Behind the Reporting: Exposing a government shift on First Nations water – Investigative Journalism Bureau
May 29, 2026
You turn the tap. You drink. You cook. You wash.
Drinkable, usable tap water has become so elemental in the lives of people in wealthy countries that its use is reflexive. But thousands of people in Canada lack it. They live in First Nations communities, many of which have had to go without drinkable water for decades.
I have to be honest: When I first started looking into this issue, I wasn’t sure it was a story. Don’t Canadians already know about the country’s failure to provide drinking water to these communities? The problem has, after all, been around for a while. What could I possibly say that was new and illuminating? What new insights could I offer? But I am nothing if not obdurate. So I kept asking, kept phoning around.
