Quantum of Water Justice
by Council of Canadians

Quantum of Solace, which hits North American theatres today, pits James Bond against a new kind of super-villain, and a type which exists in the real world today: a corporate water baron. The plot, in which 007 goes head-to-head with a CEO who is trying to replace the Bolivian government with a dictatorship to take control of the country’s freshwater, shares much in common with real-world developments in Bolivia and around the globe.

While Bond movies are not generally known for having progressive politics, Quantum of Solace dramatizes the very real threat of the world’s water cartels that are intent on taking control of the world’s water,” cautions Meera Karunananthan, national water campaigner with the Council of Canadians.

 

 

 

 

 

The Harper government's recent decision to cut funding to the Global Environment Monitoring System, which 24 UN agencies use to monitor the world's water, will undercut real efforts to address the intensifying global water crisis, argues the Council of Canadians.

"Interestingly, the villain in this movie is using a supposedly eco-friendly company as a cover to steal Bolivia's water,” notes Anil Naidoo, Blue Planet Project Organizer. This is not fiction: in 1999, the US company Bechtel did seize the water of Cochabamba, Bolivia, through World Bank pressure, and this was met with massive, peaceful, street protests and general strikes which ultimately drove the company from the country and returned Cochabamba's water to public control. Naidoo points out that Bechtel sued for $50 million for lost future profits, using provisions similar to those in NAFTA that similarly threaten Canada's waters.

"Quantum of Solace highlights the very real threat to the world's water posed by multinational corporations like Nestle, Suez, Bechtel, and Veolia," says Maude Barlow, Senior UN Advisor on Water, chairperson of the Council of Canadians, and author of Blue Covenant: The Global Water Crisis and the Coming Battle for the Right to Water. "We know that the world is running out of water. What the world needs is a quantum of water justice".  Barlow notes that "right now this is not being ensured by any super-spy working for the world's most powerful governments; water justice is being sought by ordinary citizens from communities around the world, coming together to fight for social justice, environmental sustainability and human rights, and we all need to support these struggles."

 

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
November 14, 2008

For More Information:

Dylan Penner, Media Officer, Council of Canadians, Ottawa, Ph: 613-233-4487 x 249;
For Background information on water:
www.canadians.org/water/index.html &
www.canadians.org/about/Maude_Barlow/Blue_Covenant/index.html