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NEWS RELEASE
PUBLIC ACCESS TO SAFE WATER AT RISK: CHURCHES DEMAND ACTION
Thursday, October 6, 2005
For Immediate Release
(Ottawa) Church leaders and representatives from eight Canadian
denominations say water privatization is putting public access to
safe water at risk in Canada and around the world. They are calling
on the federal government to help prevent a worldwide water crisis
by taking national and international action to ensure that water
remains under public control with genuine community participation.
During a ceremony near the Rideau River in Ottawa, the church
leaders launched Water: Life Before Profit!, a national campaign
to raise awareness about water issues in Canada and elsewhere, particularly
in the southern hemisphere. Pressure from donor countries and international
financial institutions such as the World Bank has resulted in an
increasing trend toward water privatization in poor countries. This
practice has had a devastating impact.
In a pastoral statement released during today's event, church
leaders said, "Ensuring access to sufficient, clean water is
at heart not so much a commercial matter as a moral and spiritual
one. Any denial of access to water represents a lack of respect
for God's creation and lack of concern for basic human needs."
They drew attention to the fact that even though Canadians have
been blessed with an abundance of clean water for generations, recent
events across the country – including Walkerton, Ontario,
and North Battleford, Saskatchewan – point to how precarious
Canada’s water supply really is.
And while Canadians face these challenges, for the more than one
billion people in Asia, Africa, and Latin America who lack safe
drinking water and sanitation services, water is a life and death
issue on a daily basis.
Elizabeth Eilor, a Director of the African Women's Economic Policy
Network (AWEPON) in Uganda, was a featured speaker at the event.
“Water is a fundamental human right and access to safe water
should be considered a birthright of all human beings,” she
said. “In Uganda, water privatization has already taken its
toll. As we talk today a majority of people do not have access to
clean drinking water. Therefore, they have to look for alternatives.
This, in effect, ends up causing a lot of suffering. We have lots
of people suffering from water-borne diseases like cholera and typhoid,
even in some urban areas around Kampala”.
Today's event was organized jointly by KAIROS: Canadian Ecumenical
Justice Initiatives, a nongovernmental organization that unites
churches and church agencies to work together on social justice
issues, and the Canadian Catholic Organization for Development and
Peace (CCODP).
The Church leaders and representatives were: Archbishop Andrew
Hutchison, Primate of the Anglican Church of Canada; Archbishop
Roger Ébacher, Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops, Social
Affairs Commission; Bishop Ray Schultz, National Bishop of the Evangelical
Lutheran Church in Canada; Frederick W. Sheffer, President of the
Montreal and Ottawa Conference, United Church of Canada; Carol Dixon
representing the Canadian Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society
of Friends (Quakers); Karen Bokma of the Christian Reformed Church
in North America; Bill Janzen of the Mennonite Central Committee;
and the Reverend Tony Boonstra, representing the Presbyterian Church
in Canada.
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