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Barlow’s new year’s resolutions for 2016

Council of Canadians chairperson Maude Barlow has tweeted her twelve New Year’s resolutions for 2016.

They are:


  1. Support the Trudeau Liberals when they keep good promises.


  2. Oppose Trudeau Liberals when the break good promises or support bad policies.


  3. Intensify our campaign for clean water and sanitation in First Nation’s communities.


  4. Defeat the Energy East pipeline.


  5. Stop the Trans-Pacific Partnership!


  6. Stop CETA (and make Canadians understand it is as bad as TPP!)


  7. Be present when Shoal Lake’s Freedom Road is completed.


  8. Support the process for a new federal/provincial health accord that includes pharmacare.


  9. Continue to support unions, the defender of our rights, and build union/civil society solidarity.


  10. Promote Blue Communities and water as a public trust here in Canada and around the world.


  11. Continue to explain how our abuse and displacement of water is a major cause of climate chaos.


  12. Write a book on how badly Canadians are protecting our precious water heritage and what we must now do.

And in a 3-minute video released on Dec. 30, Barlow says, “It’s very important that we have a watchdog in Canada that is going to make sure that all of the terrible things that the Harper government did are brought to the attention of the Trudeau government and that we address it together. It’s very important that we chronicle the progress made and the lack thereof because there will be many areas that the government will say well we just don’t know if we can go there. And it’s going to be very important to have an active citizenry in Canada.”

She then highlights, “There is going to be areas in which we’ll disagree with the Trudeau government. In particular, I expect that we will not agree on their expansion of the tar sands, their support of the Energy East pipeline to export diluted bitumen overseas. I don’t know how they can keep their promises from the Paris accord if they do do that. Their unquestioning support of free trade trade agreements like CETA with Europe and the Trans-Pacific Partnership. So we will be also there as an opposition watchdog when that is needed.”