. You wouldn't have the jobs you have.
I'd like to take a small moment to engage you all in a suspension of disbelief exercise. I'd like you to believe that this is actually a glass of water from Kitigan Zibi. As I said, I believe in you. If you were really thirsty, my question is, would you drink it? You don't know about the levels of radium in it, but you don't need to drink it, because you have bottled water. So my question to you is this. I don't know how many of you here have children. If I were to bring in a small tub of this water—and when I say this I believe in you as people, and I believe you care about the well-being of other people—would you bathe your babies in water from Kitigan Zibi as we do every day?
Although I believe in you as people, what I'm asking today is to give us a government we can believe in. Give us a government we can reach out to and touch and feel every time we turn on our tap.
Thank you.