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.
If you were to win the election, what would you do to ensure the development of sustainable, additional, water supply and treatment for the region in order to allow for further growth, both from a business/industrial and population perspective? Water is Canada's most precious natural resource, and protecting our region’s water is a high priority for me, and for our Liberal team. We have 20% of the world's freshwater reserves, and water is essential to our well-being and economy.
Across the province, Local Conservation Funds are an approach that a growing number of communities and local governments are taking. Local Conservation Funds provide much-needed financial support for important local projects that contribute to the health of wildlife, habitat and water. The Columbia Valley Local Conservation Fund, established in 2008 in the East Kootenay, was the first of its kind in Canada’s history. Local residents agreed, by referendum, to pay a parcel tax of $20 per parcel per year to this dedicated fund for conservation projects. The service was so successful, the Columbia Valley’s Regional Directors voted unanimously to remove the sunset clause before the service was due to expire so it would continue after 2018.
Quebec plans to “significantly increase” the fees charged to companies that extract fresh water in the province, Premier François Legault said Thursday. Speaking at the United Nations COP15 biodiversity conference in Montreal, the premier announced his Coalition Avenir Québec government will introduce a bill early in 2023 on protecting water. Describing water as “blue gold,” Legault said 25 per cent of the planet’s fresh water runs through the St. Lawrence River.
Canadian politicians are great at making promises about protecting the environment. They’re not always great at keeping them. In 2010, former Conservative prime minister Stephen Harper’s government agreed to protect 17 per cent of Canada’s land and freshwater by 2020. At the time, just 9.6 per cent of Canada’s land and freshwater — collectively referred to as “terrestrial areas” — was protected, meaning it was safe from future development and had plans in place for safeguarding wildlife and ecosystems.
Makaśa Looking Horse has been protecting the water since she was a child – as part of her spiritual beliefs, in protest against Nestlé’s extraction of water from her nation’s traditional land, and today as a youth advocate of Ohneganos, an Indigenous water research project that, in the Cayuga language, means “water is life.” She doesn’t consider herself an activist. “It’s more like my way of life. And I do it every single day,” she says. It was passed down from her parents. “But it doesn’t stop there. My grandmothers and my ancestors, that’s what they always did, too. So it’s not just me and my activism in a little compartment. It’s me and my whole lineage and my people and my way of life, of always protecting the water.”
Students at Nicola Canford Elementary School (NCES) are doing their part to ensure all Canadians have access to safe, clean drinking water by launching a fundraiser in partnership with Water First, a Canadian charity that raises money for Indigenous communities in Canada without safe drinking water. “As part of our curricular work, we have accessed water testing kits from safewater.org and their teaching resources,” said Bergmann.
