GUELPH POLITICAST #189 - Maude!

Guelph knows water. We're the largest community in Canada that depends exclusively on ground water for our needs, and we're hyper aware of the dangers to our water supply and the urgent need to protect them. You know who else knows about working hard to protect Canada's water? You should, she pops by with impressive regularity this time of year.

Maude Barlow has many epitaphs, but she's mostly known for her tireless and vocal advocacy on protecting water resources from exploitation and privatization, and keeping them in public hands. The local chapter of the Council of Canadians has brought Barlow to town every fall for the last few years, but this year Barlow's got a new book, her 19th!

In Whose Water Is It, Anyway?: Taking Water Protection into Public Hands, Barlow talks about the Blue Communities Project, an endeavour by the Council of Candians to get cities around the world to recognize water as a human right, phase out and ban bottled water from municipal facilities, and to promote publicly financed water and wastewater services. Guelph isn’t officially a Blue Community, but it can definitely be argued that we hold up those values.

With so much to talk about, Barlow joins the podcast this week to discuss her Guelph appeal, what inspiration that she hopes her new book will create, and why cities all over the world are becoming Blue Communities. She also talks about why protecting water resources seems to be the one area of environmental action that isn't political, and why there’s still so much work to do to get people out of the bottled water habit. And naturally, we also talk about that well-known bottling plant down the road from here.

So let's hear about water from Canada's water warrior on this week's edition of the Guelph Politicast!

Maude Barlow will be speaking at HOPE House on Tuesday October 1 at 7 pm, and you can get more details here. Barlow's new book, Whose Water Is It, Anyway?: Taking Water Protection into Public Hands, is now available from wherever you buy fine books.

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