Certifiable: Can a Class Action Address Canada’s On-reserve Drinking Water Crisis?

• Author: Tanya Maas
• Pages: 391-420

391

Certif‌iable: Can a Class Action Address Canada’s

On-Reserve Drinking Water Crisis?

Tanya Maas

:For decades, Canada has struggled to provide safe and equit-

able drinking water services and wastewater services to on-reserve

residents. The funding regime currently in place has not delivered sus-

tainable outcomes, and while the underlying issues are multi-faceted,

the regime itself is a signif‌icant factor — and despite repeated criticism

and public displays of failure, the regime has not changed. At a time

when Canadians are attempting to work together to move beyond our

colonial legacy and towards reconciliation with Indigenous Peoples in

Canada, we must also address current-day inequities and the policies,

such as those operating in this context, that sustain them.

There have been scholarly discussions addressing the crisis and this

paper intends to add to that discussion. The dominant theme of legal

discourse to date has focused on constitutional law. I add to that dis-

cussion by proposing a cause of action in tort. I also propose that class

actions have the potential to of‌fer an ef‌fective procedural tool for advan-

cing the potential claims, and I use the standard Canadian class action

certif‌ication requirements as a framework for assessing the form and

preferability of such a proceeding.

CCAR 14-2.indb 3911/8/2019 10:57:43 AM

CCAR 14-2.indb 3921/8/2019 10:57:43 AM