As many as one in three First Nation reserves in Canada have been found to lack safe water.
water supply
Water on the Table: A film about our most wasted resource
A new documentary charts how water misuse flows...
Related rabble.ca story:
Water on the Table: A film about our most wasted resource
Will the global community define water as a human right, available to all, or as a commodity to be bought, sold, traded, and ultimately out of reach from the poorest people on this earth? Liz Marshall's documentary, Water on the Table, explores this question through a portrait of Maude Barlow and her tireless efforts to define water as a human right.
Keepers of the Water: A wake-up call from the North
I was very fortunate to participate in the Keepers of the Water conference in Wollaston Lake, northern Saskatchewan, in mid-August. It was my first time to this remote community, which can only be reached by barge/boat or airplane as there are no roads that go directly there. People say the water there is clean enough to drink right out of the lake, which I saw someone doing. The lake, one of Saskatchewan's largest, certainly looked beautiful, though I hesitated to drink from it like the locals.
Review: The Muskoka Freshwater Summit
With its 900 lakes and a strong local watershed council, Bracebridge, Ont., was a great location for The Muskoka Freshwater Summit, held on June 1 and 2.
Over coffee and a muffin, I spoke with a kind-eyed, silver-haired woman, Barbara Power, a member of Grandmothers to Grandmothers. Her eyes twinkled as she told me about picketing Mike Harris and Walkerton in 2000 but her grew dark when I asked why she was at the summit. "I'm very worried about the future and concerned about what my granddaughter will inherit."
Winnipeg council votes on unseen 30-year sewage-deal lock in
Would you sign a 30-year mortgage for a house you haven't been allowed to see?
That's exactly what Winnipeg City Council is being asked to do today -- Wednesday, May 19 -- when it votes on whether to approve a 30-year private-public partnership (P3) with Paris-based water corporation, Veolia.
If approved, the city of Winnipeg will be locked into a long-term agreement with the corporation that will involve the design, build and management of Winnipeg's sewage treatment plant upgrades and expansion plans.
There are several red flags that City Council is overlooking.
First, the process so far doesn't bode well for those who are hoping for a transparent and democratic management of sewage treatment in Winnipeg.
The Earth's water crisis, our water crisis
Clean water is a right, enshrined both for humans under the UN World Water Program (though in a still-limited capacity because of politics ) and for the earth in Cochabamba's Rights of Mother Earth Accord.
Canada has been one of countries that has either blocked or failed to back motions on secure water rights. At the UN Commission on Human Rights in 2002, Canada was the only country to vote against the Right to Drinking Water and Sanitation. In the most recent vote in 2010, Canada abstained.
Monster mine plan cuts deep into Ontario farmland
.JPG)
Imagine a hole in the ground, the size of 2,000 football fields and deeper than the gorge at Niagara Falls. Sound a little scary? Now imagine that this gaping hole, at the headwaters of two major river systems in Ontario, isn't subject to an environmental assessment.
Say what?
