Indigenous and Northern Affairs Committee on Oct. 7th, 2024

[Grand Chief Cody Diabo]

Knowing politics, it's going to take a long time, but I have to agree with my Six Nations colleague that we all have to be on the same level. Nobody is above another. Water knows no boundaries. It doesn't adhere to our jurisdictional boundaries.

[Martin Shields, Conservative, Bow River, AB]

Thank you.

I'll turn the rest of my time over to Mr. Schmale.

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

Thank you very much.

Chief Hill, I liked what you had to say regarding outcomes and the fact that the government isn't achieving the outcomes that I think we would all like in terms of clean drinking water. What are the specific barriers now that prevent nations from achieving clean drinking water? Is it the technology piece? We've heard about that. Like, the technology exists to....

Maybe I'll let you expand on that.

[Chief Sherri-Lyn Hill]

I'm sorry. What was the last part?

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

It was about what is preventing those outcomes from being possible now.

[Chief Sherri-Lyn Hill]

I think the biggest one is the lack of infrastructure. We have a $1.6-billion gap in my community for infrastructure and a water plant from 2013 that still needs repairs.

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

Would the possibility of changing the way Ottawa collects tax revenue help you? For example, if your nation were able to keep the excise tax revenue generated from your businesses, giving you as a local leader the ability to make those decisions on how you wished to proceed, would that be a potential movement in the right direction?

[Chief Sherri-Lyn Hill]

I'll ask Councillor Greg Frazer to respond.

[Dr. Greg Frazer]

Thank you, Chief.

Yes, excise tax is a big issue, especially in our community. Our community has some fairly large industry. What happens is that one of the industries can pay out about $350 million to $400 million per year in excise taxes. Excise taxes do not come back to our community. They are gone into the coffers of the province or the federal government. We have no access to that, even though the sales and the people paying for the product are on reserve.

Our community is on us as leadership regarding section 87 of the Indian Act. “We don't pay taxes,” they say. We say, “Okay, it's going to the government.” “We don't pay taxes,” they say. “It's as simple as that.”

However, to your question, it would benefit us greatly to that effect. That would wipe out the $1.7-billion gap in infrastructure. Not only would it help our water system, but our water system is directly linked to our health care system.

Just briefly, the health of our community is not the same as the health of the communities around us. We have higher rates of gestational diabetes for our young mothers. We have higher rates of overweight babies. We have higher rates of diabetes. Why is that? That's because we've supplemented water. We don't drink water out of a tap. We see a tap and we don't go near it. A lot of us, 70% of our community, are on either wells or cisterns. We've turned away from water.

What have we turned to? We've turned to sugar drinks. One of our convenience stores was the highest-selling Pepsi seller in Ontario. What does that lead to? That leads to poor health. That is something that was brought up as a social determinant of health. That's a behavioural change.

[The Chair, Liberal, Patrick Weiler]

Mr. Frazer, I'm afraid I'm going to have to interject. We're much over time here. I think that may be a line of questioning that one of my colleagues might pick up on afterwards.

With that, I'm going to turn the floor over to Mr. Hanley for five minutes.

[Brendan Hanley, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

Thanks for setting me up, Mr. Chair.

I did want to follow on that line of questioning, actually. As someone with a medical background and not a legal background like my colleague, Mr. Battiste, I was drawn to the previous testimony of Dr. Martin-Hill, who wrote a paper about the expansive health ramifications of not having access to clean water. She talked about water insecurity and the many aspects of water insecurity, particularly through a gendered and age-based lens. I was really interested in how, for instance, water insecurity affects mental health, emotional health and the whole social health of the community.

I wonder, Chief Hill or Mr. Frazer, if you could briefly comment on that connection.

[Chief Sherri-Lyn Hill]

I think it's a huge one for mental health. I have community members with depression or sadness, worrying if they have enough water for their kids to even have a bath, worrying if they can get a load of water because sometimes they can't get a load of water. Those are emergency calls.

The other part of it is that sometimes the kids worry. They know they didn't have a bath that night, but are other kids going to know? This is a huge mental health issue weighing on parents and especially on kids who have to go back into school. They know what's going on at home. There are some who still do not have running water in their homes. Their are some who are using outhouses.

This is 2024. That's why I did my statement. We're sitting around this table talking about legislation for first nations people—that's what boggles my mind—while we first nations, my community and other communities, struggle with this.

[Brendan Hanley, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

Thank you, Chief.

I'll cede the rest of my time to Mr. Morrice.

[Mike Morrice, Green, Kitchener Centre, ON]

Thank you, MP Hanley.

Chair, I understand that MP Lemire is also open to sharing two and a half minutes of his time. Is that your understanding as well?

[The Chair, Liberal, Patrick Weiler]

Yes.

[Mike Morrice, Green, Kitchener Centre, ON]

Excellent. Okay.

Thank you, Mr. Lemire.

Thank you, Brendan, as well.

Chief Hill and Councillor Frazer, I so appreciate you both being here to help us understand the reality of what folks in your community are facing. What we get told is, and here's the quote from Indigenous Services Canada: “all residents of Six Nations of the Grand River have access to safe drinking water”. The reserve is not under a water advisory according to Indigenous Services Canada.

Can we just get clarity for the record?

Councillor Frazer, I believe you just finished sharing with a colleague that 70% of residents at Six Nations do not have access to clean drinking water. Can you clarify that? What percentage of residents do not have access today to safe drinking water from the tap?

[Dr. Greg Frazer]

Yes, let me bring you up to speed statistically on that.

Thirty per cent of our community is on the water line from our water plant. Seventy per cent have to use either cisterns or wells. I just got a call today. Since that study came out in 2022, from 2003 to 2022.... It was a community study showing that the water that was tested in all of the places, all of the areas, that were not on the water line was determined to be either dangerous or unsafe. That is the reality of the situation. There is unsafe water. The things we get from ISC are not always accurate.

[Mike Morrice, Green, Kitchener Centre, ON]

Thank you, Councillor Frazer.

I'll just read from a CBC article that Chief Hill participated in a few weeks back that speaks more to that. Ashley Cooke said, “Mostly everybody knows the reserve doesn’t have clean drinking water.... We’ve never ever trusted our tap water.”

Is that the sense you get from most community members?

[Dr. Greg Frazer]

Yes, no one drinks from the tap. We have to buy water. The 70% who are not on the water line buy it, and then they have to store it in a cistern. The cisterns are not cleaned. They're not tested. They are just left.

[Mike Morrice, Green, Kitchener Centre, ON]

If we shift to what this committee could do to make progress, I understand another colleague asked you, Chief Hill, if you'd been consulted. We're being told that consultations began in 2018. You already answered that you were not consulted, Chief Hill. I recognize you were also newly elected in November of last year.

Has anyone you know of been consulted to date at Six Nations of the Grand River?

[Chief Sherri-Lyn Hill]

Go ahead.

[Dr. Greg Frazer]

No, not that we're aware of. No one has directly approached us or the chief's office on that.

[Mike Morrice, Green, Kitchener Centre, ON]

I guess this is the first consultation, this committee meeting right here. Is that true?

[Dr. Greg Frazer]

Direct...? Yes.

[Mike Morrice, Green, Kitchener Centre, ON]

It's all the more important that you're here with us today.

Chief Hill, you also earlier said to another colleague that you wouldn't recommend we support the bill as it stands. You shared a number of proposed amendments for the committee to consider, including language like “must provide” and “must ensure” in place of the government being required to provide “best efforts” for clean drinking water. If those amendments were passed, do you believe it's possible the bill could be improved to be something that would be helpful to you?