![Feds considering ‘realistic timeline’ to end boil water advisories, Hajdu says](https://globalnews.ca/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/CP110243326-1-e1603660589340.jpg?quality=85&strip=all&w=720&h=379&crop=1)
Feds considering ‘realistic timeline’ to end boil water advisories, Hajdu says
Global News
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau promised to end all drinking-water advisories by 2021 when the Liberals were swept to power in 2015.
Canada’s new minister of Indigenous services says she’s considering what the new timeline should be to lift remaining long-term drinking-water advisories on First Nations.
Patty Hajdu enters the role with 43 advisories still in place in 31 different communities mostly in Ontario, but also in Manitoba and Saskatchewan.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau promised to end all drinking-water advisories by 2021 when the Liberals were swept to power in 2015.
Six years later, his government says it helped end 119 long-term boil-water advisories, but missed their own deadline to end all of them.
A federal government website dedicated to the issue shows even as some advisories were removed, more were added.
Hajdu says she hasn’t set a new deadline because she’s looking at what barriers exist to end the remaining 43 and what stage each community is at in terms of fixing the problems.
“I’m considering that now, in terms of what a realistic timeline is, and how we do it in a way that is respectful to some of the limitations that communities have and the priorities that communities have,” she told The Canadian Press in an interview.
While she mulls timelines for the work, Hajdu says she doesn’t want to commit anyone to “an artificial deadline that isn’t going to actually help accelerate the work in any way.”