The Council of Canadians South Shore chapter joined with the local chapter of the Raging Grannies yesterday afternoon to sing anti-Nestle songs outside a Superstore in Bridgewater, Nova Scotia.
Their Facebook outreach had noted, “South Shore Chapter enthusiasts, accompanied by the clever musical trappings of the Raging Grannies, will be having their say about Nestle’s watery antics Friday at 4 pm at a local ‘store’ near you. If you would like to help pass out flyers and gather signatures with them (or sing a clever song or two with our raging elders), please contact southshore.coc@gmail.com.”
This weekend, Council of Canadians chapters in Chilliwack, Kamloops, Powell River, Northumberland County, Peterborough, Quinte, Kitchener-Waterloo, Centre Wellington, and Kent County will also be handing out “Boycott Nestle” buttons and stickers, as well as encouraging people to sign our Boycott Nestle Pledge.
Council of Canadians chairperson Maude Barlow has stated, “Nestle is the biggest bottled water operator in Canada, with major plants in Ontario and British Columbia. Since 2008, it has been taking 3.6 million litres a day from two wells for its bottled water plant near Guelph, making a profit at that location alone of over $2 million a year. Nestle also wants to extract 1.6 million litres of groundwater a day from nearby Middlebrook. Allowing a transnational corporation to continue to mine this water is a travesty.”
The Council of Canadians Chilliwack chapter has noted, “Despite the drought last year and an unusually warm spring this year, bottled water giant Nestle continues to extract 265 million litres from a well in nearby Hope in Sto:lo Territory. The Province newspaper reported that Nestle’s well draws from the Kawkawa aquifer, which approximately 6,000 nearby residents in Hope rely on. The aquifer is part of the Kawkawa watershed connecting to the Coquihalla River, which in turn is tributary of the Fraser River.”
And Council of Canadians water campaigner Emma Lui has highlighted, “On Monday November 28, Guelph city council will vote on a motion about bottled water-takings. On the eve of this vote, it’s great to see chapters across the country show their solidarity with communities where Nestle extracts local water. Water-takings concern all of us who believe in protecting public water and the human right to water!”
Our Boycott Nestle pledge forms can be found here.
Our Boycott Nestle Pledge was launched in late-September and has been signed by 43,888 people so far.
For numerous blogs on Nestle water-takings, please click here.
