WHAT: Canada’s leading water expert Maude Barlow will be in Guelph thursday, as part of a 14-city coast-to-coast tour to launch her new book Boiling Point: Government Neglect, Corporate Abuse, and Canada’s Water Crisis (ECW Press, September 2016). Boiling Point is a timely and insightful guide for elected officials, environmental organizations and residents seeking to protect freshwater in Canada and in Indigenous communities.
WHO: The book launch with feature Maude Barlow of the Council of Canadians & Arlene Slocombe of Wellington Water Watchers for a discussion of trade policy and Canada’s water crisis.
WHEN: 7:00 p.m. EDT, September 22, 2016
WHERE: Harcourt United Church, 87 Dean Ave, Guelph (Map)
WHY: In the middle of a severe drought in southern Ontario, Nestlé continues to pump and export 4.7 million litres of water per day from wells in Aberfoyle and Hillsburgh in Wellington County. Nestlé just purchased the Middlebrook well even though Centre Wellington Township attempted to purchase it to safeguard their municipal water supply. The Middlebrook well sits on the traditional territory of Haudenosaunee, also known as Six Nations. Over 90% of people in Six Nations of the Grand River (roughly over 11,000 people) do not have clean, running water. The Council of Canadians will be launching a campaign to boycott Nestlé at the event. The Trudeau government is reviewing environmental and freshwater protections gutted by the former Harper government. The federal government has announced public consultations about environmental assessment processes in 19 cities, which began September 19 – the same day that Barlow launched her new book.
ABOUT MAUDE BARLOW AND BOILING POINT:
Boiling Point: Government Neglect, Corporate Abuse, and Canada’s Water Crisis (ECW Press, September 2016) is Maude Barlow’s 18th book. It lays bare the extent of Canada’s water crisis and argues water policies will become the defining issue of the next decade.
“The water crisis is at our door here in Canada. All the issues we thought so far away are upon us now,” writes Barlow in Boiling Point. “It is time to abandon our false beliefs that Canada has unlimited supplies of water, that Canadians have taken care of this water heritage and one another or that we still have lots of time to do so. We need a strong, national plan of action based on a new water ethic that puts water protection and water justice at the heart of all our policies and laws.”
One of the world’s foremost water activists, Maude Barlow has been on the front lines of the planet’s water crises for the past 20 years. An expert on the subject, she has worked with governments and organizations around the world to protect this precious resource.
“Maude Barlow is one of our planet’s greatest water defenders,” says Naomi Klein, author of This Changes Everything and The Shock Doctrine. “This book has all the facts, forceful analysis, and moral clarity that Canadians will need to wake up and join this most urgent of struggles.”
Barlow is the national chairperson of the Council of Canadians and Washington-based Food and Water Watch, a councillor for the World Future Council, a board member for a number of influential organizations and has previously acted as Senior Advisor on Water to the 63rd President of the UN General Assembly. Her work has earned her an impressive 14 honorary doctorates and numerous awards and recognitions.
Copies of the book are available for journalists upon request.
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For more information or to arrange an interview:
Dylan Penner, 613-795-8685, dpenner@canadians.org
Susannah Ames, 416-694-3348 ext. 154, susannah@ecwpress.com
