GIWS researcher poses question for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau

Amid a number of river delta community members and leaders, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau fielded a question on developing a national water strategy during a packed town hall meeting in Yellowknife on Friday.

“We all know how important it is to protect full watersheds,” said Trudeau, who responded to a question on posed by Graham Strickert, an assistant professor with the University of Saskatchewan’s School of Environment and Sustainability and the Global Institute for Water Security.

Citing pressures on resource development, such as mining, and oil exploration, Trudeau emphasized that water is one of the most precious things that Canada has.

“How do we protect [water] and preserve it and how do we understand the impacts we in Canada must have on our rivers and lakes and streams,” said Trudeau. “We still don’t understand enough about our precious lakes and streams.”

Having recently traveled throughout several delta communities across western Canada, Strickert also brought forth the Delta Days Traveling Exhibit’s message “Bring back nature’s flow, restore our deltas’ rhythms” to the Prime Minister, whose town hall represented his first visit to the Northwest Territories since his election in 2015.

The multimedia exhibit, which was recently featured in Fort Resolution, NWT, has continued to evolve with a number of community members adding their own artifacts to display. Researchers have documented the travels of the exhibit on the Delta Dialogue Network blog.

The Delta Days Traveling Exhibit can be viewed in Yellowknife at the Explorer Hotel from February 13 to 14.