Safe drinking water for First Nations : Final report of the Standing Senate Committee on Aboriginal Peoples

Committee Clerk: Josée Thérien Analyst from the Parliamentary Information and Research Service of the Library of Parliament: Tonina Simeone ii ORDER OF REFERENCE Extract from the Journals of the Senate of Thursday, March 29, 2007: The Honourable Senator Comeau moved, seconded by the Honourable Senator Di Nino: That the Standing Senate Committee on Aboriginal Peoples, in accordance with rule 86(1)( [...] Harry Swain Chair of the Expert Panel on Safe Drinking Water for First Nations 1 Witnesses testifying before the Committee, including the Assembly of First Nations (AFN), all agree, in principle, on the need to establish a regulatory framework to govern the provision of drinking water in First Nations communities. [...] Similarly, the AFN takes the position that the Government of Canada must address the gap in resources required to bring First Nations facilities to a level that is on a par with those in the rest of Canada. [...] Regulatory standards, in the absence of the physical and human capacity to meet them, are unlikely to improve the quality and delivery of drinking water on-reserve, and may in fact worsen the situation. [...] The 2005 Report of the Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development on Drinking Water in First Nations Communities estimates that, between 1995 and 2003, the federal government spent roughly $1.9 billion on the provision of safe drinking water on- reserve.