CSJ Blue Community Update - Summer 2020

This summer, our CSJ Blue Community project has been active in supporting the People's Water Campaign - an effort to connect and strengthen various water justice causes in Ontario.

There have been several online conversations already on some of the key issues: plastics, privatization, and the pending sale of Nestlé operations in Canada to Ice River Springs. These events help us all understand the related impacts of water politics and guide our plans for a more just and beautiful future. 

New Posts Available

Our Project Coordinator Paul Baines has prepared 3 new blog posts on the Blue Community website for you to read and share. Each post includes a video recording of the webinar and follow up actions.

Part 1: Plastics and Pollution

Part 2: All Eyes on Nestlé

Part 3: Water Privatization

There will be more events coming for the People's Water Campaign this September, including one by Paul Baines about the purpose and power of various water justice declarations and commitments. 

Some Good (Blue Community) News!

CELEBRATING 10 YEARS OF THE HUMAN RIGHT TO WATER -- by Vi Bui

July 28, 2020 marks a significant milestone in the fight to protect water. Ten years ago, the United Nations General Assembly recognized water and sanitation as fundamental human rights. Canada joined this international consensus in 2012, however, successive federal governments have failed to provide a framework or legislation to implement or enforce these rights. COVID-19 has made it even clearer that universal access to safe, clean water and adequate sanitation must be a reality to all. Click here to read the full story. 

We’re on Facebook!

Did you know that our Blue Community project now has a Facebook page? On it, you will find related news items and recent project updates. You can join and invite others to join here:

https://www.facebook.com/bluecommunitycsj/

Upcoming Events & Gatherings

In-person events will likely not happen this fall so the CSJ Blue Community Steering Committee is helping Paul plan at least one online gathering. Here, you will be able to ask questions, connect to the growing water justice movement, and dedicate the upcoming Season of Creation to the life of water. 

Stay tuned…

You can always connect with Paul Baines directly:

info@BlueCommunityCSJ.org

www.BlueCommunityCSJ.org

CSJ Blue Communities Updates

November 28, 2019

These past few weeks, our Blue Communities Coordinator Paul Baines has been following water issues in the news while also participating in a grassroots review of Ontario's bottled water permit policy. 

Wellington Water Watchers

A network of water groups have been trying to limit Nestlé's access to groundwater for years. Led by groups such as the Wellington Water Watchers, this network (which our Blue Community project is a member of) has been raising awareness about the impacts of the bottled water business and asking for a science, ethics, and rights-based approach for sustainable and just water policy. 

There is a 4-page information sheet regarding this subject available on the CSJ Blue Communities website. These past two weeks have seen major shifts in bottled water policy.

10,000 Signatures

Two weeks ago, water protectors were asking for public support to extend the current moratorium on new bottled water permits. One week ago, we found out that the ban would be lifted at the end of 2019 allowing for growth in the industry including a third well for Nestlé near Elora Ontario.

The pressure was on to let Jeff Yurek (our Minister of Environment, Conservation, and Parks) know that there are far too many unresolved issues to grant new permits. The moratorium was needed to address water flow science, plastic pollution, the rights, consent, and jurisdiction of Indigenous nations, as well as a groundswell of public opposition.

None of these issues have been addressed since the ban started two years ago. Then, just days ago, the Ontario provincial government announced it would add another nine months onto the ban.

What happened during these two weeks?   Environmental Defence launched a petition that gathered 10,000 signatures. The Council of Canadians also launched a petition that gathered 10,000 signatures!

Save Our Water in Elora launched a letter writing campaign and Wellington Water Watchers held four high profile public events (called All Eyes on Nestlé tour) in four cities and launched a campaign organizing people to phone Minister Yurek (MPP for Elgin-Middlesex-London).

***

Canada's Lead Crisis

These past two weeks have also seen an explosion of stories about Canada's lead crisis in tap water. Earlier this week, an investigative report by several media outlets revealed dangerously high levels of lead in tap water across Canada.

This investigation took a combined effort from 120 journalists, working at nine universities and 10 media organizations across the country.

They reported that millions of Canadians are exposed to this neurotoxin through the aging lead pipes that distribute water from municipal water treatment plant to households across 11 cities. Please click here to read a story about this on Canadians.org. The Toronto Star also published a column, How to Solve the Lead Crisis in Canada, which you can read by clicking here.

When Green Becomes Blue

Through our Federation, the Sisters of St. Joseph have become the 29th Blue Community in the world, joining with many others whose goals are: to have water and sanitation recognized as human rights, to phase out and then ban the sale of bottled water at municipal events and public facilities, and to promote publicly financed, owned and operated water and waste water services.

These communities are provided with the tools to fight the privatization of water and promote the human right to water. This project builds on nearly two decades of Water Watch work, in coalition with many other groups to promote and protect public water. Blue Communities in Canada, there are now 13 of them, is an initiative of the Council of Canadians and CUPE.

When Paris joined the Blue Communities Project on World Water day, 2016, Maude Barlow congratulated them saying “the global water crisis is getting more serious by the day and it is being made worse by the corporate theft and abuse of water.” And we all know of the problems our Aboriginal communities are experiencing with water that is not safe for drinking. Over 100 communities are under water advisory and need to boil water for drinking. And mercury contaminated water is major news and is a shame for Canada.

Indeed, water scarcity is a global concern! In my recent awareness visit to India at the invitation of SOPAR, I came to a deep appreciation of water which we in Canada take so much for granted. In India, water is not lacking so much as it’s not potable and the contaminants lead to serious illnesses. Small village communities have built filtration plants to purify the water. Doctors were asked if this was really necessary. Their conclusion was that a village that had 5 doctors now only needed one. (see www.sopar-balavikasa.org)

During her time in South Sudan on an awareness trip with Canadian Aid for South Sudan, Sister Joan Atkinson found similar realities. There they also have to deal with water-borne diseases causing illness and death. Taught by a Canadian scientist, they fill specific types of plastic bottles with water and let the ultra-violet rays of the sun purify the water. Families using this system are free of water-borne illnesses and are much healthier. I saw this same process being used while I was in Bolivia.

In a recent article I read by Sister Sue Wilson, she writes “Water is indeed for our use and to sustain life but from an integral ecological perspective it is more than an “object for human use.”

HOW WOULD YOU DESCRIBE YOUR RELATIONSHIP WITH WATER?

Sister Sue quotes Denise Nadeau who writes “my journey to unlearn this objectification of water and experience water as a living relative continues to be a long one.” As Sisters of St. Joseph, we are called into deep relationship with all creation, and I think of St. Francis of Assisi who addressed water as “Sister Water.”

Mary Mettler, CSJ
On behalf of the Federation Ecology Committee

The Federation of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Canada is made up of three Congregations: The Sisters of St. Joseph in Canada, The Sisters of St. Joseph of Sault Saint Marie and The Sisters of St. Joseph of Toronto.