Why Are There No Clean Water Projects Among Carney's Nation-Building Projects?
I can't help but notice that Prime Minister Carney's nation-building projects do not include lifting boil water advisories.
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| Above: Long Term water advisories in Canada as of November 25, 2025 |
I recently read Son of Elsewhere: A Memoir in Pieces by Elamin Abdelmahmoud, which was published in 2022.
In this memoir, Abdelmahmoud writes:
The 401 sails past the Tyendinaga First Nation, where the water is not safe to drink. The Mohawk territory has been under boil water advisory for a decade. A decade. Southern Ontario is an impossibly prosperous region, in part because of the 401. And yet cars pass by Tyendinaga, unaware of what its residents have to do just to simply drink a glass of water.
- from Son of Elsewhere by Elamin Abdelmahmoud
Fortunately, in Spring of 2022, the boil water advisory was lifted in the Tyendinaga First Nation, as reported by the CBC here: After 14 years, boil water advisory lifted for most in Tyendinaga Mohawk Territory
After reading, I did a quick search to see how we are doing on boil water advisories for our First Nations communities here in Canada, as these are shockingly common. Our governmental websites have two pages tracking boil water advisories across the country: Active long-term drinking water advisories, and Short-term drinking water advisories.
In the map at the beginning of this post, which I got here, this is where we stand for long-term drinking water advisories in Canada as of Tuesday, November 25 (which is when this post was written). It looks like there are 38 long-term drinking water advisories, though there is no data in the above for our Northern provinces and territories. For short-term advisories, "As of November 24, 2025, there were 36 short-term drinking water advisories in place in First Nations communities south of 60, excluding those in the British Columbia region" (source here).
So that is a bummer and disappointing to say the least. To say the most, we in Canada are in violation of international law by leaving these long-term drinking water advisories unresolved. The United Nations reminds us, "The human right to safe drinking water was first recognized by the UN General Assembly and the Human Rights Council as part of binding international law in 2010."
Elsewhere in Canada, we are abuzz with Prime Minister Mark Carney's unveiling of "nation building projects":
Admittedly, I haven't done much research on these projects, nor am I educated in economics, but I can't help but notice that none of these so-called nation building projects seem to include lifting or resolving the boil water advisories we have across this nation.
Now, to be crude, we might say that lifting longterm boil water advisories are in service of human rights; they are not necessarily and explicitly big, nation-building economic projects, this won't make us money.
This being said, I offer some wisdom from a couple of Canadians on why, how, resolving long-term drinking water advisories could in fact be economically beneficial (if that is indeed the bottom line and main criteria of nation-building projects).
First, we have Goliath Vetter, who is interviewed by Mary-Ann Kirby in her 2014 memoir, Secrets of a Hutterite Kitchen: Unveiling the Rituals, Traditions, and Food of the Hutterite Culture. Vetter cites the moral importance and economic advantages of being a good neighbour. While he is referring to farming on our Prairie provinces, you can see how his logic and sentiment might extend to something like national support for resolving boil water advisories:
"It's not the law, but, as a good neighbour, you know you have a better chance of making a living as a colony than a farmer, so you have to consider individual farmers. He's trying to get his son going too, so we bend over backwards to try and please our neighbours, and it has been very profitable for us to create good relationships. The Bible says love thy neighbour as you love thyself. I was just tested the other day when one of our English neighbours phoned over and said they needed water. Well, we're very busy these days, but I said to her, I'll get you water. If you love your neighbour, you have to help them, that's all there's to it."- Goliath Vetter, quoted in Mary-Ann Kirby's memoir Secrets of a Hutterite Kitchen
Second, I offer these quotes from The Age of Insecurity: Coming Together As Things Fall Apart by Astra Taylor
Just as urgently, we need to reject the idea that ordinary peoples security is something to fear-an idea that flies in the face of both morality and evidence. In The Affluent Society, John Kenneth Galbraith argues that the impact of losses from "shirking" and other such supposed moral hazards is trivial compared to the overall economic and social costs of promoting generalized insecurity. Highlighting the hypocrisy of conservative economic dogma, he notes that the powerful always push insecurity on others, not themselves, claiming it will spur productivity and innovation. But the data tells a different story. "The most impressive increases in output in the history of both the United States and other western countries," Galbraith writes, "have occurred since men began to concern themselves with reducing the risks of the competitive system. Labour productivity and material security, in other words, are not at odds-they have a reciprocal relationship. This means, he continues, that eliminating uncertainty in economic life is possible if we can muster the political will to do so.- page 268 of The Age of Insecurity by Astra Taylor
and
When we extend trust and support to others, we improve everyone's security-moving from a culture of fear and scarcity toward one of abundance, generosity, and stability. For [Simone] de Beauvoir, this interconnected approach is the path of true liberation: "freedom can be achieved only through the freedom of others."- page 289-290 of The Age of Insecurity by Astra Taylor
and
Rehabilitating damaged ecosystems, paying reparations for slavery, returning land to Indigenous peoples, closing the wealth gap, cancelling unjust debts, and honestly recounting our tangled and troubling histories--these reparative acts will help our ecology and social divisions begin to heal by addressing, at last, the root causes of what makes each of our lives so full of stress and desperation. Though often tarred as unrealistic or threatening, reparation, in fact, ensures our own salvation. These are not acts of charity but rather acts of solidarity and self-preservation.- page 278 of The Age of Insecurity by Astra Taylor
What does clean water give us? Let's state the obvious: clean water enables us to cook and clean safely. We can shower and show up clean for work and school. We can more quickly prepare healthy meals (or just meals with no nutritional value judgment attached) generally, for ourselves and our families. We can stay hydrated-- delirium and confusion are just two symptoms of extreme dehydration.
Having these baseline things in place, not only to uphold human rights, means that we could all be better equipped and prepared to meet the day and more easily contribute to a growing economy. As such, resolving clean water advisories, while perhaps a sentimental wish at first glance, does in fact have the potential to be an economic and nation-building project.
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