Boiling Point 

SOUND UP: News clips start the show along with some music.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rw5L_rZw3X0

0:08-0:12” Residents of Nazko First Nations have been unable to drink their water”

 

0:23-0:27 “the problem? Unacceptably high levels of arsenic and manganese”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X068TeZahec

 

0:40-0:44 “many first nations communities in this first world country do not have access to clean drinking water” 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rw5L_rZw3X0

 

0:33-0:37 “they were telling us we can't even brush our teeth with it”

 

1:00- 1:09 “the federal government promised a fix, in fact it built this state of the art 3.6 million dollar water treatment plant, but folks still can't drink their water”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kTb1XbQApp4

 

0:11-0:17 “it is difficult as we all know to lift these long-term boil water advisories, otherwise other governments would have done it”

 

[News clips - 34 seconds]

Ella: The only way people on some First Nations land can drink the water coming out of their taps is to boil it first.

Fade in: SFX water boiling 

Proposed script

Host: After years of government failure to implement sustainable ways to keep boil water advisories out of First Nations communities, many of them still don't have answers to why they don't have access to safe clean drinking water. On this episode of “I Can’t Believe It’s Not Better”, we will be doing a deep dive on how water boil advisories are treated in Canada and what we can do about making them a thing of the past. This episode Boiling Point.

Fade out: SFX water boiling 

Fade in (as SFX fade out): music 

Ella: This podcast is coming to you from Mount Royal University, which is located in the traditional territories of the Niitsitapi Blackfoot and the people of the Treaty 7 region in Southern Alberta, which includes the Siksika, the Piikani, the Kainai, the Tsuut’ina, and the Îyârhe [E-AH-hay] Nakoda. The City of Calgary is also home to the Métis Nation.

 

Ella: I am your host Ella Meakin and we also have our two co-hosts here with us Onyinye Ekwulugo. 

Onyinye: Hey everybody!

Ella: And James Windler

James: Hi, it’s great to be here.

Fades out: Music

Ella: James you recently went and interviewed Tori McMillan, an AEP Administrator at the Iniskim Center at MRU, about the water boil advisories that have been implemented in Indigenous communities right?

James: Yes, I did.

Ella: How’d that go?

James: It went well, I really learned a lot from Tori. It was a big topic to discuss, especially since it’s been going on for so many years.

Onyinye: Yeah, it’s weird that it’s been going on so long. When did you guys first start hearing about it? 

Ella: I started hearing about it during the 2015 election cycle.

James: For me it was around 2019 when Jagmeet Singh was pushing for an end to all boil advisories in Canada 

Onyinye: Yeah, I think the first time I heard about it was when we first started talking about it as a potential topic.

 

Ella: How did you guys feel when you first heard about these advisories? Or now that we’ve studied it a bit more as we prepared for this episode?

Onyinye: It was definitely weird and it’s a hard thing to understand; knowing that people in Canada don’t have as much access to this basic human need.

Ella: Right, we’re a first world country with so much access to water and yet people still can’t drink it!?!

James: I definitely thought it was shocking, especially the amount you hear about non-reserve advisories compared to advisories on reserves. That’s actually something that I did mention to Tori; hearing alerts on advisories from Three Hills, but none for First Nation reserves. 

INT CLIP 5:48-6:58 

“Yes, to-to your point if you're driving down the highway and you get the, you know, the-the ominous Sound through your phone or through the radio, you know, usually this is oh my goodness, there's a hurricane or a child has been abducted. 

You know, everyone stop and we need to listen. So the fact that there was a boiled water advisory or water advisory more three hills they garnered that level of attention is striking because certainly, I don't think anyone who is connected to an indigenous community would have seen that level of notification. Part of it is the difference in the standards of how things are treated. Perhaps, as well. It speaks to That capacity for sharing information and how-how strikingly obvious it is when we look at the differences between communities. And that's really what truth and reconciliation is shining a light on, are these discrepancies that that you and I have inherited.” 

TRT 1:10

James: It’s interesting because you start to look at one problem and then you get to see that what we think is the problem isn’t the whole problem. Water advisories in both Indigenous and non-Indigenous land do eventually get fixed and there are obviously solutions. So I guess it kind of goes into, why are they around so much longer in Indigenous communities.  

Ella: I think it’s like Tori said. There are discrepancies and we just hear about non-Indigenous communities under advisories a lot more. And I think that’s an awareness problem, in that so many of us don’t know what’s going on and it’s not something that affects most Calgarians or other city dwellers. 

Onyinye: Which is interesting because it does affect people who aren’t on reserves, right? I mean we’ve all heard of small towns affected by advisories and other parts of Canada that have been fixed. So why are they getting so much more awareness or attention?

James: I think Tori really answered that best when I spoke with him. We were discussing how the government had fixed some problems  and then more would pop up.

INT 18:59-20:43

“The the biggest issue seems to be around the infrastructure. So, the number of advisories that are out there about 10% of them are due to some form of contamination, whether that's E coli or some other bacterial agent.Those things can come and go and some degree. They're cyclical nature can Sometimes play a cruel trick on itself. But the other 90% of those boiled water advisories are really around equipment and infrastructure. Is this equipment maintained? Is it out the right? People staffing it to the have the right training, the right materials to work with. As we saw close to 10 years ago in Walkerton Ontario. You know, even a slight lapse in attentiveness can have fatal consequences. And so we we recognise that these are issues that are not only within Indigenous communities, but then like you said, if it can happen in three hills, it could happen anywhere. And certainly cities are a little bit more resilient. You know, to those kinds of threats than to remote communities that have far less infrastructure. Are less attention on their needs. And so, we tend to live our lives, you know, with what we see in front of us, and if we don't know, there's a problem in Montreal Lake Saskatchewan, which there is, there was a boil water advisory initiated this year.”

TRT: 1:44

Ella: It sounds like what he’s saying is supposedly being addressed by the government then as they’re spending money around training water treatment plant employees, maintaining the plants and building new ones.

Onyinye: The issue comes to whether their plans are followed through. The Trudeau government did want to have all of the long term advisories fixed by March 2021 and then made a statement saying that would be possible in December 2020, and then they didn’t come out with a new timeline for the elimination of the advisories.

James: And it’s not as though this is some obsolete issue. Water is a basic human need, we use it for cooking, bathing, brushing our teeth, drinking and there are some reserves who have had to boil water several times a day just to do our average daily activities. Which has been something that has really affected their quality of life. 

INT Clip 12:25-14:23 

“So one one measure that's used across the world is called the United Nations Human Development Index. They take a number of factors in and they assess them and rank countries based on those those qualities. We know that Canada has a very high standard of living and so when we look at help education and life expectancy, Canada ranks, 12 amongst the, you know, close to 200 nations states in the world. However, when we look at the indigenous people within Canada, those numbers change dramatically For off-preserve Indigenous people, they rank 48 in their quality of life in the UN Human Development Index. And for, on reserve, People live on reserving Canada, their water quality, or by extension their standard of living 78th in the world.That means that people that are five minutes, 10 minutes away from us. Could be living. You know, the 78 ranking of a nation whereas, here, in the city, it could be well. Clearly, there's a big discrepancy and we need to, to understand the forces that shape those gaps. And I'm grateful that we've had this opportunity to come together and start to scratch the surface of this issue that many are Starting to recognise as a symbol for reconciliation itself. When we look at different standards of living and different like expectancies, I think most people would say that we want to see consistency in our country, We want to see that everyone has access and rights. And and this discussion today is is allowing us to shine a light on it. ”

TRT 1:58

Ella: 78th! That’s awful, especially compared to Canada’s overall 12th. It’s obviously not just the water playing into this, but it’s definitely one fundamental need that we as a society could help work on or advocate for some more change.

James: I agree, it was surreal hearing about it. But it wasn’t only the statistics that I got to hear about as Tori was able to share about someone’s experience of living through these advisories.

32:25-35:08 

“Well, the story that was shared here from our TSUU T'INA neighbours so the The young woman had a family of 11. And basically, they're drinking their water out of a cistern. So, every four days, the  TSUU T'INA  water truck comes around to deliver water to them. Their issue was during COVID when they were isolating at home and going through water more rapidly than normal, they needed their water replaced every two days. And I've seen that out in out in the gas station people, buying large, jugs of water, because they trust it. They they're not sure what's coming out of the ground. And when it comes to cisterns well those are rife or bacteria and other diseases. So even that kind of temporary arrangement is still not the ultimate answer. You're still increasing risk. When you sacrifice. The integrity of a project, save money and so you scale it down and you do You know, we'll do it in steps and stages rather than a full, you know, project that sustains itself That it takes time to build up to that but yes, her story was I have to buy water at the gas station. I mean, you know I need to tell my children that water is precious that we need to utilise it as minimally as possible. And that ultimately the final answer is to see more water systems being created in nations. So inTsuu T’ina , they they put it where the schools are they cluster the schools and the administration area together, So those areas have support, but when the kids go home, that's when the reality sets in again. And again, we're talking about people who live, five, ten minutes away from us. And yet the reality is so different. And that's what we're trying to to do. We're trying to break that wall down and share knowledge, back and forth. And and understand these issues. Because we need allyship and we need other people. To understand and speak to these issues, to get the years of the people that that make these changes that drive these policies. So, I was very touched by her story. Because it affected her family, her children, everybody not just drinking but bathing using the washroom. Washing dishes using the toilet, all things that you and I take for granted. 

TRT: 2:17

Onyinye: Well that sums up exactly why we’re talking about this. To be allies and advocates for this cause. I know there’s a whole load of issues that need to be solved, but I’d say having drinkable water should be pretty high on the list and deserves some more attention.

Ella: Absolutely, it’s good to hear about. I think that it’s something that does need to be talked about more, so that things can change. 

James: If enough of us know what’s happening and care then the government policies could definitely turn into government action. 

INT Clip 8:53-9:45 

“You are part of a continuum. And then seven generations before us, people made decisions that have been populated us where we live are all of your life. And in turn. Now, it's our turn to impact, seven generations behind us and where their lives look like I think it takes extraordinary foresight. To make decisions for people that will never meet. Will never meet our future descendants but we hope that the day will come when they say thank you. You know, thank you for creating a world where we have safety, where we have help. Where we don't have gaps, where we're not spending our time, focusing on issues of concern, or rather focusing on the successes that we're achieving.” 

TRT 0:52

Fades in: Music

Conclusion:

Ella: This has been “I Can’t Believe It’s Not Better,” on our water advisory focused episode Boiling Point. I’d like to thank  Tori McMillan for sharing his insights. It’s been a great discussion and I hope that we can keep having these open conversations in the future.

Onyinye: Definitely, it’s been great learning a bit more about the topic and the Indigenous perspective.

James: Yeah, it’s something I’m more aware of now and going to be paying attention to in the future. 

Ella: And with that we have to say goodbye. I’ve been your host Ella Meakin.

Onyinye: And I’m the number one co-host Onyinye Ekwulugo.

James: Actually the number one co-host goes by the name of James Windler.

Onyinye: I don’t think so.

Ella: Anyway, this podcast series is produced by the students of MRU ‘S Broadcast Media Studies program. This episode was put together by Onyinye Ekwulugo, James Windler, Jayson Taylor, Aleah Jacobson and myself, Ella Meakin. Our series production team is Jayson Taylor, Bolu Apesin-Ola, Killian Dellapina and Ben Kawchuk. “I Can’t Believe It’s Not Better” is a production of CMRU.ca and the community podcast initiative at MRU. The Community Podcast Initiative is powered by Shaw. 

Thank you for listening and have a good day.

Onyinye: Bye, everyone.

James: Bye.

Fades out: Music

TRT of Podcast: Interview clips = 8:01 min, Intro clips = 0:34, Podcast Conversation (should be) = 9:25 - 16:25. (TRT needs to be between 18-25)