Hon. Marty Deacon: Thank you for that great summary and that level of detail. I really appreciate that. I do want to ask a question, if I may.

As you know from sitting at the Finance table, this last part of your speech is something that we ask every year. We get reports every year on water bans and infrastructure challenges. Absolutely, there is no question that going from 132 to 34 advisories is movement in a good, solid direction.

However, I have read the report and I still struggle with those final 34 advisories and getting this done. It is something that plagues my thinking a bit, particularly when you visit Indigenous communities and they give you such strong statistics. When we talk about the money part, we absolutely need funding and financing.

At the end, you started to talk about stakeholders and partners. Candidly, how do you see us addressing those final 32 advisories?

Senator Moncion: Thank you for the question. The answer I will give is outside of Bill C-19, but, having participated in the Finance Committee and in some of the meetings of the Standing Senate Committee on Aboriginal Peoples, the government struggles. The final 32 water advisories that are still in place are challenging beyond what was expected. These are the last 32, but they are the most difficult to deal with. Sometimes that’s just because of location or because of the industries that are around the First Nations.

The government is working very hard to bring solutions to these communities and to finally achieve zero water advisories in any communities.

Regarding the stakeholders, that’s where I see the beauty of the work that is being done. The government is working with Indigenous peoples, and they are training these people to build, maintain and understand the water balances, to be aware of the environment where they are and to identify the risks that the environment in which they live can have an effect on water.

They have been working with all First Nations to resolve these water advisories. They are working with each of these groups and with members of communities to really get this going so they can take ownership of both the clean water and waste water to manage them in the long term. These solutions are long term. They are a long time in coming and they take a long time to fix, but once it is done, it will be done, we hope, for as long as these systems can support these changes.

There is also the maintenance of these systems through the years. Just because you have built a system doesn’t mean you can leave it until you have to replace the whole thing. You must have upkeep and you have to put money into the system so that the technology, water sources and everything is kept up to date.

It is a large undertaking, but I would say the government has done a lot in the last 10 years. There is still a lot to do, but we are getting there.