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Photo courtesy Joe Bryksa, Winnipeg Free Press
In Canada, we have failed to properly protect this
relationship by recognizing Indigenous peoples’
water rights,” Professor Gunn said.
Professor Busby teaches constitutional law and
has decades of experience in human rights cases
and campaigns. Aimée Craft, a sessional lecturer
and lawyer at the Public Interest Law Centre brings
expertise in Indigenous legal traditions.
“It is no longer ethical or justifiable to
encourage or hide behind technological,
political, economic, environmental or
legal complexity. The reality is we know
with certainty the minimum water
standards required for health
and survival on this planet and there
are many people, including Canadians,
who are being denied this basic need.”
The law professors and their research partners will
evaluate Indigenous laws on water as well as how
Treaty, Aboriginal and inherent rights claims or the
UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples
could be used to further drinking water rights.
One intriguing possibility raised by Dr. David Boyd
of Royal Roads University is pursuing enforcement
of Section 36 of the Constitution Act, which outlines
governments’ obligation to provide “essential public
services of reasonable quality to all Canadians.”
A team of economists and health researchers,
including Dr. Brenda Elias from the faculty of
medicine, will try to collect hard evidence of the
impact of poor water services on health and social
status. “We know that water is really, really blessed,”
Anishinaabe Elder Florence Paynter said recently at
University of Manitoba’s Migizii Agamik – Bald Eagle
Lodge, which houses the Aboriginal Student Centre.
“Our relatives are suffering because they don’t have
clean water to drink.”
UNIVERSITY OF MANITOBA, FACULTY OF LAW robsonhall.ca 14