WC128 JanFeb2023 - Magazine - Page 18
WATER RESOURCES
Breaking with the Past
Ontario First Nations Technical Services Corporation
looks to decolonize water governance BY SAUL CHERNOS
”The approach we’re
proposing is that
our communities
make decisions and
take ownership and
accountability and
understand what
that involves, with
OFNTSC partnerships and with
us providing the
training.”
– Glen Goodman
Saul Chernos
is a freelance writer
with Water Canada.
18
N RECENT ISSUES, Water Canada has outlined many of the
challenges operators face keeping systems up and running, often
under difficult conditions and for pay barely exceeding minimum
wage. Systems frequently operate on threadbare budgets, and
some communities have endured boil water advisories for decades
as band councils juggle multiple, equally urgent priorities.
A position paper by the Ontario First Nations Technical Services
Corporation, an organization that trains and guides First Nations
water and wastewater personnel across Ontario, makes it clear that
the current model isn’t working and calls
for decision-making for those services to
be squarely in the hands of the Indigenous
communities they serve. “Decolonizing the
water governance apparatus that continues
to fail Ontario First Nations is long overdue…No longer can First Nations tolerate
the status quo that, under Canada’s watch,
perpetuates oppression and denies fundamental Indigenous and human rights.”
The 22-page paper, Decolonizing Water
Governance: Addressing the Water Crisis in
Ontario Through Recognition of First Nations
Jurisdiction, says Indigenous communities
must determine their own water and wastewater-related governance structures without
outside interference but with the support of
colonial governments in keeping with Canada’s obligations under the United Nations
“Financial commitment
Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous
alone will not solve the
Peoples (UNDRIP).
Adopted by the UN General Assembly
water and wastewater crisis
in 2007, UNDRIP identifies minimum
on First Nations reserves.”
standards for human rights and fundamental freedoms for Indigenous people and
– Decolonizing
communities globally. Although Canada,
Water Governance
the United States, Australia, and New
Zealand initially voted against UNDRIP,
I
WATER C AN ADA • JANUARY/ FEBRUARY 2023
WAT E R C A N A D A . N E T
