London is now part of the worldwide Blue Community movement. London City Council voted almost unanimously in favour of becoming a Blue Community on March 23, 2021.
This is a victory for water protection and social justice. London City staff and London City Council have supported requests from the Council of Canadians and our allies to pass the resolutions needed to become a Blue Community. Now Londoners know even more certainly that their needs for water are primary and placed before profit-driven interests. Instead, water itself is valued as essential for life, as a common good, cared for and distributed with equality and preservation in mind.
What does becoming a Blue Community actually mean? The motions passed by City Council state that:
Water and water sanitization are recognized as a human right.
The sale of single-use plastic bottled water is reaffirmed as banned at City venues and events where access to municipal water exists.
The City will oppose privatization in any form of water delivery and water treatment.
In making these resolutions London joins 78 Blue Communities in the world and 47 in Canada, a number growing rapidly with London’s Brescia University College becoming a Blue Community just days ago. Other Blue Communities include the Sisters of St. Joseph, Vancouver, Paris, Berlin, Los Angeles, and Bayfield.
London has had a policy in place for some years regarding the phasing out of plastic bottled water sales in City venues and our utilities have a plan in place providing assistance to those who cannot pay their water bills. The Council of Canadians has been advocating since 2018 for the adoption of the full package of Blue Community resolutions, and we have been joined in this campaign by allies such as The Federation of the Sisters of St. Joseph, the Urban League of London, Climate Action London and the London and District Labour Council.
Canadians care deeply about water and many know our seemingly endless gifts of water are actually threatened on many fronts. Blue Community resolutions are something municipalities and other communities can do to take a position for water protection and for water justice.
Imagine whole watersheds – such as the Thames /Antler River system - making these commitments.
Canadian Maude Barlow, past water advisor to the United Nations General Assembly and cocreator of the Blue Community movement in 2009 had a dream- “It is my hope and my dream that it (the Blue Community movement ) can unite us in the quest for sound water stewardship and water justice”.)
London has been part of making this dream a reality as of March 23, 2021.
-Sister Loretta Manzara, csj | Federation of Sisters of St. Joseph of Canada