Blue Communities

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Blue Community The Blue Communities Project encourages municipalities and Indigenous communities to support the idea of a water commons framework, recognizing that water is a shared resource for all, by passing resolutions that:

Recognize water and sanitation as human rights.
Ban or phase out the sale of bottled water in municipal facilities and at municipal events.
Promote publicly financed, owned, and operated water and wastewater services.

The Council of Canadians, the Blue Planet Project and the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) initiated the Blue Communities Project in 2009. Eau Secours is a partner on the Blue Communities Project in Quebec. The Blue Communities movement has grown internationally with Paris, France, Bern, Switzerland and other municipalities around the world going “blue.” Schools, religious communities and faith-based groups have also adopted principles that treat water as a common good that is shared by everyone and is the responsibility of all.

Here are some answers to commonly asked questions about the Blue Communities Project.

Congratulations to the city of Montreal and McGill University for becoming Blue Communities on World Water Day 2019!

Montreal Blue Communities

We invite you to become a part of the local and global movement for water security and justice by joining the Blue Communities Project – a joint initiative that furthers the work of local Water Watch coalitions across the country.

Learn what you can do as a community activist, public sector worker or municipal councillor to help protect the water commons – our shared water resources – in the face of increasing pressure to put water up for sale and privatize water services.

Map of Blue Communities:

Recent highlights

With the new NAFTA, "there is no Alternative"

June 19, 2019

As both Mexico and Canada bend over backwards to ratify the new NAFTA, our politicians are cornered into the position of "there is no alternative" than to appease President Trump. However, there is no alternative to having a planet, and there must be an alternative to corporate globalization within our trade treaties. We must embolden our politicians to not be captured by corporate interests.

Montréal main French school board becomes a Blue Community

May 29, 2019

After voting in April to support the citizens’ Climate Emergency Declaration, the Commission scolaire de Montréal (CSDM), Québec’s biggest school board, became the first to become a Blue Community.

Eau Secours brings fire to water: 9 QC Blue Communities

May 10, 2019

In seven months, Eau Secours and its volunteers have added seven more Québec municipalities to the Blue Communities roster of 49 Blue Communities—17 of which are in Canada. They have also signed up two educational institutions including McGill University This gives the municipalities tools to promote water as a human right and to fight privitization and bottled water.

Jericho House becomes 49th Blue Community!

May 7, 2019

Jericho House Board Chair Wayne Badaway signs the certificate as our Executive Director Molly Kane looks on.

Spring flooding - let's get our story right

May 7, 2019

The floods that have devastated so much of Eastern Canada this spring have been cited as a "wake up call" that climate change is real. Many reports of the flooding cite climate change as the cause. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau himself has named climate change as the culprit and several journalists noted that the flooding probably forced the federal Conservatives to take climate change seriously...