MEDIA RELEASE
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
April 8, 2008

Organizations correct Liberal Party on right to water

The Council of Canadians and the Geneva-based Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions (COHRE) sent the federal Liberal Party a letter today to correct the Party on statements made to the media last week about the consequences of Canada endorsing the right to water. In response to Canada’s role in removing references to water and sanitation as a human right in a resolution tabled by Germany and Spain at the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) in Geneva, water critic, Francis Scarpaleggia and environment critic, David McGuinty told the media that endorsing the right to water could force the Canadian government to export water to the United States.

“Recognition of the right to water in no way affects a country's sovereign right to manage its own water resources. The resolution tabled at the Human Rights Council specifically stated that it focused on the local and national level, and emphasized the need to leave aside any transboundary water issues,”  said the letter signed by Council of Canadians chair, Maude Barlow and COHRE spokesperson Ashfaq Khalfan.

Rather than serve as a hindrance, the organizations emphasized that a recognition of water as a right would help Canada stave off the threat of bulk water exports posed by the North American Free Trade Agreement which defines water as a “good” and an “investment.”

“Canada may be opposing the right to water and sanitation simply out of misguided caution, but the cost will be borne by the one billion people who do not have access to clean water and more than 2.6 billion people who do not have access to a toilet,” said the Council of Canadians and COHRE. “ A more productive approach would be for the Canadian government to propose that the UN Human Rights Council formally confirm that the right to water does not require water exports.”

The organizations are calling on both the Canadian government and the Liberal Party to reverse their position on the right to water and sanitation in order to effectively address the water crisis in Canada and around the world.

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For more information, please contact:
Dylan Penner, Media Officer: Tel.: (613) 233-4487, ext. 249; .

Click here to read the letter.

Click here to read Maude Barlow's letter to the editor in the April 14th edition of The Hill Times.