Water

HALIFAX, NOVA SCOTIA--(Marketwire - March 22, 2011) - CUPE Nova Scotia President Danny Cavanagh is joining a chorus of water activists who say Nestlé Waters Canada, a private water company, is exploiting World Water Day for profit.

CUPE says the company issued a press release alerting the media that company executive John Challinor II will be accepting calls from the press on World Water Day (today) to talk about the company's "policies on water management and conservation."

The Inside the Bottle coalition – which CUPE is a part of – is encouraging its supporters to call John Challinor II today and let him know that water is not something that can be bought and sold for profit.

On World Water Day 2011, with water justice activists around the world mobilizing to assert the right to water and sanitation for people and communities, to preserve water as part of an ecological trust and to ensure that water is democratically controlled by the people in the public interest, we issue this short statement to reflect on both recent victories towards implementation the right to water as well as the challenges and threats that remain ahead.

We are heartened by passage this past year of two resolutions within the UN system that have further affirmed the right to water and the obligations governments must fulfill to uphold this right. The first resolution, passed in July 2010 in the UN General Assembly was championed by leading countries in Latin America, including Bolivia, as well as other countries in the global South, and its passage marked the first time this body had gone on record formally acknowledging the right to water and sanitation.

The Swiss multinational Nestlé wants to extend its Permit to Take Water with the Ontario Provincial Government. The company currently has permission from the Province of Ontario to take 3.6 million litres of water from an aquifer near Guelph to bottle its Pure Life Brand of bottled water. It is now asking the province to extend this permit for 10 years!!!!!!!!!

We need your help to stop this from happening.

Please send your comments to the Ontario Provincial Government directly via email to:
MOEWCR.permits@ontario.ca

You can also mail your comments to:

West Central Region
Permit to take Water Evaluator
Ministry of Environment
Operations Division
West Central Regional Office
119 King Street West
Floor 12
Hamilton, Ontario.

Provide your own comments or copy and paste the following sample:
(adapted from the Wellington Water Watchers Submission http://tinyurl.com/4gbe9mo)

I am opposed to the renewal of this Permit To Take Water for the following reasons: