WINNIPEG – Pressure is growing on the federal government to help fund construction of a road for a reserve that is under one of Canada’s longest boil-water advisories.
Manitoba, Ontario and the City of Winnipeg have sent letters to Aboriginal Affairs Minister Bernard Valcourt urging the Conservatives to chip in the $10 million needed to connect Shoal Lake 40 First Nation with the outside world.
The First Nation straddles the Ontario-Manitoba boundary and was carved off from the mainland a century ago to build an aqueduct that supplies fresh water to Winnipeg. The reserve has no all-weather road and has been under a boil-water advisory for 17 years.
READ MORE: Emergency eases in Shoal Lake after ferry repaired
“Citizens across our province, particularly those benefiting directly from Shoal Lake’s waters, are demanding that governments take action to help rectify this First Nation’s situation,” Manitoba cabinet minister Kevin Chief and Winnipeg Mayor Brian Bowman wrote in an April letter obtained by The Canadian Press.
“Moving forward on capital construction as close to the completion of the detailed design is a goal that Winnipeg, the province and the First Nation share. As a partner at the table, we would like to see a commitment, in principle, from the federal government to the construction of Freedom Road upon completion of the detailed design.”
A spokesperson for Valcourt declined to answer questions about the letter or funding construction of a road.
Representatives from all three levels of government are to gather Thursday in Shoal Lake 40 for an event commemorating the quest to build an all-weather road, known as Freedom Road.
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The governments have funded a design study for the all-weather road which is expected to be complete next year, but there have been no firm commitments beyond that.
The community was cut off from the mainland earlier this year when their aging ferry didn’t pass federal inspection. The reserve — without any way to get groceries, water or immediate medical attention — declared a state of emergency.
The ferry has since been patched up but Chief Erwin Redsky said a long-term solution is needed.
Every year, people trying to get to their homes fall through the ice because there is no safe road.
Paramedics and home-care workers won’t come into the community — either by ferry or on the ice — for safety reasons. Solid and liquid waste is piling up on the man-made island because there is no way to transport it safely to the mainland.
At the same time, the federal government has said it will spend $100 million to twin the nearby Trans-Canada Highway across the provincial boundary.
The people of Shoal Lake 40 will not allow that to happen as long as they remain isolated, Redsky said.
“All we’re asking for is a single lane. We’ve been asking for that for many, many years,” he said.
“Everybody around us has clean water. Everybody has roads. Everybody has gravel to fix their roads and we don’t have anything out here on this man-made island for 100 years now.”
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