THE ADVISORY

A register of three conditions: water you cannot drink, food you cannot afford, housing that does not exist.
Together they decide who can live on their own land.

Register live Federal data as of 2026-08-13
0
Days under a long-term drinking water advisory

Held across 40 public water systems in 38 First Nations. The total rises by 40 days every day it is not fixed.

0
Advisories in force
0
First Nations affected
0
Years of advisory, added up
0
Lifted since November 2015
01

Water you cannot drink

Every row is a public water system on reserve, funded by Indigenous Services Canada, that no one can drink from. An advisory is short-term for its first 365 days. On day 366 it is reclassified as long-term. Nothing about the water changes on that day.

One system under advisory, sized by durationShading: advisories per provinceBritish Columbia and everything north of 60 are administered separately and are not in this federal register
How a system enters this register
Day 1 · advisory issuedDay 366 · counted as long-termDay 11,534 · Neskantaga, today

20 of the 40 advisories in force are attached to a project the department marks Complete. The construction finished and the advisory did not lift. The longest of those has stood for 9,161 days.

02

Food you cannot afford

The Revised Northern Food Basket is one week of a nutritious diet for a reference family of four, priced on the shelf with the Nutrition North subsidy already applied. It averaged $585 across eligible communities in March 2025. The same reference family of four is costed at $271.83 in southern Ontario.

What a year of food costs

The default is $32,000, the median individual income of Registered Indians living on reserve in the 2021 Census. Change it to any figure.

Basket, 52 weeks$0
Share of that income0%
Times the southern basket0x
Annual premium over the south$0
Weekly basket by community · amber line marks the southern cost · ▲ also under a water advisory
03

Housing that does not exist

A community cannot take anyone back into a house that was never built. These are the department's and the Assembly of First Nations' own figures for the gap.

55,320
new housing units needed on reserve to close the gap
AFN / ISC, Closing the Infrastructure Gap by 2030
80,650
existing units needing repair over the same period
AFN / ISC
$135.1B
cost of permanently closing the First Nations housing gap
AFN, CTIG 2030
Not identified
the magnitude of mould in First Nations housing. The 2008 mould strategy is not being implemented.
Auditor General, Report 2, 2024
04

The right of return

Return is a legal right and a material arrangement. The register above describes the arrangement.

37.5%
of Registered Indians live on reserve
2021 Census, via ISC
62.5%
live off reserve
2021 Census, via ISC
$32,000
median individual income on reserve, against $50,400 for the non-Indigenous population
2021 Census, via ISC
9
communities carry an active water advisory and a northern food price at the same time
This register, joined to Nutrition North
Communities carrying both conditions at once: an active long-term water advisory and a northern food price
CommunityProv.Days under advisoryWeekly basket× southern

A place with no drinkable water, food at twice the southern price, and no house to move into is a place that cannot take its people back. No one has to revoke the right of return. It is enough to leave the conditions of return unbuilt, and to keep counting the days.

05

Narration

Three voices at one table, reading the register and the arithmetic around it.

The Advisory
Three voices · full register walkthrough
0:00 / 7:12
06

Get the register weekly

One email a week: the day count and how far it moved, anything lifted or added, and any advisory that crossed a thousand-day mark. Nothing else.

Double opt-in: you will get one confirmation link and nothing further until you click it. One-click unsubscribe in every email. Your address is held to send this list and for nothing else.

07

Sources

Every figure on this page comes from one of these. Nothing here is estimated by us except the day counts, the province rollups and the multiples, which are arithmetic on the numbers below.

  1. Indigenous Services Canada, Map of lifted and active drinking water advisories (register data file) [2026-08-13]
  2. Indigenous Services Canada, Ending long-term drinking water advisories [2026-08-13]
  3. Indigenous Services Canada, Short-term drinking water advisories [2026-08-27]
  4. Nutrition North Canada, Cost of the Revised Northern Food Basket in 2024 to 2025 [2025-03]
  5. Ottawa Public Health, Monitoring Food Affordability: 2025 Nutritious Food Basket [2025]
  6. Assembly of First Nations, Closing the Infrastructure Gap by 2030: housing [2026]
  7. Office of the Auditor General of Canada, Report 2: Housing in First Nations Communities [2024-03]
  8. Indigenous Services Canada, An update on the socio-economic gaps: highlights from the 2021 Census [2021]
  9. PROOF, University of Toronto, New data on household food insecurity [2026]