"Deplorable. That is what Premier Dalton McGuinty called conditions on the remote Kashechewan Reserve near James Bay as he ordered an emergency airlift of 1,100 of the community's 1,900 native residents to ensure they get the medical treatment they need because they are sick from contaminated water.

McGuinty could not have chosen a more fitting word to describe the tragedy that Ottawa could have prevented, but did not.

Although the federal government knew at least two years ago that Kashechewan was another Walkerton water tragedy just waiting to happen, it did nothing to stop it.

Despite a warning from the Ontario Clean Water Agency in 2003 that the intake pipe for the reserve's water treatment plant was just downstream from the lagoon where the community's raw sewage goes, Ottawa failed to remove the threat."

Get the Story:
Editorial: Inexcusable neglect (The Toronto Star 10/27)

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