Last night was the first stop of the 8-city Great Lakes Need Great Friends Speaking Tour in Toronto with Maude Barlow; Mark Mattson, the Lake Ontario Waterkeeper; Kathleen Padulo of Chiefs of Ontario; and Kevin McMahon, Director of Waterlife.
“Ontario has the potential to be a real leader in Great Lakes protection,” says Maude Barlow to an almost packed house at the Argonaut Rowing Club, located beside Lake Ontario. “But with increasing industrial pollution, sewage contamination and other threats, we need a different way of doing things in Ontario.”
The campaign marks the beginning of the Great Lakes campaign calling on the Ontario government to recognize the Great Lakes as a commons to be shared, protected, and managed by those living around them. The Lakes are being threatened by hydraulic fracturing, nuclear waste shipments, bottled water withdrawals, extensive wetland losses as well as other industrial threats.
The Council of Canadians has issued a public statement to the provincial government urging them to follow up on allocating $52 million to proect the Great Lakes, and to include commons and public trust principles in the upcoming Great Lakes Protection Act. The statement can be seen here.
Maude Barlow and Kathleen Padulo of Chiefs of Ontario
Tonight will be the second stop of the tour in Hamilton, and the tour will continue to other communities around the Great Lakes: Thunder Bay (May 17), Kingston (May 22), Sarnia (May 24), Tiny Township (May 28), Owen Sound (May 29),and London (May 30).
For further details about the tour and local speakers, check out Great Lakes Campaign page.
