Health Unit report highlights poor housing and water conditions in Pikangikum
From http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20061020.ONTWATER20/TPStory/TPNational/Ontario/
Reserve homes lack access to water, report says
KAREN HOWLETT
TORONTO -- The vast majority of homes on a remote native reserve in Northwestern Ontario have no access to basic water and sewage services, forcing most residents to use decrepit wooden outhouses and carry their drinking water by pail, according to a report released yesterday.
The primitive conditions on the Pikangikum reserve, a fly-in community about 200 kilometres north of Kenora, pose a danger to the health of its 2,300 residents, warns the report, prepared by the Northwestern Health Unit. The report says the four staff members who spent two days assessing the situation at the native community this year are all too familiar with the tainted tap-water plight on many reserves across the province.
"Nor are we naive, but we were all shocked at the extent of the neglect we witnessed," Dr. Pete Sarsfield, the health unit's chief executive officer, says in the report.
The reserve has a modern and adequate water treatment plant. The problem is that the plant is not connected to 95 per cent of the reserve's 367 houses. As a result, most residents travel to the plant to collect drinking water. But the plant is not accessible to many residents, leaving them drinking untreated water from the lake, the report says. Plastic containers used to transport drinking water to the local school and its 780 students are not cleaned or disinfected between fillings.
The majority of outhouses on the reserve are full and overflowing with sewage and many do not have doors, leaving residents at "high risk of illness," the report says. Health-care workers noted a higher incidence of gastrointestinal infections, as well as skin and urinary tract infections, than in other communities.
The report was tabled by the New Democrats in the legislature yesterday, one day after the government's Clean Water Act passed third and final reading.
The legislation is aimed at protecting drinking water from contamination.
The government may say that everyone in Ontario has a basic right to clean drinking water, but the legislation will do nothing to protect the residents of Pikangikum, NDP Leader Howard Hampton said.
"If you're an aboriginal person, you don't have that fundamental right," he said.
The conditions at Pikangikum are an eerie reminder of the contaminated water crisis at Kashechewan a year ago, when the Ontario government declared a state of emergency and brought out residents in need of medical attention.
"I continually write to [Indian Affairs Minister] Jim Prentice, saying you better take your responsibility seriously," David Ramsay, the minister responsible for aboriginal affairs in Ontario, told reporters. "We're very, very concerned about this and don't think the feds should be abdicating their responsibility."
But a spokesman for Mr. Prentice said the minister has taken steps to address the problem, including setting up an expert panel to come up with regulations to ensure there is safe drinking water on reserves across Canada.