Morning Update: 39 First Nations remain under long-term water advisories

Good morning,

Shamattawa was already dealing with a health emergency when a COVID-19 outbreak overwhelmed the Northern Manitoba First Nation community: They haven’t had access to clean tap water since 2018. For now, community members are advised to bring water to a roaring boil for two minutes before consuming. Some are refusing to take chances and don’t trust that boiling water makes it safe enough to drink.

But Shamattawa is among 39 communities in four provinces that have 57 long-term drinking-water advisories as of Jan. 26. A Globe and Mail analysis shows that two communities in Ontario have been on long-term water advisories for more than 20 years, including Neskantaga, which has twice been evacuated because of the water crisis.

Bottled water is stored in a building once used as a gym on Shoal Lake 40 First Nation on February 25, 2021. The community has been under a long-standing boil-water advisory, but a new water-treatment plant is expected to be complete in July, 2021.Shannon VanRaes/The Globe and Mail

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Pandemic Life: How teenagers are coping?

By the time the pandemic ends, two sets of graduations and proms will have been cancelled, along with a year and a half of sports tournaments, school plays, movies, dates and parties. Some teens have been more resilient, but others have had worsening mental-health problems – and the long-term effects on their lives may not be clear for a long time.

This diversity of experience is already evident in survey data and hospital statistics up to this past October: calls to crisis lines have jumped exponentially, and the young people who are being admitted to hospital are in more serious condition. The why of all of this is still unclear.

Watch: Mental health tips for supportive parents

Young, bored and lonely: Six stories of teenage life under COVID-19

Seventeen-year-old Grade 12 student, Ekram May, is photographed outside the Driftwood Community Recreation Centre on Feb. 24, 2021. May found it was more difficult to focus when schools went to online classes. She’s now going to in-person learning two days a week, which she’s really enjoying.Fred Lum/The Globe and Mail

More on life during the pandemic:

Stress is the biggest epidemic of our time, says Deepak Chopra, and he’s trying to make it easier for everyone to quiet their minds
Another victim of COVID-19: Sex between married couples
The pandemic is helping us relearn the lost habit of walking

Chira Achim, 15, in Regina, photographed over video chat, on Feb. 22, 2021. She’s begun seeing a therapist during COVID to help her deal with anxiety. She is trying to stay positive and keep her mind off the pandemic by writing a novel. She loves to write.Melissa Tait/The Globe and Mail

U.S. politics

Taking the stage for the first time since leaving office, former U.S. president Donald Trump called for Republican Party unity in a speech at a conservative political conference. He continued to blast his successor, President Joe Biden, and tried to cement his status as the party’s undisputed leader despite his loss in November.

John Ibbitson writes: Whether he runs again or not, the base of the Republican Party is now Trumpist.

Meanwhile, Joe Biden came into office promising to restore America’s moral authority in the world. It is in the Middle East – and his country’s tangled relationships with Saudi Arabia and Iran – where Biden’s heady rhetoric about putting human rights and international law back at the centre of U.S. foreign policy have predictably crashed into hard truths.

Also: Johnson & Johnson’s COVID-19 vaccine gets CDC panel backing, nearly ready for shipping

A supporter of former U.S. president Donald Trump watches him speak on a phone outside the Conservative Political Action Conference 2021 (CPAC) in Orlando, Fla., on Feb. 28, 2021.CHANDAN KHANNA/AFP/Getty Images

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ALSO ON OUR RADAR

Long-time donor calls for investigations of WE Charity’s finances: U.S. television journalist Reed Cowan is calling for investigations by the RCMP and the U.S. Internal Revenue Service into whether the charity misled donors by failing to build promised schools in Kenya.

Golden Globe Awards 2021: The Globe and Mail presents the highs, lows and whaaaaaaaat-the-whaaaaat Golden Globe moments that left us with a week’s worth of talking points.

LNG Canada CEO wary of delays on $18-billion Kitimat, B.C. energy project: Peter Zebedee said LNG Canada expects to be on budget in building the terminal for exporting liquefied natural gas.

At least 18 dead in Myanmar after bloodiest day of protests: Across the country, protesters wearing plastic work helmets and with makeshift shields faced off against police and soldiers in battle gear, including some from units notorious for tough crackdowns on ethnic rebel groups in Myanmar’s border regions.

MORNING MARKETS

European markets gain: European shares jumped on Monday and the bond market calmed, with yields dropping from their recent spikes, while optimism about U.S. fiscal stimulus sent oil prices higher. Just before 6 a.m. ET, Britain’s FTSE 100 rose 1.64 per cent. Germany’s DAX and France’s CAC 40 were up 1.06 per cent and 1.53 per cent, respectively. In Asia, Japan’s Nikkei closed up 2.41 per cent. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng added 1.63 per cent. New York futures were higher. The Canadian dollar was trading at 78.80 US cents.

Looking for investing ideas? Check out The Globe’s weekly digest of the latest insights and analysis from the pros, stock tips, portfolio strategies and what investors need to know for the week ahead. This week’s edition includes high-yield stocks, growth portfolio shakeup and Algonquin’s rich payout ratio.

WHAT EVERYONE’S TALKING ABOUT

My brother died from an opioid overdose. I vowed to fight back

Jason Lajoie: “I still dream about all the opportunities that tainted pill stole from him – birthdays, marriage, anniversaries, children – and what it stole from everyone else who knew and loved him.”

With the arrival of NASA’s rover on Mars, I, for one, welcome our alien overlords

Elizabeth Renzetti: “If this year has taught us anything, it’s the necessity of thinking big. Really big. Like out of this world.”

What to do with a death trap? To figure out the future of the Thunder Bay District Jail, look to the past

Lorna Poplak: “My studies of the Don, past and present, however, have convinced me that erasure and “healing” are not enough. We need some form of monument to remind us of how we’ve treated our society’s outcasts.”

TODAY’S EDITORIAL CARTOON

LIVING BETTER

How splitting income with your spouse in retirement can boost your lifestyle

In a perfect world, you and your spouse will have equal incomes in retirement, which will generally allow you to minimize taxes. So, how can you and your spouse set things up so that your incomes in retirement are as equal as possible? Consider four ideas.

Split pension income.
Use a spousal RRSP.
Make a spousal loan.
Issue shares to your spouse.

The most recent gift Tim Cestnick gave his wife is the gift of income splitting. It doesn’t look as good as the flowers but he wants to explain why they’ll be thankful later.

MOMENT IN TIME: Photo Archive

The Bluenose [Bluenose I], built as a fishing schooner but destined for fame as a North Atlantic legend, glides through the water off Nova Scotia in this undated photo. Bluenose won fame in the 1920s and 1930s for her racing victories against U.S. challengers.NSFB via CP

Bluenose launches

For more than 100 years, photographers and photo librarians have preserved an extraordinary collection of 20th-century news photography for The Globe and Mail. Every Monday, The Globe features one of these images. This month marks the centenary of the launch of the Bluenose, so we’re exploring shipbuilding in Canada.

The motivation for the designer of the Bluenose, which took its name from Bluenosers, the endearing term that Nova Scotians once called themselves, was simple: Beat those Yankees. So William Roué designed a gaff rig schooner that, as well as hauling salt fish, could win challenge sailing races against the Americans. The Bluenose was built (using pine, spruce, birch and oak) at the Smith and Rhuland Shipyard in Lunenburg, N.S., and Canadian maritime history was made when the swift vessel was launched 100 years ago this month. With its low-slung design and upturned bow, and with crafty captain Angus Walters at the helm, it was invincible on the racing seas. And nimble? The Lunenburg shipwrights knew what they were doing. The Bluenose was so agile it could turn on a dime. Philip King

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