December, 01 2008, 10:38am EDT
For Immediate Release
Contact:
Dylan Penner, the Council of Canadians,
613-795-8685, dpenner@canadians.org
Joe Cressy,
Polaris Institute, 613-769-7118, joecressy@polarisinstitute.org
Hugh Wilkins, Staff Lawyer, Ecojustice Canada, 416-368-7533 Ext. 34,
hwilkins@ecojustice.ca
Mark
Goldberg, Wellington Water Watchers, 519-766-1000, goldberg@globaltox.ca
Groups Challenge Nestle's Bottled Water Greenwashing
Meanwhile, Toronto votes on whether to Ban the Bottle
TORONTO
As Toronto City Council gathers to consider passing a city-wide ban on bottled water, a new coalition is challenging advertising claims made by Nestle Waters that "bottled water is the most environmentally responsible consumer product in the world". The group, which includes Ecojustice, Friends of the Earth Canada, the Polaris Institute, the Council of Canadians, and Wellington Water Watchers, is filing a complaint today under Canadian Code of Advertising Standards against Nestle Waters North America. The groups argue that Nestle is attempting to mislead the public on the true impacts of bottled water. Copies of the coalition's complaint against Nestle Waters are available upon request.
The complaint relates to a full-page advertisement that appeared in the Globe and Mail in October and made a series of statements, including that: "most water bottles avoid landfill sites and are recycled"; "bottled water is the most environmentally responsible consumer product in the world"; and, "Nestle Pure Life is a Healthy, Eco-Friendly Choice". The groups argue that Nestle Waters' ad contravened the Canadian Code of Advertising Standards by making false and misleading statements regarding the environmental impacts of its product. The complaint also alleges that some of the statements in the ad are contrary to guidelines that have been set by Canada's Competition Bureau and the Canadian Standards Association to ensure environmental claims are specific and verifiable.
"For Nestle to claim that its bottled water product is environmentally superior to any other consumer product in the world is not supportable," says Meera Karunananthan, National Water Campaigner, the Council of Canadians. "With this ad, we believe Nestle has infringed the Canadian Code of Advertising Standards requirements of honesty, truth, accuracy, fairness and propriety in advertising."
"We believe that the claims provide a misleading impression to the public of the environmental impacts of Nestle's bottled water," says Joe Cressy, Campaigns Coordinator, Polaris Institute.
"The Canadian Code of Advertising Standards clearly states that advertisements must not contain inaccurate or deceptive claims, or statements," adds Hugh Wilkins, Staff Lawyer, Ecojustice (formerly Sierra Legal Defence Fund). "The ASC has an important role in ensuring that claims in ads are substantiated and honest. We look forward to the ASC's determination on whether this is such a case."
"Based on our review of the representations made by Nestle Waters in this advertisement, it is clear that they are not based on fact," says Beatrice Olivastri, Chief Executive Officer, Friends of the Earth. "The truth is that many water bottles are not being recycled, a phenomena that Nestle Waters itself - in direct contradiction to its own advertisement - admits in its 2008 Corporate Citizenship Report." Olivastri points out that Nestle Waters states in the report that many of its own bottles end up in the solid waste-stream and that most of its bottles are not recycled even though almost all beverage bottles are recyclable.
The debate on banning bottled water at Toronto City Council will take place this afternoon. If the ban is approved, Toronto will join the 16 cities across Canada that have already voted to ban bottled water.
As Canada's only national environmental law charity, Ecojustice is building the case for a better earth.
LATEST NEWS
Supreme Court Upholds Transgender Athlete Bans, Giving States Green Light For Discrimination
"We have entered a period when the legal recognition and legal protections for trans and intersex people are at an all-time low," said the Center for Constitutional Rights.
Jun 30, 2026
In a ruling that defenders of LGBTQ+ rights say clears the way for discrimination, the US Supreme Court upheld state laws banning transgender girls and women from participating on school and college athletic teams.
In a decision that will likely supercharge attacks on transgender people by red states and the Trump administration, the court said that state-level bans on transgender athletes did not violate either the 14th Amendment of the Constitution or Title IX, the federal law prohibiting sex discrimination in education.
The court's six conservatives ruled that Idaho and West Virginia did not violate the equal protection clause because the laws were made in the interest of athletic fairness.
"Biological males generally possess inherent physical advantages in sports," wrote Justice Brett Kavanaugh for the majority, describing it as a topic where there is still "medical and scientific uncertainty."
He dismissed equal protection claims from two athletes: 16-year-old shot put champion Becky Pepper-Jackson of West Virginia and 25-year-old Boise State student Lindsey Hecox, who failed to make her school's cross-country team because she was "too slow" but played in club-level sports.
The athletes argued that they took puberty-blocking medication that would have blunted their advantages, but Kavanaugh wrote that states were under no obligation to "grant individualized exemptions to specific athletes or subclasses."
The court ruled unanimously that West Virginia's state ban did not violate Title IX. But the court's three liberals disagreed on the question of equal protection.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor said that the scientific uncertainty surrounding the question was precisely why states should proceed with caution rather than enact categorical bans.
“In the end, to the court, the facts do not matter, even though the consequences are serious,” she wrote in her dissent.
She added that state bans will be harmful to trans people seeking friendship and community through sports. She said because of the court's decision, a state can deny young people "these experiences simply because it thinks they have an inherent athletic advantage, even if the facts show that they do not."
Sasha Buchert, senior attorney and director of the Non-Binary and Transgender Rights Project at Lambda Legal—which represented Pepper-Jackson—said the ruling was "deeply harmful for transgender women and girls who only asked for the ability to participate in sports with their peers."
"Countless studies have demonstrated the myriad benefits that come with participation in team sports," she added. "Now, one population, transgender youth and collegians, are targeted for specific and baseless discrimination."
The decision effectively legitimizes efforts in more than two dozen Republican-led states that have adopted bans on transgender athletes. However, Shannon Minter, the legal director of the National Center for LGBTQ Rights (NCLR), noted that the decision did not go as far as it could have, allowing other states to leave intact policies that let trans students participate.
"This is a disappointing decision, but also a narrow one that leaves the door open for the many states and schools that have adopted reasonable policies that protect both fairness and inclusion with respect to transgender students," Minter said. "Today’s limited decision means that states and schools across the country still have the power to make reasonable rules to ensure fairness without banning all transgender girls."
NCLR staff attorney Rachel Berg said that the ruling still "ignores clear discrimination and political attacks against transgender girls" and invites "invasive policing of young people's bodies."
"Blanket bans on transgender girls playing school sports invite anyone to call for a ‘gender check’ on any girl who wants to play sports if they think she is ‘too tall’ or ‘too strong,’” she warned.
Lambda Legal listed several cases in which young people in states with bans have been singled out and targeted with aggressive physical scrutiny by state officials:
In Florida, a 15-year-old junior varsity volleyball player was the subject of a police investigation after an anonymous accusation, prompting local officials to draft a 500-page report investigating her medical history, body weight, and anatomy. In Utah, a teenage basketball player was accused of being transgender by a member of the state board of education, leading to threats of violence against her and her family, and a teenager in Maine faced a similar attack from a state senator. In May, President Donald Trump similarly targeted a 16-year-old transgender girl for participating in a high school track meet. Under an Arizona ban, a cisgender male student was prohibited from participating on the boys’ team at his high school because of a clerical error that listed him as female on his original birth certificate.
Tuesday's decision comes amid an onslaught of other state-level legislation attacking transgender people, including bans on gender-affirming care for youth, bathroom bans, restrictions and invalidations of legal documents, and laws prohibiting schools from respecting students' preferred gender identities.
Karla Gonzales Garcia, the gender, sexuality, and identity director at Amnesty International USA, said the decision also "comes at a time of rising authoritarian practices under the Trump administration, which use gender and sexuality as a cultural battle for political gain."
The administration has threatened to investigate, sue, and strip funding from schools that accept trans athletes; attempted to throttle medical funding for hospitals that provide gender-affirming care; banned transgender people from the military; and pushed to force transgender women into men's prisons where they are at severe risk of sexual assault.
The Center for Constitutional Rights said that Tuesday's ruling "confirms what trans and intersex advocates have known for some time: we are in the Plessy v. Ferguson/Bowers v. Hardwick era of trans rights," referring to Supreme Court cases that upheld Jim Crow segregation and state bans on homosexuality.
"We have entered a period when the legal recognition and legal protections for trans and intersex people are at an all-time low," the group continued. "Anti-trans policymakers and activists have, through their actions and rhetoric, made their goal clear: to terrorize trans people and remove them from public life."
Several Democratic members of Congress expressed solidarity with the transgender community following the ruling.
"The Supreme Court’s ruling to allow states to ban trans kids from playing in sports is discriminatory and opens the door to incredibly invasive examinations of children to determine who can play on what team," said Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), whose adult daughter is trans. "This decision targets a tiny population of athletes and further emboldens Republicans’ anti-trans crusade."
Rep. Brittany Pettersen (D-Colo.) warned that the decision "hands Trump yet another weapon to strip protections and funding from schools across our nation," and said Republicans were "weaponizing our most vulnerable kids as pawns in a fight they did not choose."
Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) said: "We will keep fighting. Discrimination and hate will not win."
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'A Disaster for Democracy': Report Shows Surging Corporate Spending in 2026 Elections
"The intense escalation of corporate spending we are now seeing shows that it is well past time for salvaging American democracy to be treated with the urgency that it deserves."
Jun 30, 2026
As the right-wing majority on the US Supreme Court on Tuesday handed down a 6-3 ruling that campaign finance reform advocates warned would give special interest groups and rich donors yet another way to curry favor with politicians, a new report from government watchdog Public Citizen revealed how "corporate supremacist" groups have already set records for spending in this year's midterm elections.
There are still more than four months to go until the general election, but according to "The Rise of Corporate Supremacist Super PACs,” by research director Rick Claypool, this campaign cycle accounts for nearly one-third of all corporate political spending since the 2010 Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission (FEC) ruling.
That decision has enabled corporations and groups including super political action committees (PACs) to spend unlimited money on elections, and in the 2026 cycle alone, they have already spent $517 million—"a figure sure to soar as the November general election approaches," said Public Citizen.
"These totals reference disclosed political spending, not any contributions from dark money organizations that keep donors secret," the group emphasized.
The amount spent this year by Big Tech, fossil fuel companies, the cryptocurrency industry, and other sectors whose bottom lines could benefit from lax government regulations represents a sizable chunk of the $1.58 billion that corporations have spent on federal elections since 2010.
The 2024 election cycle saw $461 million poured into campaigns by corporations, a sum that dwarfed previous corporate political spending.
Public Citizen released its report as the Supreme Court ruled in National Republican Senatorial Committee v. FEC, striking down regulations that for decades have restricted political parties from coordinating campaign spending with candidates.
The report offered more evidence that the high court "has reorganized America for the worse," said law professor Zephyr Teachout.
Four industries—crypto, artificial intelligence, Big Tech, and online betting companies—have spent $294 million collectively to influence the elections, said Public Citizen, accounting for 57% of the corporate spending.
In 2024, the crypto sector pioneered the playbook corporations are using this year—"prioritizing corporate priorities over parties or candidates and using their financial power to discipline sitting lawmakers and candidates."
PACs including the pro-AI Leading the Future and the sports betting industry-backed Win for America PAC are some of the top recipients of the corporate case, taking $50.1 million and $43 million, respectively.
A Win for America spokesperson told Axios in April that the super PAC's backers "seek candidates who will thoughtfully approach regulation and ensure legal sports betting can continue to support communities through billions in tax revenue and jobs across America," while Josh Vlasto of the pro-crypto PAC Fairshake said in 2025 that the committee is "building an aggressive, targeted strategy for next year to ensure that pro-crypto voices are heard in key races across the country.”
Claypool said the report shows that "a decade and a half after Citizens United, corporations are starting to spend on politics like never before."
"This corporate spending is a disaster for democracy," he said. "If the current, broken campaign finance system remains unchallenged—and corporate spending is allowed to drown out the voices of real voters and real people—these corporate campaigns will keep multiplying, even as voting rights for individual Americans face escalating attacks.”
Behind the "corporate supremacist super PACs," reads the report, the biggest beneficiary of corporate spending is the President Donald Trump-supporting MAGA Inc., which has received $120.6 million in direct contributions from companies including Crypto.com, UnitedHealthcare, and Energy Transfer Partners.
The report comes two weeks after campaigners in Montana announced they had collected signatures that far exceeded the minimum requirement to force a statewide vote on a ballot measure that, if passed, would block corporations from pouring money into elections.
"Time and time again, Americans have demonstrated they want elected officials who are willing to stand up for them against the powerful and predatory corporations that attempt to dominate our daily lives," reads the Public Citizen report. "Lawmakers can demonstrate their fearlessness and independence from corporate influence by passing legislation that empowers the public while reducing the influence of Big Business demands to prioritize profit-maximization over Americans’ health, safety, and democracy."
The group called on Congress to pass the "Abolish Super PACs Act, the DISCLOSE Act, and, ultimately, a constitutional amendment to overturn Citizens United."
"The intense escalation of corporate spending we are now seeing," concludes the report, "shows that it is well past time for salvaging American democracy to be treated with the urgency that it deserves."
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'Unconscionable,' Says Khanna as House Panel Blocks Effort to Prevent Deeper US-Israeli Military Ties
"They're not even giving us a vote on the amendment," said Rep. Ro Khanna, who vowed to "continue to fight to make sure we don't compromise American sovereignty."
Jun 30, 2026
A Republican-controlled House panel on Monday refused to allow a floor vote on a bipartisan amendment to prevent closer integration of the American and Israeli militaries, which human rights organizations say would deepen US complicity in Israeli war crimes.
"This is unconscionable," Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), who led the proposed amendment alongside Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), said in a video posted to social media on Tuesday. "They're not even giving us a vote on the amendment."
Khanna vowed that "Thomas and I will continue to fight to make sure we don't compromise American sovereignty."
Watch:
Congress has blocked the amendment @RepThomasMassie and I introduced to stop the integration of our military with Israel’s. It is unconscionable to not even have a vote. We will be continuing on and will not be intimidated by the pro-Israel lobby. pic.twitter.com/6ai93L0rAY
— Ro Khanna (@RoKhanna) June 30, 2026
The Khanna-Massie amendment would have removed the US-Israel Defense Technology Cooperation Initiative from annual military policy legislation currently moving through Congress. The initiative, laid out in Section 219 of the House's National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), instructs the Pentagon to "designate an executive agent... responsible for synchronizing cooperative efforts between the United States and Israel, to expand and accelerate bilateral defense technology research, development, testing, evaluation, integration, and industrial cooperation."
On Monday, the House Rules Committee unveiled a list of NDAA amendments that it decided would get a full House vote, and the Khanna-Massie proposal was absent. Ben Freeman noted at Responsible Statecraft that the rules panel made its decision "after no debate" on the amendment.
"By rejecting the Khanna and Massie amendment, the Rules Committee on Monday ensured the American public would not even get to see how their representatives would vote on this pivotal issue," Freeman wrote. "This is despite unprecedented levels of public distrust in the Israeli government and widespread public outrage directed at these proposals."
The fight to block the US-Israel Defense Technology Cooperation Initiative—which is enthusiastically backed by the pro-Israel lobbying group AIPAC—is not necessarily over.
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) said earlier this month that lawmakers "must" strip the initiative from the NDAA, signaling a possible fight over the provision in the upper chamber. A summary of the Senate version of the NDAA states that the legislation would establish "the United States-Israel Defense Technology Cooperation Initiative to expand and accelerate bilateral defense technology research, development, testing, evaluation, coordination, and industrial cooperation between the US and
Israel."
Leading human rights organizations, including Amnesty International USA and Human Rights Watch (HRW), have urged lawmakers to reject the cooperation initiative, with the latter group warning that the proposal would "deepen US military cooperation with Israel while walling that cooperation off from further congressional oversight."
"Israeli forces’ widespread war crimes, crimes against humanity, and its ongoing acts of genocide in Gaza should give the United States pause about closer military association," said Akshaya Kumar, HRW's director of crisis advocacy. "Instead, Section 219 proposes to deepen entanglement, in a way that makes the risks of complicity ongoing. Legislators still have a chance to strip this damaging proposal out."
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