Kristen Villebrun and Wendy Bush hoped they wouldn't have to pray for Chedoke Creek, but four years after they first raised alarm about the water's condition, they were part of an Indigenous full moon ceremony to do just that. About 50 people showed up near Princess Point on the dark and frigid Monday evening for the monthly ceremony, which was particularly special as it focused on Chedoke Creek. The body of water that runs into Cootes Paradise had about 24 billion litres of sewage and storm water runoff leak into it due to a gate being left open.
When I was teaching political science at Langara College in Vancouver, some of the most memorable events were the half dozen teleconferences Noam Chomsky did with my students. During one such discussion of international trade treaties in 2012, Chomsky singled out the work of Maude Barlow, then chair of the Council of Canadians, as being instrumental in defeating the proposed “corporate bill of rights” known as the Multilateral Agreement on Investment.
The City of London has joined the likes of Berlin, Paris and Los Angeles in joining the world's 'Blue Community' movement. In a Blue Community, water and water sanitization are considered a human right, with the city not cutting off water to those struggling to pay for it, rejecting privatization of water services and not selling bottled water at municipal properties.
