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Maude Barlow warns of approaching global water crisis

'We have to protect water and share it more justly,' environmental activist says
2019-06-19 Maude Barlow
Maude Barlow speaks Wednesday during the Women and Water event in Orillia. Nathan Taylor/OrilliaMatters

A leading voice in environmental activism delivered a message of caution and hope this week at Lakehead University's Women and Water event.

Maude Barlow, the honorary chair of the Council of Canadians and chair of Food and Water Watch, started with statistics.

By 2030, the world will have only 60 per cent of the water it needs, she said, and up to seven billion people could be affected by a lack of water and sanitation worldwide.

Closer to home, she explained, those living in Indigenous communities in Canada are 90 per cent more likely to not have running water.

In some places in the world, she said, it’s cheaper to buy soft drinks than water, which directly affects the impoverished. That also happens when water is put on the open market.

“There’s real-life consequences,” she said.

She recalled the “water war” in Bolivia in the 1990s, when the World Bank said if Bolivians wanted funding for water, private companies had to be brought in to manage it. Citizens were threatened with fines and jail time even for capturing rainwater.

They revolted, leading to a conflict that involved the military, resulting in deaths.

“But they won,” Barlow said.

Barlow once asked Oscar Olivera, a key figure in that revolt, why he was willing to fight for water rights. He replied, “I would rather die by a bullet than by thirst.”

While Barlow’s presentation included warnings about the future of the planet, she urged the audience to not feel defeated.

After a long time trying to get water and sanitation recognized as a human right at the United Nations — something countries including Canada and the United Kingdom opposed — it passed in July 2010. Canada and the U.K. abstained from voting, but enough countries voted in favour to make it a reality.

“We have to protect water and share it more justly,” she said.

She also encouraged audience members to consider where they spend their money. The Council of Canadians has its sights set on Nestlé.

“It’s appalling that with this global crisis … Nestlé can bottle this water and ship it away,” she said, noting the Council of Canadians is actively encouraging a boycott of the company’s products. “We are hurting Nestlé where it matters the most, which is their pocketbook.”

The audience also heard from Kim Wheatley, a water walker and an Anishinaabe traditional grandmother from Shawanaga First Nation.

Everyone should have access to clean, drinkable water, she said, yet Indigenous communities have been “under a boil-water advisory forever.”

When there was an E. coli outbreak in Walkerton in 2000, “the government stepped in quick and that problem was fixed fast.”

Indigenous communities wish the government would act as quickly. After all, “we have a prime minister who ran on the promise to give us water,” she said.

Like Barlow, Wheatley wants water to be seen as a basic right rather than a product to make money.

“I don’t consider her a resource,” she said of water. “When I do that, I get too close to commodifying that life force.”

She issued a call to action to those in attendance.

“It’s time for you to pull up your bootstraps. Stop sitting and listening. Do something,” she said. “Stand by us. We don’t want a handout; we want a hand up.”


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Nathan Taylor

About the Author: Nathan Taylor

Nathan Taylor is the desk editor for Village Media's central Ontario news desk in Simcoe County and Newmarket.
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