The Council of Canadians Medicine Hat chapter is organizing for World Water Day.
Medicine Hat is a city situated in southeast Alberta, about kilometres 295 east of Calgary and just 60 kilometres west of the Saskatchewan border. The name “Medicine Hat” is the English translation of Saamis – the Blackfoot word for the headdress worn by medicine men. The city of 63,000 people is located on the South Saskatchewan River.
The Medicine Hat News reports, “Local celebrations of World Water Week kick off Thursday [March 16] in Medicine Hat at the Market at Medalta starting at 7:30 p.m. This will be followed next Tuesday through Saturday [March 21 to March 25] with daily activities and events for the whole family which focus on the issue of water conservation and the importance of protecting the local watershed.”
That article adds, “The main organizing body for World Water week celebration this year is the newly formed Medicine Hat Chapter of the Council of Canadians (COC). COC chair David Condon says his organization will be working with SEAWA, the city, the Grasslands Naturalists and the library to draw attention to the issue of water wastage.”
Condon notes, “The reason World Water Day was started was to raise awareness and make people think about their relationship to water, and the fact that we take so much for granted while other people either have no access to clean water, or they have to walk long distances to get it.”
And he adds, “You have large transnational corporations like Nestle, who buy a lot of water very cheaply, bottle it and sell it back to us. We want people to think about that, and maybe look a little more closely at their own relationship to water. We also want to talk to people about the importance of the public water utility we have here in Medicine Hat, and how good our water is.”
The Medicine Hat chapter was formed on November 2, 2016. Winnipeg-based Council of Canadians organizer Brigette DePape was at that founding meeting. She told us at that time that the chapter was already interested in organizing for World Water Day.
Nineteen Council of Canadians chapters are organizing across the country this year for World Water Day. Among the activities, four chapters will be screening Bottled Life, three chapters will be tabling at various locations, two chapters will be screening Tapped, and two chapters will be presenting to their city council on becoming a blue community.
For more on those actions, please click here.
#WorldWaterDay
