The Township of Tiny in Simcoe County in south-central Ontario has a population of just over 10,000 people and is made up of communities including Bluewater Beach, East Tay Point, Georgina Beach, Nottawaga Beach, Wyebridge and Wyevale. Council of Canadians activists may remember the campaign against the Site 41 landfill, which was to be located in the Township of Tiny on top of the Alliston aquifer. The township had long expressed its opposition to the garbage dump. The dump was finally defeated in September 2009.
We have just received word from the township’s mayor, Ray Millar, that the blue community resolution he brought to council passed this evening.
The Blue Communities Project is an initiative of the Council of Canadians and the Canadian Union of Public Employees, and in Quebec with Eau Secours. It calls on municipalities to recognize water as a human right, to ban the sale of bottled water in civic spaces, and to support the public ownership of water utilities.
On March 22 this year, Burnaby, British Columbia became the first blue community in Canada. Then on June 23, the city council of Victoria, BC voted to become a blue community. So Tiny, Ontario becomes the third blue community in Canada.
It is hoped that Kingston, ON (on September 20), Port Alberni, BC (pending a staff report on bottled water), and Pointe-Claire, Quebec will also become blue communities.
To find out how to make your community a blue community, please go to http://canadians.org/bluecommunities.
