On the shores of the Attawapiskat Lake, about 18 hours north west of Barrie, lies the band of the Neskantaga First Nations, where only a portion of the population remains. The other portion leave, because of the large amounts of poverty and the isolation. This First Nations Community has been under a water boil advisory for over 20 years. Their current water filtration system hasn’t worked since 1995, and even when it did work it removed sand and grit, but left in harmful chemicals. The government gives the Neskantaga people $250,000 annually, which goes towards running a water treatment system that continuously tests positive for harmful chemicals after being filtered. The confusing part is, is that the government spends $1,000,000 flying in bottled water. Instead of giving these First Nations only $250,000 to fix their treatment plant give them some of the $1,000,000 that 's spent …show more content…
Neskantaga has fallen from 4th on the federal government’s water treatment priority list, then to 15th and then apparently they have fallen to 19th on the unreleased list. The government has left it so long, in my opinion, it has become a human rights issue. This is discrimination to First Nations people. Just because they don’t live the same live as a Canadian citizen in Toronto, doesn’t mean that they shouldn’t get clean water that doesn’t have to be flown in. Not only are they discriminating the First Nations people but they are also serving injustice to the Neskantaga band as a whole. I know that the First Nation’s people helped us a lot in our history, and now the government isn’t giving them constant access to a life necessity. This is the 21st century! We can’t give everyone in Canada access to clean drinking water, but we are wasting money on building Jazz Playing Robots that perform solos and dance with other musicians.