Kristen Villebrun and Wendy Bush hoped they wouldn't have to pray for Chedoke Creek, but four years after they first raised alarm about the water's condition, they were part of an Indigenous full moon ceremony to do just that. About 50 people showed up near Princess Point on the dark and frigid Monday evening for the monthly ceremony, which was particularly special as it focused on Chedoke Creek. The body of water that runs into Cootes Paradise had about 24 billion litres of sewage and storm water runoff leak into it due to a gate being left open.
"You're going to see the injustice with the water, you're going to feel it without us having to sit down with David Suzuki and tell you how it happened, or why. ... You're going to figure that out by the human interaction between these people telling you their stories, and Layla learned about her own story."
The struggle faced by First Nation communities to access clean, potable water is highlighted in a film that will have its world premiere Sept. 15 at the Toronto International Film Festival. Boil Alert is a documentary focused on activist Layla Staats from Six Nations of the Grand River in Ontario. Staats visits Indigenous communities in both Canada and the United States that have boil water advisories.
In her new documentary “There’s Something in the Water”, co-directed by Ian Daniel, the actress and activist focuses on the effects of environmental racism on black and indigenous communities in Nova Scotia. “In Canada, your postal code determines your health,” sociologist Ingrid Waldron says in the trailer for the film. “So we know that where you live has bearing on your well-being. Indigenous and black communities are the ones that tend to be located near hazardous sites.”
