EDITORIAL: The tainted water money pit on reserves

Where, exactly, is all this taxpayer money going?

Published Jun 16, 2026  •  Last updated 1 hour ago  •  2 minute read

Minister of Indigenous Services Mandy Gull-Masty takes part in a press conference about tabling Bill C-37, a First Nation’s clean water bill, in the House of Commons foyer on Parliament Hill in Ottawa on June 16, 2026. Photo by Blair Gable /Postmedia Network

Of all the black holes down which taxpayers’ money allegedly intended to improve the lives of Canada’s First Nations disappears, the worst has to be funding to provide access to clean drinking water on reserves.

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Federal Indigenous Services Minister Mandy Gull-Masty on Tuesday announced what she called “the largest single commitment ever made for First Nations water — $4.6 billion in targeted funding for water and wastewater treatment in First Nation communities.”

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That problem was supposed to be solved by a $1.83 billion commitment the Justin Trudeau government made a decade ago in its 2016 budget, to fulfill a 2015 promise to end all long-term unsafe drinking water advisories on Canada’s reserves by March 31, 2021.

That deadline came and went without being met, but the money to fix the problem kept flowing — a total of $5.6 billion by 2022.

That’s not counting $8 billion the federal government set aside in 2021 to settle 140,000 claims from those living on reserves that they drank tainted water from 1995 to 2021, with $2 billion going to individuals and $6 billion, allegedly, to improve water treatment infrastructure on reserves.

The federal government today says its efforts have lifted 156 long-term drinking water advisories since 2015 with 38 still in effect on 36 reserves.

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But those claims should be taken with a huge grain of salt given years of auditor general reports of repeated government failures to eliminate tainted water on reserves.

In 2021, auditor general Karen Hogan reported that: “Indigenous Services Canada did not provide adequate support to First Nations communities so that they have access to safe drinking water.”

She also cited numerous examples of the feds fudging their numbers to make their results look better than they actually were.

In a follow-up report last year, Hogan concluded, “Indigenous Services Canada has made unsatisfactory progress in addressing long-standing issues related to drinking water, emergency services, and a range of other programs important to the health and well‑being of First Nations communities.”

All of which raises the question of where, exactly, is all this taxpayer money going, given that Ottawa will spend almost $36 billion on Indigenous issues this year — $24 billion by Indigenous Services Canada and $11.8 billion by Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs Canada?

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