With access to the wonderous Great Lakes and thousands of other smaller bodies of water, Ontario is considered a water-rich province-so access to sufficient, affordable and safe drinking water should be easy for most Ontarians. Unfortunately, our history says otherwise, with Canada's worst municipal water-related disaster occurring just over two decades ago in the tiny town of Walkerton, ON, where contaminated water sickened 2300 people and killed seven. And in recent years, media reports have highlighted the ongoing problems on many First Nations reserves in Ontario and across the country, where the water supply is contaminated, hard to access or at risk due to faulty treatment systems. Although access to safe water for drinking and hygiene is a fundamental right for all Ontarians, delivering on that can still prove to be challenging.
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