A Watershed Moment: Shamattawa and St. Theresa Point Confirm Canada’s Legal Duties to Provide Safe Drinking Water and Adequate Housing On-Reserve – OKT Law LLP
December 11, 2025
On December 5, 2025, the Federal Court released two milestone decisions – St. Theresa Point First Nation et al v His Majesty the King in Right of Canada and Shamattawa First Nation et al v His Majesty the King in Right of Canada.[1] In Shamattawa, the Court affirmed that Canada owes legal duties to First Nations in relation to on-reserve drinking water.[2] In St. Theresa Point, the Court made similar findings regarding on-reserve housing.[3]
Although Shamattawa concerns access to safe drinking water and St. Theresa Point concerns housing, the Court treated these cases as companion decisions because they raise the same core issue: Canada’s long-standing discretionary control over essential on-reserve services, the dependence and vulnerability this control has created and the foreseeable harms resulting from it.[4]
