Maybe it would work better if Ottawa dealt with reserve water first?

In an otherwise perceptive op-ed on the other side of the paywall, Linda Slobodian, staff writer for the Western Standard, wrongly argues that “it would do better of Ottawa dealt with reserve water first” before dealing with other indigenous issues.

I say this because most reserve water problems are neither the fault nor responsibility of the federal government: as with reserve housing, a guaranteed fresh water supply was not enshrined in the many reciprocal treaties signed with or inherited by Canada’s federal government.

Nor is the supply of clean drinking water or housing a constitutional right granted to all Canadians.

Meanwhile, several million non-indigenous people who reside close to reserves in cottage country during the summer, are in tiny remote locations next to reserves all year round or are living beside reserves on farms near or far from urban centres, are individually required to supply their own safe drinking water.

Housing on reserves is allowed to deteriorate through the indifference of their occupants who do not have fee simple possession of their properties. Meanwhile, scores of reserves that had excellent water treatment facilities in the past now have to boil their water because they did not properly maintain their equipment due to negligence or incompetence.

Also, as one of Slobodian’s critics wrote in the comments section:

In the debates of the 1880's concerning the sending of food to the starving Indians of the prairies, Sir John A was concerned that a side effect of the provision of an abundance of food would create a welfare attitude among the Indians at a time when the government of the day was attempting to educate them for engagement in the economy of the time, agriculture. He knew that the Metis who shared the prairies with the Indians were self-sufficient. He hope to help the Indians to become self-sufficient. Unfortunately, what we see today is the vast majority of Indians are totally dependent on government handouts and welfare.

In short, the problem is not unsafe water but the paternalistic, parasitic, and dependency-causing treaty system itself.