Hi, everyone.

My name is Merrell-Ann Phare, and I'm legal adviser to the Assembly of First Nations on drinking water. I've been working on these issues since the expert panel on safe drinking water in 2006, and I am currently a member of their co-development team. They are presenting separately, so I'm here in my personal capacity.

I want you to know that, in my view, the bill is a vast improvement over the previous legislation that was repealed and, of course, over the situation that existed before that, which was a regulatory gap with no legislation whatsoever.

You've heard other witnesses talk to you about some of its key positive areas, such as affirming the inherent right to self-government over water and source water. There's a potential big game-changer in terms of how decisions are made about funding through a funding framework. There are improvements on standards for drinking water quality and quantity and waste water. There's a beginning of the process of supporting the creation of first nation water institutions, and, just generally throughout the legislation, you can see quite a bit on collaboration—the phrase is “consultation and collaboration”—and that is a positive relationship-building aspect.

Now, all of these changes—and there are many more in the bill that you're familiar with—are absolutely necessary, and they were negotiated by AFN and others. There was much input, as you've heard, through a co-development process. It wasn't perfect, and there are many ways it could be improved. I hope it gets improved over time, but that's how it has been developed so far, so I strongly support that the bill not be decreased in terms of the current clauses in there.

I wanted to point out one thing, though. Near the end of the co-development process, as the bill was near going into the House, there were some clauses that were added that AFN did not have a role in, so I wanted to speak to those ones, because there are some areas where they could be improved, and they're significant. Again, I don't think there's any circumstance in which this bill should be diminished or any of the clauses deleted or weakened, but there are definitely ways to improve it.

Here are three of them.

First, on inherent right, it's absolutely amazing, and long overdue, that the inherent right to self-government over water and source water is recognized. However, it's currently recognized off reserve only in a protection zone attached to the reserve or adjacent to the reserve. There's no legal reason for that. Source water is source water; water is water. If it's water, there are indigenous rights to water. They've clearly recognized them, and there's no need for the water to be adjacent. Legally, there's no reason for that.

The idea is that a federal-provincial-territorial agreement is required for first nations to implement their right off reserve, and again, that's in line with the federal inherent rights policy. I understand that, but it doesn't really make sense when it comes to water. Water requires all governments to be at the table and to negotiate the way their jurisdictions are going to work together. It shouldn't be that any other government is required for first nations to be able to do that. It should be up to first nations to decide when they feel that they need to work with other governments, just like the federal, provincial and territorial governments do. That's exactly the way the relationship works now, and first nations shouldn't be treated any differently from them.

The second idea is about the minister's obligation. The act currently does not make it absolutely clear that the minister must provide water that meets water quality, quantity and waste-water effluent standards. The current standard is a best-efforts clause, and it's only focused on water quality. That was added after, and I think you can see the problem with that. We've long since passed the time when this should be optional, or even best efforts. The only reason a minister shouldn't have to provide those three things is if the first nation has opted to exercise its jurisdiction on that matter, in which case it's fine, but in the absence of that, we have been, since colonization, long past the time when the minister should be required to provide safe drinking water, water quantity and waste-water effluent treatment.

The final one is the funding framework. You'll see that there's a section in there where first nations will work with the Government of Canada to develop a funding framework. That will assess needs, but what it also will do is set out how decisions are made and implemented, and that's the game-changer. First nations get to work with Canada to scope the needs and how the decisions will be made. Remember, Canada is in that conversation—