Water is a Human Right - Canadian government votes against UN resolutions on the human right to water
Water is a human right. Take action now!
Today is International Human Rights Day.
The Council of Canadians is launching an online campaign to pressure Prime Minister Stephen Harper to stand up for the right to water at the United Nations.
There is no denying that a global water crisis is underway.
Around the world, over 1.2 billion people do not have access to clean drinking water and this number is rising, and another 4 billion lack adequate sanitation services.
In some parts of the global south, a child dies every 15 seconds due to easily preventable water-related diseases.
Everyone deserves the right to clean, safe, publicly-accessible water.
But believe it or not, the Canadian government doesn’t seem to agree.
At the UN Commission on Human Rights in 2002 and again in 2003, Canada was the only country to vote against the resolutions on the human right to water.
The Canadian government has declared that water is an important issue, and that countries are responsible for ensuring that their own populations have access to water, but Canada has clearly stated that it does not believe that international law should recognize the existence of a right to water.
To add to our shame, this year the Harper government voted against the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.
Canadians agree that our government’s continued opposition to the right to water is an international embarrassment and a disgrace. In 2004, an Ipsos-Reid poll showed that 97 per cent of Canadians support the right to water.
Meanwhile, Canada’s opposition to the right to water has been rebuked by Louise Arbour, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, and Miloon Kothari, the UN Special Rapporteur on Adequate Housing.
“Simply put: life requires access to clean water; to deny the right to water is to deny the right to life,” writes Maude Barlow, in her new book Blue Covenant. “The fight for the right to water is an idea whose time has come. It has become the rallying cry of the water justice movement.”
Stand up for the right to water today.
SEND A LETTER to Prime Minister Harper, demanding that the Canadian government support the right to water at the United Nations. Help us send as many letters as possible by World Water Day on March 22, 2008.
And to learn more about the global movement to protect the world’s water, visit www.canadians.org/water and www.blueplanetproject.net.