Thank you very much for your question. I would like to answer in French, but my French is too rusty, so I will answer in English—but it's nice to hear French.
The fundamental problem with drinkable water is that we have contaminated our rivers and lakes. I hear from the community members that Ramona and I work with. For thousands of years if they needed water, they would dip their cup in the water and drink. The rivers and lakes in northern Manitoba used to be as clear as glass. You could see all the way to the bottom. Now they are mud soup, full of chunks of mud and whole dead trees, dead animals, and debris from the hydro dams and the water level manipulations.
We wouldn't need water treatment centres in these communities if we weren't destroying the water and the land. This is where extractive industries, again, are something that we need to overhaul. We need to do things differently because that will be the solution: if we just let the lakes and rivers return to the healthy state they used to be in.
At the same time, I agree that until that happens, it is a national disgrace that we have whole communities that don't have drinkable water. I know that the government has committed to ensuring that all communities do have drinkable water, but we are not there yet.
I just heard from one of our community members, as I asked them what they wanted us to say to you all today. One was talking about the burden every day on women. The women carry the burden of trying to ensure they have drinking water every day for their families.