Walk to push for clean water on First Nations
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Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 08/05/2019 (2349 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.
Seven Oaks Met School student Eric Jasysyn and about 1,000 of his friends will flood the downtown Friday morning as they walk to advocate for clean drinking water in all Manitoba First Nations communities.
The Grade 12 student has organized the Walk for Water event to raise public awareness and call on all levels of government to take action on building water treatment facilities.
The walk will start at 10 a.m. at Winnipeg city hall and conclude at 11:30 a.m. at Memorial Park. Many of the walkers will carry empty five-litre jugs to symbolize the on-going need for clean, accessible drinking water.

“I’m just really excited to be raising more awareness for these communities,” Eric said Wednesday. “I believe that it (clean drinking water) is not a privilege; it is a right. It’s been deemed a right by the United Nations.”
The walk will include Seven Oaks School Division students, Winnipeg Centre MP Robert-Falcon Ouellette, Point Douglas MLA Bernadette Smith and elder Dan Thomas. A petition, available to sign at the walk’s end in Memorial Park, is calling for government to take action on bringing safe and accessible drinking water to all First Nations communities.
On March 1, Eric and fellow student Meg Boehm organized a fashion and music show called Strut for Shoal at the Seven Oaks Performing Arts Centre, where they circulated a petition and raised about $7,000 for a water treatment plant in Shoal Lake 40 First Nation. Located about 200 kilometres east of Winnipeg on the Manitoba-Ontario border, Shoal Lake 40 is the source of the city’s drinking water, but the community itself has been under a boil-water advisory since 1997.
The Strut for Shoal event was part of Eric’s final project at the Met School, founded on the principal of Big Picture Learning, which focuses on the interests and passions of the student through projects, in addition to academics. It includes community-based internships.
Eric said he organized the Walk for Water event, along with teacher adviser, Shandra Ready, because “there’s so much more to do.”
As of April 27, Indigenous Services Canada reports long-term drinking-water advisories remain in 57 First Nations in Canada and four in Manitoba, including Tataskweyak, God’s Lake, Wuskwi Sipihk and Pinaymootang. It states March 2021 is the target date for all long-term drinking water advisories to be lifted from public systems on reserves.
“In doing research on this, it really hit me that nobody in Canada should have to be dealing with this (lack of safe drinking water),” Eric said. “We are a first-world country. We have money and resources and everybody here should have access to clean drinking water, no matter how small your community many be.”
The drive continues in the wake of recent news from Shoal Lake 40 that clean drinking water is on the way.
Chief Erwin Redsky confirmed Wednesday the First Nation is “definitely getting a water treatment plant in a very short time.”
“We’re just going through the process of the funding commitments and the process of tendering. It’s been on our radar for many, many years, but it just became a priority again in terms of funding,” Redsky said in a telephone interview. “We certainly appreciate all the help we’ve received along the way.”
ashley.prest@freepress.mb.ca