The Council of Canadians Brandon/Westman chapter presented to Brandon City Council today about the blue communities project.
The Brandon Sun has reported, “Brandon City Council will hear a presentation on Monday on becoming a ‘blue community’, from the local Council of Canadians chapter. The Blue Communities Project encourages communities to adopt a water commons framework by recognizing water and sanitation as human rights; banning or phasing out the sale of bottled water in municipal facilities/events; and promoting publicly financed, owned and operated water and wastewater services.”
Winnipeg-based Council of Canadians organizer Brigette DePape tells us, “We had a great presentation to the Brandon City Council.”
DePape highlights, “Heather Doty, of the Brandon chapter, Doug Tingey from the Winnipeg chapter and I stood together to present to Brandon City Council. Heather explained how Brandon currently has public water services, and encouraged councillors to ban bottled water and to recognize water as a human right. I said that we can meet our global and local needs not through privatizing and bottling water, which exacerbates the ecological crisis, but through protecting local water. And Doug encouraged the City to be a strong voice against the Energy East pipeline given the impact it could have on their drinking water.”
City Council received the presentation encouraging Brandon to become a blue community.
There are currently 18 blue communities in Canada, including:
Atlantic – District of Lunenburg
Ontario-Quebec – Thunder Bay, Bayfield, Tay Township, Amqui, Thorold, Welland, St. Catharines, Niagara Falls, Ajax, Tiny Township
Pacific – Tsal’alh, St’át’imc Territory, Comox, Cumberland, Nanaimo, North Vancouver, Victoria, Burnaby
Other chapters are also working to designate eight more municipalities as blue communities: Prince Albert (they will be at a City Council meeting on March 27 for a vote on two of the three blue community resolutions), Saskatoon, Montreal, Toronto, South Shore, Charlottetown, Stratford, and St. John’s.
For more information on our blue communities campaign, please click here.
