Indigenous and Northern Affairs Committee on Sept. 26th, 2024

[Deon Hassler, Board Member and Circuit Rider Trainer, Water Movement]

My name is Deon Hassler. I'm a first nations circuit rider from Saskatchewan. I live in a first nation community. I work with many first nations communities. There are a lot of communities here. I'm also a leader in first nations, in different organizations.

From speaking across Canada, seeing all the different things and hearing all the different issues that we have across Canada, especially in remote communities like yours in B.C., I know that one of the big problems with remoteness is access—access to training and access to parts. In Manitoba, you have the ice roads, so you're cut off at certain times of the year. It's this type of situation. In northern Saskatchewan, it's fly-in too. We try to get our operators to training and get them trained, and we try to get them to do online training, but it doesn't always work.

We're still looking for solutions and a better way to do it. I don't really see this bill as supporting us, because this bill is basically saying that we're passing on authority or jurisdiction to the province. I don't see it contributing to what our needs really are. I don't really see us getting more funding, or adequate funding, for what we need to do in first nations—

[The Chair, Liberal, Patrick Weiler]

Mr. Hassler, I hate to do this again, but we're over time here. I'm going to have to cut you off, if you just want to quickly wrap up that thought.

[Deon Hassler]

I was just going to say that it's not unique. We've been struggling with this. We have a lack of education. We have first nations operators who come into our water plants and have very few skills, and some of them have not even completed high school, but non-first nations are taking a lot of their employees who are retired from other trades, so there's a difference. I've worked in non-first nation communities. I'm a veteran; I've served in the military, so I've seen both sides of this situation.

[The Chair, Liberal, Patrick Weiler]

Thank you very much.

That concludes our first round of questioning.

We're going to get four people in for the next round here. We'll start with Mr. Schmale for five minutes.

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

Thanks so much, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to our witnesses.

I want to continue the line of questioning that my colleague Eric Melillo and some others around the table have been diving into with regard to the potential solutions that exist, especially given that I think we all agree that the technology is there to fix a lot of the drinking water problems, especially on reserve, and with regard to addressing some of the challenges that exist in remote communities.

I'm guessing that this question continues with the Water Movement, but it may even involve the professional engineer who has been on the call as well.

In today's day and age, the technology exists. The challenges you mentioned about weather, remoteness and transportation have been there for a long time. What is the roadblock? Some of these challenges aren't new. Where is it? We've been able to fix a lot of things. Why hasn't anybody been able to fix this?

I'm not blaming anyone; I just want to know. Is it the department? Is it municipalities and provinces not talking to each other? Where's the the roadblock here?

[Desmond Mitchell]

I'll take this one.

It's people. It's capacity building. It's unbelievably hard to build a successful team that has the knowledge and the expertise to deal with this technology. There's some great stuff out there.

I'm going to throw an example at you. Certain types of membrane filtration require a chemical cleaner. There are some plants that are far up in the remote north, and they have these systems. They were put in place by whatever form of government in the day, and they didn't take into account the thousands of pounds that they have to air freight up. It's the people. It's the fact that you can't have a team full of one-sided expertise. You need a balance. Yes, the technology is out there, but it's not as easy to work with as you may think. Some of this stuff is highly specialized. Again, remoteness plays a part. What if you're up north in Nunavut and you need a technician to fly out?

Part of it's funding and part of it's management, but a majority is people and capacity building. It's a team that keeps these systems running; it's not just an operator. I rely on a whole public works team to make sure that everything's running smoothly. I have a lagoon discharge next week. You want to bet that I'm working with the roads department to clear the culverts. It's simple things like that.

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

Before I move on to my next question, does Mr. Hotchkies want to jump in?

[James Hotchkies]

Thank you.

I think that part of the problem I've seen, not just with Canada's first nations communities but elsewhere around the world, is that the models we have been using for both water and wastewater, particularly wastewater, basically date back to the early part of the 20th century.

Our basic waste-water technology, which uses an activated sludge process, a bacterial process, was patented in 1913. It really hasn't changed very much since then, but technology has advanced, and we have the ability to embrace newer technologies. Mr. Mitchell mentioned membrane solutions. They've been around for roughly five decades now, but they have evolved, and the solutions that were implemented 20 years ago and 30 years ago have been superseded by new innovations.

Part of the problem I find across Canada and in many other parts of the world is that we have models that were developed decades ago and we're still designing systems the way we did decades ago. We have engineering offices that are quite happy to continue to do the same things that they did years ago. We have a mindset that we have one model, whether it's for water or wastewater, that fits all applications, and you can't take the technology that works in Regina and put it into a first nations community that is 2,000 kilometres north of there.

I think the other problem we have related to being stuck in old thinking and old engineering practices is that we still continue to look at water and wastewater as two distinct issues, but basically we find problems around the world when we don't have waste-water people and water people talking to each other. We look at them as two different concepts—

[The Chair, Liberal, Patrick Weiler]

Thank you very much. I'm afraid that I'm going to have to interrupt you there, Mr. Hotchkies. I hate doing this, but we're going to have to move over to our next questioner, who is Mr. Scarpaleggia from the Liberal Party.

[Francis Scarpaleggia, Liberal, Lac-Saint-Louis, QC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I think this is a fascinating panel. I've been sitting in on these meetings. We really have gone to the heart of the issue, which is a technological issue, a management issue and a financing issue, and I see everyone on the panel here really having the answers.

I mean, Mr. Hotchkies and Mr. Mitchell, you understand the operations of waste-water systems probably better than anyone else, and it seems that we have all the solutions. The question is, how do we build that capacity? How do we improve the management of waste water, including from the point of view of designing systems and so on? What's it going to take to move forward? Do we need some kind of catalyst?

Obviously, Public Works, in working with Indigenous and Northern Affairs, working with Environment Canada and working with outside engineers, hasn't solved the problem. We have had the best talent working on this issue for years and years, but somehow, through lack of coordination or because of people working in silos, we haven't been able to.... We've been installing plants that never became operational, I hear, but that were extremely expensive and top of the line.

What's the catalyst? Is the catalyst the first nations water commission that this bill will create? In your opinion, is that going to solve the problem?

We'll have Mr. Mitchell first, and then Mr. Hotchkies.

[Desmond Mitchell]

Thank you for the question.

The reality is that we're not lucky enough to have a “one fix” solution. There are many catalysts.

Pay equity is one. The lack of permanent consultation with the boots on the ground is another. Red tape on funding is one. There should be some form of water advisory committee that operators and managers like me and other people on this panel can discuss with.

[James Hotchkies]

Could I add some comments?

[Francis Scarpaleggia, Liberal, Lac-Saint-Louis, QC]

Yes, please.

[James Hotchkies]

I work with communities all over the world, basically from Singapore to New Zealand, and I have worked on projects all over the world. Canada used to have the number one expertise in water and wastewater. We had the Wastewater Technology Centre in Burlington and we had the Canada Centre for Inland Waters. We've lost that capability. I don't think we have the right type of dialogue going on between operators and communities and across the engineering community. We're not training people appropriately.

I think we do need a mechanism within Canada that looks at what's happening around the world in terms of decentralized technologies like minimum liquid discharge and zero liquid discharge for waste-water operations. Wastewater is 99.9% water, with a small amount of contaminants in there. We have the technologies to deal with that now. We just have to look at what technologies are most appropriate for communities that are not the size of Toronto, which has the Ashbridges Bay wastewater plant, which is probably the worst example we could use, because you never should treat wastewater at the end of the pipe. You should treat it at the source.

That is changing. In the same way that we've moved from centralized power and centralized communications to decentralized systems, we need to look at bringing that into the water space. We're starting to have a dialogue around that as we start to look at how to manage 6.5 million new people coming into Ontario. We're not going to do it by using the same models that we used in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s. We have to start looking at different models and what's happening in other parts of the world.

I work with the U.S. EPA, and they have a complete group that's working on remote operations, whether it's with indigenous or non-indigenous communities in the middle of Arkansas, in the middle of Nebraska or in Alaska. We need to get a community dialogue going in Canada on how to identify technologies that are appropriate for the community, for the people who live in that community and for the problems they face in that community.

[The Chair, Liberal, Patrick Weiler]

Thank you very much, Mr. Hotchkies and Mr. Scarpaleggia.

I see Mr. Hassler has his hand up, but we're through the time for this round.

I will now give the floor to Mr. Lemire for two and a half minutes.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

My question is for Mr. Hotchkies and the Water Movement representatives.

I would like to share a concern that we have seen on the ground. In fact, I commend my assistant, Meili Faille. I can't thank her enough for her major contribution to what we are presenting today.

In Chisasibi, in Quebec's far north, SNC-Lavalin is responsible for maintaining the drinking water system. They do so under a 50-year contract between the community and the company. If there is a breakdown or a problem arises, the community is required to deal with SNC-Lavalin for 50 years. Obviously, the head office is in Montreal, which is about a 15 or 20-hour drive from that area. Since planes are not always available, it means that work on the pipes can be delayed for several days.

I want to emphasize the importance of providing training, having operators on site and ensuring the self-determination of indigenous communities so that they can manage their budgets. Another important matter is that they not be in the grip of monopolies by white companies—for that is what they are—from the southern part of the province or elsewhere. They have a monopoly, impose an obligation and charge fees.

How can these situations be rectified? How can we give first nations more autonomy? How can we ensure that there is better collaboration and knowledge retention among indigenous people?

[James Hotchkies]

I can take a stab at that, if you like.

We work with a lot of remote communities, not necessarily in Canada. It could be a remote community in the middle of the Caribbean that also has an issue when you try to find a spare part or a valve or something. They don't exist. We just started a system down there. They don't even have the right types of valves to put on the system.

To answer your question, companies like SNC-Lavalin are fabulous engineering companies, but a lot of their expertise, particularly in the water and engineering department, is that they're looking at systems from a large centralized utility model. I don't care whether it's SNC-Lavalin, Jacobs engineering or Veolia; their expertise has really developed around large capital-intensive projects—

[The Chair, Liberal, Patrick Weiler]

Mr. Hotchkies, I'm afraid I'm going to have to ask you to wrap up that thought quickly.

[James Hotchkies]

Okay.

I'll come back. I think we need to start looking at a different model, a decentralized model that gets away from the typical types of systems we see in large communities. That is part of the dialogue I was talking about in going with smaller communities. It doesn't matter whether it's a first nations community or a small community in the middle of Ontario: You need to have different models.

[The Chair, Liberal, Patrick Weiler]

Thank you, Mr. Lemire.

For our last round of questioning, it's my pleasure to turn the microphone over to Ms. Blaney for two and a half minutes.

[Rachel Blaney, NDP, North Island—Powell River, BC]

Thank you, Chair.

I want to spend some more time with Mr. Hassler.

I really appreciated your response. Also, thank you for your service, sir. You let us know that you're a veteran, and I really appreciate your service to our country.

Again, I do want to go back to the building of capacity within indigenous communities. We know that finding training in remote indigenous communities can be a challenge, and we know that often the funds are not there to provide the resources required to have the training in a way that actually allows for a sharing of knowledge.

Then, of course, one of the things I've noticed in the community I come from is that you do training and you may train several people, but of course those people aren't given an opportunity to keep doing the work, which means that they lose a lot of that knowledge, and that cycle continues. I'm wondering if you could speak to what the needs are in indigenous communities in terms of building that training capacity so that there are more people who know how to do the work, honouring that unique environment.

[Deon Hassler]

That's a great question. It's something that I'm really dealing with right now, because with our operators.... At my age, I want to retire pretty soon here, but we have new operators coming into the field. A lot of our operators are underpaid and don't want to come into the water field because, there again, there's an old saying about whether you can live on this salary. A lot of our operators are getting minimum wage, and some of our operators are getting less than minimum wage to operate these plants. What interest are they getting? What kind of people are going to come in and be a water plant operator and do the training?

There are other jobs that pay better, like being a security person. We've been losing these people over the years to mining and security jobs. We just have to find a way to attract these people into the industry. I know that here in Saskatchewan, we've developed an association, and it's all first nations led and grassroots. This way, we have more participants coming and even networking together and trying to find solutions within themselves. They feel more comfortable that they're all first nations working together to find better solutions.

This bill also goes to the responsibility of engineering. Ever since I came in, a lot of our water plants weren't designed properly to treat some of the water that we've been going.... With the wrong designs for these water plants, some of the engineering designs, who's responsible for that? We keep getting wrong designs.

We have found some designs here in Saskatchewan that are unique and that work for us, because Saskatchewan has a different groundwater quality that other provinces don't really experience—

[The Chair, Liberal, Patrick Weiler]

Mr. Hassler, could I get you to wrap up that thought? I'm afraid we are over time again.

[Deon Hassler]

Well, as I said, I think pay is one thing that we have to look for to support our operators. I think that's the most important thing we need to do.

[Rachel Blaney, NDP, North Island—Powell River, BC]

Thank you.