Canada’s new Minister of Indigenous Services said that she is considering what the new timetable should be to lift the remaining long-term drinking water recommendations for Indigenous people.
When Patty Hajdu assumed this position, there were still 43 recommendations in 31 different communities, mainly in Ontario, but also in Manitoba and Saskatchewan.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau promised that by 2021, when the Liberal Party comes to power in 2015, all drinking water recommendations will be terminated.
Six years later, his government stated that it helped end 119 long-term boiling water recommendations, but missed the deadline to end all of them.
A federal government website dedicated to this issue shows that although some suggestions have been deleted, more suggestions have been added.
Hajdu said that she did not set a new deadline because she is studying the barriers to closing the remaining 43 barriers and the stage at which each community is in solving the problems.
“I’m now considering what a realistic timetable is and how we can do it in a way that respects some of the community’s restrictions and community priorities,” she told the Canadian News Agency in an interview.
Although she is considering a timetable for work, Hajdu said that she does not want anyone to promise “an artificial deadline. It will not actually help speed up work in any way.”
She said that for some aborigines, what complicates matters is their remoteness, which limits their window of delivery of materials and construction teams to complete the work.
Critics of Trudeau’s reconciliation efforts point out that he missed the deadline to end all drinking water recommendations, which is evidence of his failure to deliver on the promises he made to the indigenous people.
Reconciliation is still the top priority on the Liberal Party’s agenda, but as they enter their third term, they will face stricter scrutiny than announced.
In addition, after the Aboriginals confirmed the discovery of hundreds of unnamed graves of Aboriginal children who were believed to be forced to attend boarding schools, the Aboriginal community and more non-Aboriginal Canadians called for justice.
Hajdu said she understands that expectations are high when she enters a new position, but plans to manage these expectations by honestly stating what she and the government can do and “what is not feasible”.
The mission of her department is to provide services to Indigenous residents living on reservations, including housing and clean water supply, mental health and child welfare support.
She said that it is difficult to answer the question of whether the government has done its best to manage expectations.
Hajdu recalled that in the early days, people wanted to complete their work quickly, and she added that this desire still exists today.
“I think that over the years, you have become more and more wiser to some of these major challenges,” she said of the reality facing the indigenous people, especially the reality in remote areas.
Hajdu, who has served as the Minister of Health for the past two years, said that when the world is overwhelmed by the COVID-19 pandemic, processing the document will help her prepare for a new job.
During the first term of the Liberal Party as Minister of the Status of Women, she also assisted the government in launching investigations into missing and murdered indigenous women and girls.
Now as Minister of the Canadian Aboriginal Services Department, Hajdu believes that Ottawa must play a role in promoting the needs of the Aboriginal people and expressed her hope that her department will focus on promoting their autonomy.
“I will do anything,” she said.
“If the aborigines say,’We have a solution, but you can’t provide us with the help we need, this is the real help we need, it will crack the code,’ I want to say I know.”
© 2021 Canadian Press
