In 2022, Shamattawa First Nation filed a national class action lawsuit against the Canadian government for failing to provide clean drinking water on reserves. With all the feds’ promises of reconciliation and righting past wrongs, surely ending the boil water advisories (which, in 2015, Trudeau promised to end by 2021) isn’t a big ask, right? Well, according to Justice Canada’s lawyers, “the federal government has no legal duty to ensure First Nations have clean drinking water.” Instead, they suggest it’s a “matter of good governance rather than legal duty.”
Your honour, if we communists may interject, we argue that any government that legally defends its right to not provide drinking water to its people deserves to be overthrown! Canada has the resources to end the boil water advisories in a matter of weeks, but instead drops billions on oil and gas subsidies and military spending. With this shameful legal defense, Canada has exposed itself for the heartless, avaricious state it truly is. Revolution is all it deserves.
