Q&A: Where the GNWT’s lead tests in schools went wrong

Parents should know more by mid-June about the true extent of the lead problem in Yellowknife school drinking water, the deputy minister responsible says.

Jamie Fulford, deputy minister of the Department of Education, Culture and Employment, said it’ll take a week or two more for the water at William McDonald School and Range Lake North School to be retested.

Twice – once in January and again in April – tests by ECE showed elevated levels of lead in water at those schools.

But the GNWT has since said that testing method was flawed, which is why a new round of independent tests has been ordered. The two Yellowknife schools will be retested first, then dozens of other NWT schools – where no initial lead problem was found – will also receive new tests.

Fulford told Cabin Radio coordination within the GNWT had been “lacking” and so had the reporting of January and April results to decision-makers like him and the minister responsible, Caitlin Cleveland.

Cleveland has said she only heard about the January and April results on Monday last week, moving immediately to stop students and staff using the water at those two schools for drinking and cooking.

On Saturday, the GNWT said the entire testing process – a pilot program that began in November last year – had been substandard, with no relevant expertise engaged, calling the results’ reliability into question.

But that doesn’t mean the results are a false alarm. There could still be a lead issue, and fresh tests will establish that.

“There will be an independent third-party sampling and testing program that will be scientifically based in the appropriate protocols. That will give us the answers we need there,” Fulford said.

He said a third-party review announced by the minister last week – which so far has no timeline for completion and no body assigned to conduct it – will establish how results indicating elevated lead came to be received twice, in January and April, without the deputy minister or minister knowing and without action at the schools being taken.

“We’re fully owning the fact that there was a breakdown in collaboration and communication,” Fulford said.

“I have to leave it to the third-party review to draw its own conclusions. I think there was probably a lack of understanding about what to do with preliminary results that weren’t confirmed results, but that will come out in the review as well.”

This interview was recorded on June 3, 2025. The transcript has been lightly edited for clarity.

Ollie Williams: Why did the GNWT start testing for lead in drinking water at schools in the first place? What prompted this project?

Jamie Fulford: What prompted the project for us was seeing in a number of other jurisdictions that concerns had been raised about lead in school water supplies, so we proactively took the step of developing small pilot program to test in NWT schools.

There was a study that came out last year as well – I don’t know if you’re aware of it – that indicated lead levels appeared to have increased slightly among some young people in the Yellowknife area for reasons that the researchers said weren’t clear. I wondered if that study also had anything to do with this testing being launched purely because their timing seemed to coincide, or if that was something that wasn’t a factor here.

I can’t say for sure that it wasn’t a factor. If it was, Ollie, I’m not aware of it, but yeah, as Yellowknifers we’re maybe more acutely aware of different toxins in our environment, so it’s possible that that also played a role.

From November 2024: Study suggests increase in lead levels among Yellowknife youth

And just to be clear, we have no record of any lead testing prior to this testing. So if tests do ultimately conclude that there are elevated levels in some schools, we have no idea how long that might have been the case. Is that right?

I think that’s right, Ollie, because we were the first to step into that space. We wouldn’t have any record of whether there’d been a problem before late 2024, early 2025.

When the pilot project began in November last year, who had responsibility for that?

So it was an effort led by my department, Education, Culture and Employment, in concert with the Department of Infrastructure and with advice from the Office of the Chief Public Health Officer.

So you would have reviewed it, signed off on it, said: “We’re good to go.”

Yeah, the budgeting aspect of it for sure, I initiated. I would have been responsible for the initiation.

The first results indicating elevated lead came back, as I understand it, in January. Who knew about those results?

This is maybe where I’ll introduce the concept of the independent third-party review that’s being undertaken to determine where the process failed and where the coordination was lacking and, frankly, the reporting up to decision-makers.

We will be undertaking that third-party review. ECE won’t be commissioning it but we will be participating in it in an open and transparent manner. It’ll be arranged by a different entity than our department,

And so, sorry, who knew about the results in January?

Well, I guess that’s what the third-party review will determine. At this stage, suffice it to say that decision-makers didn’t know about the preliminary results in a timely manner in order to act on them.

So, for example, you didn’t know.

That’s correct.

Then more results came back in April. Who knew about those?

The answer there would be the same, Ollie. We’re fully owning the fact that there was a breakdown in collaboration and communication. I have to leave it to the third-party review to draw its own conclusions. I think there was probably a lack of understanding about what to do with preliminary results that weren’t confirmed results, but that will come out in the review as well.

Why wasn’t anything said publicly until late May? Was that when you found out?

Yeah, as I say, decision-makers – and I include myself among them – didn’t find out. As soon as we found out, the minister found out. And of course, that’s not good enough.

Building on the results of the independent review, we’ll be working to create a systematic, science-based approach that involves collaboration of all departments and communication – where it needs to happen – to all of those potentially impacted, whether it’s education bodies, parents and the public.

You said you had signed off on the budgetary aspects. Who signed off on those technical aspects initially? Who agreed to the original approach?

Again, Ollie, I’m going to refer to the independent review to determine where those decisions lie. I sign off, ultimately, on all budget decisions in the department. That’s among my roles as deputy minister. Again, acknowledging we need to do better, looking forward to the third-party review helping us to do that.

When it comes right down to it, you know, no regrets on the department’s part in stepping into this space because we have information now – although it’s preliminary – that potentially helps us to address what could be an issue and will confirm whether it is an issue, and take steps there. It’s just the way that we did it and the lack of coordination.

We’re looking to build that trust back with parents and to assure them that the steps we’re taking now are in concert with other GNWT departments that need to be involved.

When you say lack of coordination, do you mean internally within your department or more broadly than that?

I mean the GNWT as a whole. Sometimes we’ve been faulted for acting in a siloed manner and there might have been some of that. Again, I’ll leave that to the third-party review to determine. But I think any time when you get multiple actors involved, you need to have a solid plan about who’s doing what, and what gets communicated and what action is necessary.

How much faith do you have in the results you actually have so far? A press release came out on Saturday that indicated the testing was substandard. The GNWT clearly has concerns. But does that mean, for example, that there may well be no lead problem here at all? Does it mean the problem could actually be bigger, not smaller?

There will be an independent third-party sampling and testing program that will be scientifically based in the appropriate protocols. That will give us the answers we need there – and going forward having those scientific protocols followed, whether that’s in systematic, periodic testing going into the future, in case future problems arise, and making sure that we’re on top of them.

But in terms of the results that we have currently, from a parent’s point of view – hearing what they’ve heard in the past week – should they essentially just toss that information away at this point? How should they characterize the information they were initially given?

So at the outset, you questioned whether there’s a possibility that there might not be any, and it’s actually true, the confirmatory tests might show that there’s not a problem. But the way that I’d characterize it is that we have an initial – although not scientifically based – test that’s leading us to take further steps. In the meantime, in the affected schools, measures have been taken to ensure that drinking water and water that’s used for cooking are not used. So there’s protection in the interim and we will report as soon as we learn whether there is an issue.

If we rewound the clock back to November last year, from your perspective in your role as deputy minister, what do you wish had been done differently? What do you learn from this?

That’s a really good question. What I’ve learned is we need to have more planning when it comes to pilot programs like this. I don’t at all regret the fact that we stepped into the space, because we have information now that we didn’t have before, and we have a path that we’ll build going forward and hopefully rebuild the trust that might have been lost here.

But really it’s just the need, especially when it’s an interdepartmental issue, that we have a plan, a solid plan for cooperation, collaboration, discussion, reporting out and knowing what we’re going to do with results.

If the results are preliminary, they’re still results, and what’s the next step there? So it’s really a project planning piece. The most important thing to ECE is the health and safety of children in schools. We need to approach it very, very carefully and plan very carefully.

Presumably, the new round of testing that now takes place will go back to all schools and test all samples, given that we’re not sure of the reliability of the preliminary test. Is that right?

I think that’s right, yes.

Who will lead all of that and who will lead the review?

The review of our process, that hasn’t been determined yet. The Department of Education, Culture and Employment won’t be arranging that. It’s independent. We’ll be obviously participating very fully, openly and transparently.

As for the testing of the two schools, that will also be an independent tester. Results from the tests from the two schools – of preliminary positive results – will be secured and we expect that work to be done in a week to two weeks, and to have results from that. But for the broader piece across the territory, that has yet to be determined and that planning has yet to occur.

How long for the broader review to come back?

I don’t know because I won’t be involved in the planning of that review. I expect there will be some priority put on it, though,

Who is arranging that if ECE is not?

I’m not sure. I’d expect it to be a GNWT corporate entity but I don’t have that information.

Anything else that families should know about this situation?

We understand and acknowledge the concern that this has created. We’re going to get to a place where we have more certainty of answers and enable us to better make sure that the safety of students in schools is protected.

As the father of a student in one of the impacted schools, I also understand that concern from a parental level, and just want to assure parents that we’re working to regain your trust.

Ultimately, ECE beginning this testing process will result in answers going forward that help us ensure that lead levels are not at exceedance levels.