Health Department still hasn’t started third-party review into Iqaluit water crisis
Department said in March it would begin review once city’s water plant came online
The Health Department’s third-party review into the emergency response to the 2021 Iqaluit city water crisis has yet to begin, nearly two months after the city’s water treatment plant came back online. (Photo by Jeff Pelletier)
Nearly two months after Iqaluit’s water treatment plant came back online, the Department of Health has not begun its third-party review into the fall 2021 water crisis.
In December of that year, then-chief public health officer Dr. Michael Patterson told Nunatsiaq News the Health Department would conduct a third-party review of the emergency response to the crisis that left residents unable to drink the city’s water for two months after fuel was discovered in the water supply.
That review would look at the government’s conduct during the water emergency to learn lessons on how to handle a similar situation in the future, Patterson said at the time.
A third-party review into the government’s emergency response to the water crisis led by the Department of Community and Government Services began in March this year and is ongoing.
A spokesperson for the Health Department said that month that Health would do its own third-party review once the Iqaluit water plant was back online.
The plant came back online on April 25 after spending 18 months on a temporary bypass system while officials remediated the plant and investigated the sources of the contamination.
Health Department spokesperson Nadine Purdy said the department wants to “ensure other reviews taking place are completed and can be used to inform a third-party review.”
“Health is in the early stages of determining the scope of work required for such a review,” Purdy said in an email to Nunatsiaq News.
There is currently no contract in place for a third party to lead the review, and the department has no projected timeframe for the length of the review.
Purdy could not say how many people may be interviewed for the review, or who those people will be.
She did, however, confirm that the findings would be made public.
There have been calls for the GN to take its response to the water crisis a step further by holding a public inquiry but territorial leaders have not been responsive to those calls, insisting that this long-promised, unstarted third-party review will be sufficient.
A government minister can call a public inquiry if he or she feels it’s necessary or in the public interest.
A public inquiry gives the government power to legally compel people to testify or produce documents and all evidence is given in a public forum.
Y’all won’t ever see or hear or anything not from Nunavut ???????
The lack of comments and outrage about this are telling. All levels of government have failed this community. Those who once cared (and rightfully so) are leaving Nunavut or they have already left. Hard days are ahead for Nunavut and Iqaluit in particular. There has always been cycles to our residency but you can see people leaving in droves these days and I don’t blame them.
Why wouldn’t there be a joint GN 3rd party review to address CGS questions (presumably re city governance and contracting matters) and Health questions (presumably re water quality tests, communication and decision making)? It seems that the questions they have to address in their respective reviews, however different, would be interconnected and would be the typical types of issues other jurisdictions have faced in water contamination crises in Canada, so there should be contractors available to conduct a meaningful review that addresses all these issues. Or am I completely off here?