After 5 years, Oneida still has no clean water. Why a class action settlement could be a 'relief'
A First Nation south of Lon‐ don, Ont., says compensa‐ tion from the federal gov‐ ernment in a class action settlement will be a relief for members who haven't had clean drinking water in years.
After a years-long court battle, Ottawa opened the First Nations drinking water settlement process in 2022, offering compensation up to $8 billion to First Nations that have suffered for long peri‐ ods under drinking water ad‐ visories.
It compensates those af‐ fected by a lack of clean drinking water in First Nation communities across the country for at least a year, between Nov. 20,1995, and June 20, 2021. The settle‐ ment deal covers 142,000 in‐ dividuals from 258 First Na‐ tions who could be compen‐ sated, along with 120 First Nations communities.
The deadline to apply was Thursday.
It made for a busy week at Oneida Nation of the Thames, which has been un‐ der a boil water advisory since 2019.
"It was a quite a hectic day in our political office," said Sherry Monastyrski, CEO of Oneida Nation of the Thames, describing Thurs‐ day's deadline as people gathered to fill out forms.
The settlement acknowl‐ edges the experiences of those who faced boil water advisories, said Monastyrski, and shows the federal gov‐ ernment finally heard Onei‐ da.
"Being able to have a rec‐ ognized compensation allows for some sort of relief in a sense that our voices were heard -that we're being taken seriously - and that there is going to be a solution at the end of the day to fix this boil water advisory."
She estimates it will be approximately $3,000 of compensation for claimants, based on the length of the water boil advisory.
Bad water leads to real health problems
"It's going to mean a lot to individuals that they get a lit‐ tle bit of compensation," said Joel Abram, Grand Chief of the at the Association of Iro‐ quois and Allied Indians, who lives in Oneida Nation of the Thames.
"We've had bad water for a long time and it's also re‐ sulted in real health effects for people too, like causing lesions and other types of skin conditions," said Abram.
The First Nation secured $43 million in federal funding last March to bring treated drinking water to the com‐ munity by September 2025.
Abram said the commu‐ nity has positive outlook af‐ ter receiving a firm commit‐ ment from Ottawa to extend the Lake Huron water line to Oneida. He believes a fresh water supply will also bring opportunities for economic development to the First Na‐ tion, he said.
New water infrastruc‐ ture leaves hole for fire safety
The water lines coming to Oneida however, are not going to be as life-changing to the community as they had initially thought, Monastyrski said.
"We originally had put for‐ ward a proposal that we would be able to have water fire flow throughout our community. Right now, we do not have fire flow that ser‐ vices all of our community," she said. "We have had dev‐ astating fires in our commu‐ nity in the past where fami‐ lies have actually perished because we do not have that fire flow."
There is not enough pip‐ ing, water mains or fire hy‐ drants, she said, and that causes a lot of delays for fire trucks.
"Although it looked like a really great announcement for our water infrastructure project, it's meeting the min‐ imum standard that will al‐ low in order for the boil wa‐ ter advisory to be lifted."
LISTEN: Oneida's fight for potable water not over yet
Through the class action settlement, Oneida will have another opportunity to se‐ cure the funding for fire flow funding in their community, she said.
"We're always looking to ensure that we're going to be doing the best for our com‐ munity. We continue to strive for that."
Failure to solve issue
The settlement deal is an important acknowledgement that the federal government is going work harder and compensate people for their failure to solve this issue, said Christopher Alcantara, a political science professor at Western University.
"A number of First Nations communities have been struggling with lacking clean drinking water for many decades and clean water is such an important aspect of being able to live a healthy and fruitful life," he said.
"Communities have been asking for this issue to be ad‐ dressed, and the federal gov‐ ernment has been trying to address it but hasn't been able to do it."