On January 8, we noted in a campaign blog that, “Two New Westminster Secondary School students are entering murky political waters with their bid to get bottled water sales banned at their school. Marie-Claire Massicotte and Hannah Crisp sent a letter and a petition with 105 signatures from students and staff to superintendent John Woudzia in November. The letter outlined their concerns about the environmental and ethical impact of single-use bottled water and urged the district to ban its sale at their school. …(Hannah and Marie-Claire) are concerned about the sale of water, which they deem as unnecessary given that it’s already freely available without the damaging packaging.”
In a letter to the editor published in the Royal City Record that same day, Council of Canadians New Westminster chapter activist Andrew Murray wrote, “It was great to see students Marie-Claire Massicotte and Hannah Crisp challenging the school board to get on with removing the sale of bottled water from our school system. It’s been almost a year since school trustees unanimously voted to phase out this product and almost nothing has been done to date. An opinion from medical health officer Dr. Nadine Loewen was sought and resulted in her support for promoting our high-quality tap water in our schools.” His full letter is at http://www.royalcityrecord.com/news/environmental+political/4078821/story.html.
In today’s New Westminster Record, Nestle Waters Canada director of corporate affairs John Challinor writes, “I read with interest the letter to the editor written by Council of Canadians environmental activist Andrew Murray that appeared in the Jan. 8 edition of the Royal City Record entitled, ‘It’s environmental, not political’. He then goes on to say, “Mr. Murray makes a number of statements that are incorrect.” Challinor’s letter appears at http://www.royalcityrecord.com/Misunderstanding+water+issue/4096884/story.html.
It seems that whenever the Council of Canadians is in the news about bottled water, Mr. Challinor fires off a letter to the editor. We have responded before – and will do so again.
For information on the Council of Canadians bottled-water campaign, please go to http://unbottleit.ca.
The original news story – Students battle bottled water – is at http://www.royalcityrecord.com/news/Students+battle+bottled+water/4078816/story.html.
