Indigenous and Northern Affairs Committee on May 21st, 2013

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

Thank you.

I spent some time on the northern river basins study in northern Alberta, and I realize the problems that first nations water supplies have in that area. The knowledge of those problems has existed since the 1990s, so you really haven't seen much improvement over the years.

[Regena Crowchild]

We haven't at all.

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

About 30% of the homes in all reserves are on truck delivery. In the Northwest Territories the cost of truck delivery is very high. Maybe you could explain to the committee what that means to those communities, what those costs are like.

[Regena Crowchild]

I don't have the actual costs, but most of our reserve homes have cisterns. We do have some wells, and we do purchase water from the City of Calgary for our administration building, for the casino, and so forth, the buildings on the east end of our reserve.

I'm sorry, I don't have the costs for this, but it costs us a lot of money to do that.

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

I'm very familiar with the cost of water delivery in the Northwest Territories for people in remote communities. According to this study, 31% of the people on reserves still get water delivered, and those costs are extremely high and are getting higher every day. That is a difficult situation.

[Vaughn Paul]

The distribution system is one of the things that add to the resource gap we talked about. We can split hairs over what constitutes a distribution system. In our view, trucking is exorbitant because of the high cost of diesel. We have communities that are going virtually 24-7 because of the burgeoning populations. The ability to make safe drinking water out of some of our source water areas from groundwater and lakes and streams and wherever they are pulling it from.... There are significant costs associated with getting that water delivered to the first nation residences.

Trucking has its own set of problems. They start punching out the roads and we have to start making investments in roads. There is timely delivery. There is freezing up. Everything and anything that can go wrong seems to happen. I couldn't give an exact figure, but 30% seems a little low to me with respect to truck delivery. In my community alone, it is well over 60%. In other areas in the east-central part of Alberta where there are higher concentrations of oil and gas, the water is not potable.

[The Chair, Conservative, Chris Warkentin]

Thank you.

We'll turn to Mr. Rathgeber for the next five minutes.

[Brent Rathgeber, Conservative, Edmonton—St. Albert, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to both witnesses for your attendance. It's always great to see fellow Albertans here in the nation's capital.

Councillor Crowchild, I remember in 2006 the Province of Alberta brought in a water market management system for the South Saskatchewan River Basin. If my recollection is correct, the Tsuu T'ina First Nation has always been opposed to that. Is that correct?

[Regena Crowchild]

That is correct.

[Brent Rathgeber, Conservative, Edmonton—St. Albert, AB]

It was also and more seriously opposed when the province expanded the water market from the South Saskatchewan River Basin to the entire province of Alberta. Would that be fair to say?

[Regena Crowchild]

That would be fair to say.

We tried to have proper consultation on that issue, but even though we made presentations to the province and to the representatives we were dealing with, our concerns were never met and were never dealt with properly.

[Brent Rathgeber, Conservative, Edmonton—St. Albert, AB]

I know there is litigation between you and some of the other Treaty 7 nations and the province over this very issue. I'm aware that in the first instance the province prevailed, but then I lost track of the litigation.

Was that appealed to the Alberta Court of Appeal?

[Regena Crowchild]

Yes. It's still in the court system so we're not privy to discuss it at this point.

[Brent Rathgeber, Conservative, Edmonton—St. Albert, AB]

The Alberta Court of Appeal hasn't ruled on this.

[Regena Crowchild]

No.

[Brent Rathgeber, Conservative, Edmonton—St. Albert, AB]

Can you tell me if the argument has been heard?

[Regena Crowchild]

It's been heard but not completely. I don't want to address it because it's in court and I don't want to jeopardize our native stand.

[Brent Rathgeber, Conservative, Edmonton—St. Albert, AB]

Sure.

[Regena Crowchild]

Thank you.

[Brent Rathgeber, Conservative, Edmonton—St. Albert, AB]

I appreciate that.

I understand at one point Treaty 7 nations, and Tsuu T'ina specifically, were supportive of the federal government's framework to regulate safe water and waste water management.

Is it safe for me to say that a big part of your concern with this legislation is not so much with the regulatory framework but the federal government's position that water allocation is, in fact, in the federal government's position a matter of provincial jurisdiction?

[Regena Crowchild]

We rejected Bill S-8. We're coming from a Tsuu T'ina perspective. As for Treaty 7 in total, at the time when it was first introduced, everybody said that they didn't have any problems with safe drinking water. We want safe drinking water. It was the manner that it was introduced into legislation that overruled and overrode our jurisdiction. It overrode the fiduciary obligations and fiscal responsibilities.

We take the position that we have complete jurisdiction over the water that's on our territories. As nations, we have never surrendered that. We expect Canada to start implementing the treaty according to its spirit and intent. One of our concerns is the water issue. The Province of Alberta, which has the regulatory regime or the allocation, is in direct conflict with the spirit and intent of Treaty 7. We want to address that and get it all sorted out. It appears it has always fallen on deaf ears and we haven't been able to address it properly. We certainly want safe drinking water, but we want it to be done appropriately.

[Brent Rathgeber, Conservative, Edmonton—St. Albert, AB]

Right. We all want safe drinking water.

You indicated in your opening comments that in your view there were weak provincial water standards and a lack of provincial regulation. I'm assuming that, jurisdictional issues aside, you would welcome a federal water regime that developed not weak federal regulations governing the provision of drinking water.

[Regena Crowchild]

No, what—

[Brent Rathgeber, Conservative, Edmonton—St. Albert, AB]

—the jurisdictional issues aside.

[Regena Crowchild]

What we're seeing is that we're developing our own water law. We hope that the federal government would work with us to develop these laws appropriately and not go ahead and dictate what their regulations are. Yes, the provincial regulations are weak. There's no constitutional provision for the provinces to enter into our territory to have jurisdiction over matters that affect our lands and our people. There isn't. Why is the federal government always trying to shove their responsibilities over to the provinces? To us that's unconstitutional.