Thank you.
[Witness spoke in indigenous language]
[English]
Good afternoon, Chair and committee.
I am joined today by John Brown, who is in the room with you.
My name is Emily Whetung, and I am chief emerita of Curve Lake First Nation and chair of the First Nations Advisory Committee on Safe Drinking Water. I am also one of the individual representative plaintiffs in the access to safe drinking water class action.
I'm here today with one request, which is this: Please do not politicize first nations' access to one of the basic necessities of life. This is a matter that is too important to get caught up in party politics. The legislation that you're considering relates to a subsection of Canadians whose human rights have been ignored for too long. You've heard this sentiment before. You've maybe even seen it in the media, but I'd like to take these first few moments to tell you what this means on a personal level.
It means that when I became a mother in 2014, I had to make sure that the bathwater didn't go in my children's mouths, because it might have made them sick. It means that as they got older, I had to take extra time, coordination, money and energy to get bottled water to make their food safe. It means that all of their beautiful baby and infant pastel-coloured clothes became gray, worn and brown, because the water we washed with was so full of sedimentation that their baby clothes were discoloured. My baby struggled with eczema and skin rashes, which I can only assume was a result of the water issues we faced.
My community doesn't have the worst drinking water in Canada.
It means that eventually I paid over $10,000 personally to have the water issues I faced fixed. Please understand that I say “fixed”, but the system did not eliminate these issues. It simply made the water drinkable and slowed down the wear and deterioration of our clothing and appliances.
These are the everyday struggles of indigenous people across Canada. I want to share with you that my first nation is not remote. It's not in the north. It's three or four hours west and south of Ottawa, where you sit now.
My grandfather lived to be 99, and he passed away in 2021. He would sit by the lake and tell my children and me the stories of how clear and clean the water was when he was young, how you could drink it from the lake, and his memories of our family being healthy and well. When I was a child, he had a water treatment system installed in his home in order to provide for his family. It's a big family. He had 13 children. Everyone who lived nearby would come to his house in the evenings or on weekends with water jugs to fill them up. While it made him proud to be able to take care of us in this way, it's heartbreaking to think that in southern Ontario this had to happen.
I'll say it again. I'm here today with one request. Help Bill C-61 make its way through the legislative process. Help first nations take the first steps toward positive legislation that provides access to clean drinking water. At the very least, move this legislation forward to meet the minimum obligations of the class action settlement agreement.
In my culture, time and attention are a gift, and I would like to express my gratitude for the gift that you've given all of us today with your time and attention.
Thank you. Meegwetch.