WC128 JanFeb2023 - Magazine - Page 21
From community wells to stewardship:
Trilateral panel looks at water through Indigenous lens by Saul Chernos
The Ontario First Nations Technical Services
Corporation isn’t alone in advancing the
notion of Indigenous communities asserting
control over and responsibility for their water
resources.
The Commission for Environmental
Cooperation, a trilateral body formed in
1994 as part of the North American Free
Trade Agreement, hosted an online forum in
November through its Traditional Ecological
Knowledge experts group to look at water and
sustainability through an Indigenous lens.
“Water is at the core of the wellbeing of
all life, of all people, of all communities,
and it is the future of our grandchildren,”
Kathy Hodgson-Smith, a Saskatoon-based
Indigenous lawyer, said in opening remarks.
“This exchange today arises from our need
to listen and learn together, to share our
Indigenous-informed approaches to water
management, to ensure the best possible
advice to the CEC.”
Pier-Olivier Boudreault, of the Canadian
Parks and Wilderness Society, said a campaign
against hydroelectric development along the
Magpie River in Québec’s Côte-Nord region has
seen the regional municipality of Minganie and
the Innu Council of Ekuanitshit recognize the
300-kilometre waterway as a legal person.
Popular with whitewater paddlers and
rafters, the Magpie is culturally significant to
the Innu, who know it as Muteshekau-Shipu
and see themselves as its guardians. The
municipal and Innu resolutions acknowledge
legal rights such as the right to flow, maintain
biodiversity, and take legal action.
Jesse Cardinal, from the Kikino Métis
Settlement in Alberta, said First Nations
have responded to bitumen and mineral
extraction by establishing one of Canada’s
first Indigenous protected areas. “These
northern Indigenous communities are very tied
to the water,” Cardinal said, describing plans
to release water from tailing ponds into the
Athabasca River. “People travel on the water on
a regular basis, hunting, fishing, and trapping.
So anything that goes into the water will affect
the people and all of the wildlife and fish that
depend on it.”
Keepers of the Water, of which Cardinal
is executive director, has launched its own
independent water monitoring efforts. “The
governments are so closely connected to the
industry that we don’t trust the information
they’re giving us,” she said. “The only way to
truly protect the future is to start returning
the land back to Indigenous people. We know
how to take care of the land. We’re the original
stewards.”
Speakers also offered perspective from
the U.S. and Mexico. Virginia LeClere, with the
Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation in Kansas,
recounted her community’s forced migration
from the Great Lakes nearly 200 years ago, and
challenges transitioning to a prairie setting.
“We’ve adapted and learned to harvest new
foods and medicines, and learn new life ways,
including water management practices,”
LeClere said. Achievements include restoring
31 acres of farmland to its original wetland
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.”
Debassige says decolonization and self-determination also extend to source water protection. “You get into the James Bay Lowlands and the Ring of Fire, and those communities need to be part
of the decision-making process. They’ve seen that governments
haven’t lived up to their obligations, so they need to be at the table
when there’s discussions involving source water protection and
potential industrialization through activities such as mining.”
Noting the OFNTSC’s longstanding role in helping train
and support operators, Debassige says the organization is
incorporating traditional knowledge into its offerings and doing
what it can to support and empower First Nations so they can
become increasingly technically self-reliant. The organization
WAT E R C A N A D A . N E T
Québec’s Magpie River
state to be able to harvest species appropriate
to the region. “When our traditional goals
and practice and that longing we have for
our history can align with modern science
and conservation practices, good things can
happen,” LeClere said.
Josefina Santiago, with the United Villages
for Water Management and Protection in
Oaxaca state, Mexico, said drought conditions
and proposed metered fees for water triggered
an Indigenous movement to regain Indigenous
control nearly two decades ago. “We wanted
to recover our aquifer,” Santiago explained.
In 2021, the courts granted local autonomy
in respect to managing and using water. “It is
a common good, not a commodity,” Santiago
said, noting community wells and conservation
projects along with the anticipated challenge
of a planned silver mine.
As the discussion wound down, HodgsonSmith acknowledged the importance of
embracing available technologies and
developing local institutions to engage with
governments and legal regimes. “You’re all
exploring methods for interacting in culturally
appropriate ways that meet the needs of your
community,” she said.
is also working with the Assembly of First Nations to develop
legislation from a First Nations perspective, as well as communicating with provincial and federal government representatives.
For example, the OFNTSC has raised the notion of Red Seal
standards for water and wastewater system operators so that they
would routinely receive a level of training matching other trades.
“We’ve talked about that with the province and I’ve brought it
up to the Minister,” Debassige says. “We need to have our own
training that we certify and that the province supports. Without
water operators, people and communities don’t have clean drinking water. It’s the most important job in the community.”
To read OFNTSC’s report in full, visit: https://www.ofntsc.org/news/
decolonizing-water-governance-addressing-water-crisis-ontariothrough-recognition-first
WATER C AN ADA • JANUARY/ FEBRUARY 2023
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