Mamakwa urges Ford to provide support

BY OMNIYA ALI

“Water is a basic human right, but the Ford government keeps ignoring the apartheid system of clean water access for First Nations people in Ontario,” said Mamakwa. “Every Ontarian knows Doug Ford would never neglect and dismiss a community like Etobicoke North this way. Every day Doug Ford does nothing to fix this crisis is another day he makes the shameful choice to put the health and lives of Neskantaga’s community members at risk.”

On a November 3rd press conference hosted by Sol Mamakwa, MPP for Kiiwetinoong and NDP Indigenous Relations and Reconciliation critic; Neskantaga community members Lawrence Sakanee and Alex Moonias addressed some concerns regarding the water crisis. To prove the severity and urgency of the issue, Sakanee and Alex Moonias were not afraid to travel over 1,100 km to Queen’s Park to call on the Ford government to bring running water back to their community. Although Neskantaga has been under a boil advisory for over 25 years, Doug Ford has audaciously diminished 80% of the budget for Ontario’s Indigenous Drinking Water Program. It seems that the recent forced evacuation of the Neskantaga community due to the surfacing of dangerous hydrocarbons in local water reservoirs has not swayed him in the least. In response to the evacuation the Ford government has done nothing to support the community or the remaining 230 people living there, bearing in mind that the fund reduction has diminished any potential efforts to invest in infrastructure for clean drinking water in Neskantaga and other First Nations that need it, along with it.

In response to the water crisis, Neskantaga First Nation Chief Christopher Moonias expressed “our people are getting tired and frustrated. We are denied the basic human right of access to clean water. We fully support our members who have traveled to Queen’s Park to hold the Provincial Government responsible for their part in what our community is facing. Fix our water.” In a world where equality is parsimoniously distributed to only those that the government view as worthy, does it not lose its meaning? Are basic needs too much to ask or do people need an identification card to access them? One that states that they are not a part of a minority group to prove worthy of those needs. One might argue that after all the suffering the Indigenous community has endured over the years in Canada, the least the government can do to compensate is to ensure a comfortable life where they no longer need to fight. A life where Indigenous people don’t feel obligated to advocate for themselves because no one else will.

“I have two children, who are 1 and 3. It is painful to keep going through this, for me and for them. I don’t want them to grow up without clean drinking water. I don’t want them to have to bathe in the dangerous water back home. They deserve clean water. All the children in Neskantaga deserve clean water,” Renita Moonias, Neskantaga First Nation. No one deserves to live in fear of their children contracting some kind of illness because of the government’s pure negligence. Consequently, members of Neskantaga First Nation are staging a sit-in at Queen’s Park to demand Doug Ford stop ignoring the people of Neskantaga, and provide critical, life-saving support to meet the ongoing public health crisis they are facing. Once again, the people of Neskantaga First Nation are forced to take matters into their own hands, however, it’s time every other community stands by them. If the entirety of Ontario can have clean water, why can’t they?

Let’s all join the people of Neskantaga in urging Ford to act now and provide desperately needed support for Neskantaga’s water emergency.