November, 24 2009, 08:26am EDT
For Immediate Release
Contact:
Dylan Penner, Council of Canadians Media Officer, 613-795-8685
Council of Canadians Warns Against Alberta Water Market Plans
OTTAWA, Ontario
The Council of Canadians is sounding the alarm over recommendations the
government received today to formalize and extend a water market system
throughout the province of Alberta. The Alberta government released
reports today containing recommendations from a few select sources,
including an advisory group appointed by the Minister of Environment.
"The implementation of these recommendations would open the door to
full private water markets, which have wreaked havoc on the environment
in countries like Australia and Chile," warns Maude Barlow, national
chairperson of the Council of Canadians. "Letting the market decide who
will have access to water violates the public trust doctrine, a
principle of common law which regards water as belonging equally to all
peoples and managed by governments on their behalf."
"The Alberta government has clearly decided that it is not interested
in other potential solutions to the province's looming water crisis
besides turning Alberta's water over to the market system," says Scott
Harris, Prairies Regional Organizer for the Council of Canadians. "This
is an obvious attempt to frame the discussion in forthcoming public
consultations to focus exclusively on market-based solutions."
The Minister's Advisory Group report recommends further entrenching the
water transfer system which now exists in the South Saskatchewan River
Basin and extending it to entire province. The Council of Canadians
warns that this plan would give water resources up to the highest
bidder forcing cash-strapped municipalities to compete with big oil and
other large industries for increasingly scarce water resources.
While expanding the market for water allocation transfers to the entire
province and compelling all users to participate in the market, the
minister's advisory group also recommends removing much of the
government oversight in approving transfer applications.
The Council of Canadians is calling instead for the Alberta government
to adopt a public trust doctrine that makes governments responsible for
distributing water according to the public interest. The group is
demanding that such a policy also establish a hierarchy of use that
places environmental needs, the right to water, local food production
and cultural use above the commercial use of water.
"This highlights the lack of federal legislative safeguards in Canada
allowing provinces to sell off water resources," says Meera
Karunananthan, national water campaigner for the Council of Canadians.
"A water market in Alberta sets a dangerous trend with regards to the
management of water resources in Canada."
The organization is calling for a national water policy that recognizes water as a human right and a public trust.
Founded in 1985, the Council of Canadians is Canada's leading social action organization, mobilizing a network of 60 chapters across the country.
Office: (613) 233-4487, ext. 249LATEST NEWS
House Dems Voice 'Deep Concern' Over Biden Claim That Israel Is Legally Using US Arms
A letter from 26 lawmakers notes the "stark differences and gaps" between what Biden administration officials say and the opinions of "prominent experts and global institutions" accusing Israel of genocide.
Apr 16, 2024
More than two dozen House Democrats on Tuesday challenged the Biden administration's claim that Israel is using U.S.-supplied weapons in compliance with domestic and international law—an assertion made amid an ongoing World Court probe of "plausibly" genocidal Israeli policies and practices in Gaza.
Citing "mounting credible and deeply troubling reports and allegations" of human rights crimes committed by Israeli troops in Gaza and soldiers and settlers in the occupied West Bank, 26 congressional Democrats led by Texas Reps. Veronica Escobar—who co-chairs President Joe Biden's reelection campaign—and Joaquin Castro asked U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, and Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines "whether and how" their agencies determined Israel is lawfully using arms provided by Washington.
"We write to express our deep concern regarding the U.S. Department of State's recent comments regarding assurances from the Israeli government, under National Security Memorandum (NSM) 20, that the Israeli government is using U.S.-origin weapons in full compliance with relevant U.S. and international law and is not restricting the delivery of humanitarian assistance," the lawmakers wrote in a letter to the Cabinet members.
The letter acknowledges the "grave concerns" of institutions and experts around the world regarding Israel's "conduct throughout the war in Gaza, its policies regarding civilian harm and military targeting, unauthorized expansion of settlements and settler violence in the West Bank, and potential use of U.S. arms by settlers, in additional to limitations on humanitarian aid supported by the U.S."
The legislators noted Israeli attacks on aid convoys, workers, and recipients—like the February 29 "
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While the lawmakers didn't mention the International Court of Justice's January 26
preliminary finding that Israel is "plausibly" committing genocide in Gaza, their letter highlights the "stark differences and gaps in the statements" made by Biden administration officials and "those made by prominent experts and global institutions"—many of whom accuse Israel of genocide.
The lawmakers' letter came amid reports of fresh Israeli atrocities, including a drone strike on a playground in the Maghazi refugee camp in northern Gaza that killed at least 11 children. Eyewitnesses described a "horrific scene of children torn apart."
While Biden has called out Israel's "indiscriminate bombing" in Gaza—much of it carried out using U.S.-supplied warplanes and munitions including 2,000-pound bombs that can level whole city blocks—his administration has approved more than 100 arms sales to Israel, has repeatedly sidestepped Congress to fast-track emergency armed aid, and is seeking to provide the key ally with billions of dollars in addition weaponry atop the nearly $4 billion it gets annually from Washington.
This, despite multiple federal laws—and the administration's own rules— prohibiting U.S. arms transfers to human rights violators.
According to Palestinian and international officials, more than 110,000 Palestinians have been killed or wounded by Israeli forces since October 7. Most of the dead are women and children. At least 7,000 Palestinians are also missing and presumed dead and buried beneath the rubble of hundreds of thousands of bombed-out homes and other buildings.
Around 90% of Gaza's 2.3 million people have been forcibly displaced in what many Palestinians are calling a second Nakba, a reference to the ethnic cleansing of over 750,000 Arabs from Palestine during the establishment of the modern state of Israel in 1948.
A growing number of not only progressive lawmakers but also mainstream Democrats are calling for a suspension of U.S. military aid to Israel.
On Tuesday, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.)—who was criticized earlier in the war for not calling for a cease-fire—stood beside a photo of a starving Gazan girl while declaring "no more money for" the far-right government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his "war machine."
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The wife of jailed WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange sharply criticized "assurances" the U.S. government made as the U.K. High Court considers allowing the 52-year-old Australian's extradition to the United States, where he faces 175 years in prison.
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"A sentence of death will neither be sought nor imposed on Assange," the document adds, noting that he has not been charged with any offense for which that is a possible punishment. It comes after the U.K. court ruled last month that the Biden administration had until Tuesday to confirm that he wouldn't face the death penalty and if it did not, he could continue appealing his extradition.
Responding on social media, his wife, Stella Assange—who is an attorney—blasted the U.S. assurances as "weasel words."
"The United States has issued a nonassurance in relation to the First Amendment, and a standard assurance in relation to the death penalty," she said. "It makes no undertaking to withdraw the prosecution's previous assertion that Julian has no First Amendment rights because he is not a U.S citizen."
"The Biden administration must drop this dangerous prosecution before it is too late."
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The U.K. court's next hearing is scheduled for May 20. Last week, reporters asked U.S. President Joe Biden about requests from Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and members of the country's Parliament to drop the extradition effort and charges. He said that "we're considering it."
So far, the Biden administration has ignored significant pressure from Australian and U.S. politicians as well as human rights and press freedom groups, and continued to pursue the extradition of Julian Assange, who was charged under former President Donald Trump—the Republican expected to face the Democratic president in the November election.
Assange was charged under the Espionage Act and Computer Fraud and Abuse Act for publishing classified documents including the "Collateral Murder" video and the Afghan and Iraq war logs. Since British authorities dragged Assange out of the Ecuadorian Embassy in London—where he lived with political asylum for seven years—he has been jailed in the city's Belmarsh Prison.
The WikiLeaks founder's wife, with whom he has two children, was not alone in condemning the U.S. assurances on Tuesday.
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Jameel Jaffer, director of the Knight First Amendment Institute, similarly said that "no one who cares about press freedom should take any comfort at all from the United States' assurance that Assange will be permitted to 'rely upon' the First Amendment."
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"Just as people of conscience demanded institutions cut ties with apartheid South Africa in the 1980s, the time is now to rise up in support of Palestinian human rights," said Google employees in an open letter.
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Following recent reports that Google may soon expand its tech collaboration with the Israeli government, dozens of the company's employees on Tuesday entered its offices in New York City and Sunnyvale, California and announced that they wouldn't leave until executives pull out of its $1.2 billion cloud services and data contract with the country.
The No Tech for Apartheid coalition—including the Muslim-led MPower Change and the Jewish-led Jewish Voice for Peace—organized the sit-in, which marks an escalation in Google workers' protests against Project Nimbus, the 2021 contract under which Google and Amazon provide cloud infrastructure across Israel's government.
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"Workers will NOT allow business as usual while Google continues to profit from the genocide of Palestinians in Gaza," said MPower Change.
In Sunnyvale, workers began occupying the office of Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian, while employees in the company's New York office began a sit-in in a common space.
Outdoor rallies were also scheduled to take place in San Francisco and Seattle, with both Amazon and Google employees attending.
Former Google cloud software engineer Eddie Hatfield, who was fired last month for disrupting a Google Israel event, was among those who protested in New York.
The sit-ins came a week after Time magazine reported that Google has entered further negotiations with the Israeli government in recent weeks, even as international human rights experts raise alarm that Israeli officials have directly caused famine to take hold in parts of Gaza by blocking humanitarian aid.
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