Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you to all the witnesses for being here.
Grand Chief Abram, I would like to start with you.
The Association of Iroquois and Allied Indians' 2018 water report, “Bad Water is Bad Water”, has set out a number of very stark and startling, and frankly disconcerting, facts about the state of water in indigenous communities in this country. The report says that “The Government of Canada is not only in violation of its legal obligations to First Nations, it is actively denying a basic human right.”
I have two questions. In your view, why has the federal government failed to fulfill its obligation to ensure safe water in first nations communities? Can you give this committee a bit of an idea of the scope of the problem and how extensive it is or is not?