Good News - Bad News

The good news is that at least in at least one First Nation community in Northern Ontario, as of a few days ago, residents no longer have to boil their drinking water. And that really is good news. However attached this achievements is a long list of bad news items. Some of them are:

1)It  took 14 years to correct this situation. For those who have grown up with municipally treated water, water than generally is very safe to drink (Walkertown, Ontario being the exception), it is almost inconceivable that anyone in Canada, this highly developed nation, would have to boil their water before it is safe to drink. To make the news that one community now has safe drinking water even less exciting - according an article in the Huffington Post of a year ago, there are another 140 First Nation communities that are under some sort of boil water advisory.  

2) The cost of ensuring that Slate Falls which is about 550 kilometres north of Thunder Bay has safe drinking water was 11.6 million dollars (CBC). The Canadian government has budgeted another 172.5 million dollars in the next few years to ensure that other First Nation communities have access to safe water. If Slate Falls is any example - the amount of money budgeted will not be enough to do the job.

3) There are only about 300 people living in Skate Falls. Which means that the Government of Canada spent just under $39,000 per person to ensure that they have safe water. One of course, assumes that the treatment plant will be in operation for many, many years and therefore the costs per person will drop down dramatically. One has to wonder if it would have been more economical to determine why their water source so far away from almost anywhere was so polluted - and then to fix that problem.

There is no doubt that Canada has a responsibility to ensure that all of its citizens have the right to safe drinking water. There should never be a question as to whether or not we can afford it. We, as a country, are morally obliged to do whatever is required to make this happen as soon as possible. Having said that, I think that we, as a country, are also obliged to try to do things that make sense. In the case of Slate Falls, part of the problem was that their old system could not deal with the  E. coli and other contaminants. While the cynic in me doubts it - and I can find no proof that someone did, surely someone in some sort of official capacity looked for the source of these bacteria and contaminants.

It is to Canada's shame that we as a nation have been able to do so little to at least alleviate the long terms effects of Europeans immigrating to Canada starting in the 1600s. While many of the effects were unpredictable, or at least deemed to be worth it, the effects are well known and long standing. There is no way in which Canada could ever return the land back the way it was 400 years ago - but surely there is a way to fix the obvious problems such as poor drinking water in our northern communities. Surely it should not take 14 years to do so.