This week, Council of Canadians Honorary Chairperson Maude Barlow is in the Atlantic, speaking in East Coast cities about her new book, Whose Water is it, Anyway? Taking Water Protection Into Public Hands.

The multi-city tour got underway in Ottawa on September 16 where more than 100 people came to the event wanting to know more about what they could do to protect water in their city. Ottawa recently announced it will ban single-use plastics, including bottled water, by 2021. Many of those attending the book tour launch want to the city to go even further and signed up to work together to have Ottawa designated a Blue Community.

Then on Monday, Maude was in St. John’s in Newfoundland where she spoke to a crowd of about 90 people about the global water crisis, its impacts in Canada, and how the Blue Communities Project gives people a positive, proactive way to protect water sources.

The Winnipeg Free Press recently published a book review of Maude Barlow’s new book Whose Water is it, Anyway?: Taking Water Protection Into Public Hands. Written by Matt Henderson, the review explores the book’s themes and concludes it “provides a blueprint for the work and pathway for hope.”

Here is the full review:

It’s difficult to fathom that a water crisis exists in Canada. As a hyper-privileged person on this planet, the lack of this public good and basic necessity for life seems like a problem that other people have. Think Flint, Mich.; Cape Town, South Africa; Chile; Shoal Lake 40 First Nation. Many Canadians live under the illusion that clean drinking water is in abundance, that it is somehow protected from the greedy reach of corporations and that we have designed a system of governance to ensure that we all have access to this most basic need.