First Nations chiefs say Indigenous Services Minister Mandy Gull-Masty will not commit to keeping source-water protections in Ottawa’s promised clean water bill. Anishinabek and Cold Lake leaders say the protections were hard won in the earlier bill, and fear the replacement will be passed without proper consultation with chiefs.
A commitment the minister would not make
The concern centres on an interview Gull-Masty gave The Canadian Press in December. Asked about the clean water legislation she had promised the previous summer to bring back, she would not commit to carrying over the source-water protections that were in the earlier version, and she would not say whether she was arguing for those protections at the cabinet table.
That earlier bill, introduced under former prime minister Justin Trudeau, died when Parliament was prorogued last year. Alberta and Ontario had both objected to it. When Gull-Masty committed last summer to reintroducing it, she said the new version would affirm a First Nations human right to clean drinking water.
Chiefs say the picture has since changed. In June, Parliament passed legislation that shortens approval timelines for major infrastructure projects and allows cabinet to set aside some environmental laws. Gull-Masty has not explained how a right to clean water would work alongside that fast-track regime.
“You can’t drink money”
Cold Lake First Nations Chief Kelsey Jacko, whose community is in Alberta, said First Nations worked hard alongside the previous government on the earlier bill, in part to win clear rules for protecting fresh water sources.
Jacko acknowledged the earlier bill had limits. Much was left to regulations and to future decisions by the minister, he said, but it at least recognized that development upstream can affect the water a community drinks. Until inherent rights are recognized inside Canada’s legislative frameworks, he said, communities remain at risk.
Anishinabek Nation Grand Chief Linda Debassige, who represents 39 chiefs in Ontario and helped negotiate the earlier legislation, made the same point in stronger terms. Losing source-water protection, she said, would mean Ottawa giving in to Ontario and Alberta while setting Indigenous rights aside.
“When source water protection was included in the bill, that was very important (and) a huge win,” she said. “I’ve always told people you can’t give up the protection of water for money because you can’t drink money, and money alone will not nourish you long enough to stay alive.”
Debassige also linked the issue to the Great Lakes. Many Anishinabek communities, she noted, draw their water from Lake Huron or Lake Superior, so protecting source water means protecting those lakes as well.
Consultation measured in minutes
Debassige said consultation on the new bill has been thin. She put her own meeting with Gull-Masty on the legislation at about 15 minutes, and said she was not aware of other chiefs who had met the minister to discuss it.
She said the minister had spoken of wanting to strengthen the bill, but argued that removing source-water protection does the opposite. She raised the possibility of further legal action by First Nations to defend those protections, and said she feared the new bill could be pushed through in the same way as the fast-track laws, without proper consultation with chiefs and community members.
The opposition raised the issue in Parliament’s terms as well. Conservative MP Billy Morin, his party’s critic for Indigenous services, said the government keeps breaking its promises to First Nations on clean drinking water. He said the signals from the minister point to a bill that offers less than First Nations asked for, and he described what is coming as bureaucracy without benchmarks to measure progress.
Development pressure in two provinces
The dispute is unfolding while both objecting provinces press ahead with major development. Alberta, which has long sought a route for its bitumen to Asian markets, recently signed an agreement with Ottawa that clears a path for a possible pipeline to the British Columbia coast. Ontario, for its part, is pursuing development of the mineral-rich Ring of Fire region in the province’s north.
Both provinces have also passed their own laws to speed up major projects, mirroring the federal legislation from June. First Nations leaders opposed all three laws, saying the federal and provincial governments were overriding their rights to consultation and putting the environment at risk.
That later history bears out the January warning. When the replacement bill was reintroduced in summer 2026, chiefs at an Assembly of First Nations meeting in Ottawa said it no longer explicitly recognized a First Nations right to clean drinking water, referring instead to its “progressive realization.” A resolution demanding the right be included passed by consensus, and Debassige said the bill had been developed without meaningful dialogue.
