Celebrate allyship, solidarity, and reconcilation this July long weekend
Justice4Workers and Water Wachers are hosting important events and campaigns that fight for self-determination over our bodies, our work, and our water.
I love spending time in Guelph, Ontario! In fact, my favourite way to spend a Saturday is going to the Guelph Farmers’ Market to buy locally grown food for the week.
Then, I stroll along Wilson St., through the underpass with its amazing mural of local birds in flight, and down Carden St. to Eric the Baker.
Eric is from the Basque region of Northern Spain and he makes the absolute best version of my favourite dessert, Gateau Basque – along with a wide variety of French sweets and savouries, amazing rhubarb lemonade, and coffees.
Eric is located right next door to 10C Shared Space, an office hub that’s used by many of Guelph’s social justice and human rights groups including Justice for Workers Guelph (J4W Guelph) and Water Watchers (WW). Both groups are working on campaigns that are worth knowing about and supporting.
July 2nd, J4W Guelph is hosting The Fight for Self-Determination Over Our Bodies and Our Work.
J4W Guelph invites you to share good food, good company, and an important discussion about the rising attacks against LGBTQ+ people as well as ways to protect our communities.
Extreme right-wing groups are staging increasingly aggressive protests at schools, school-board meetings, and targeting drag performer story-reading events. Meanwhile, parents and grandparents are demanding the banning of books that mention gender variation as well as a list of the names of children who have read these books.
J4W Guelph reminds us that if anyone can be persecuted because of how they present, who they love, or what they believe, then none of us is safe.
The fight for meaningful control over our lives, on and off the job, is ultimately the struggle for human dignity and self-determination.
Bring something to sit on while you enjoy the pay-what-you-can picnic lunch before the discussion. Then, settle in to continue the conversation while local musicians share their talents.
Sunday, July 2 from 11 am to 1 pm at Royal City Park.
For more information about Justice for Workers and to find a chapter near you click here.
I’ve been writing about WW almost from the time they started demanding water justice. Then, they were known as Wellington Water Watchers (WWW).
Working from the basis that water is for life and not for profit, WW acknowledges that the issue of water justice is intersectional involving water security, racial justice, social justice, and water as a human right.
WW work to educate people about the three crisis that inform water justice -- namely, the climate crisis, colonialism, and capitalism.
Originally established to put an end to profiteering from bottling water that belongs to the social commons, WWs made life so difficult for the multi-national corporate giant Nestlé, that it sold it’s North American water brands to a private equity firm that rebranded as BlueTriton.
However, Nestlé continues to wreak havoc in other parts of the world including France and Brazil.
It’s important to know that Guelph is one of Canada’s largest cities that relies exclusively on ground water for its drinking water. BlueTriton’s wells are deeper than the county wells and BlueTriton is allowed to continue pumping water even when the City of Guelph is under water advisories.
In 2019, youth representative Makasa Looking Horse, delivered an official cease-and-desist order on behalf of Clan Mothers from Six Natiions to Nestlé Waters Canada headquarters in Aberfolyle – part of Wellington County.
The order was developed by the Haudenosaunee Confederacy, the Hereditary Chief’s Council from Six Nations.
Following the acquisition, the cease-and-desist order was renewed and delivered to BlueTriton in September 2021.
The intention behind the order was to stop water from being removed from sovereign First Nations territories and exported out of the watershed using fossil fuels for both the transportation and production of plastic bottles.
This extraction and the resulting pollution were done solely in the name of making profits for the owners of private equity firms One Rock Capital Partners and Metropoulos & Co.
A mere nine per cent of Six Nations households have access to clean water. Nestlé and BlueTriton refused to meet with representatives from Six Nations to discuss the extraction of water from First Nations lands without consent.
Since both orders have been ignored, WW is supporting the Hereditary Council from Six Nations in challenging the water-taking permit of Nestlé/BlueTriton.
WW is looking for allies who are able to chip in to help cover the legal costs of this historic fight that will ultimately benefit Six Nations residents, settlers across Wellington County, and Water Warriors across Canada and around the world.
The legal bill currently sits at $10,000, but continues growing as all legal avenues are explored. Donations made through the solidarity portal go directly to covering these legal fees.
Consider this another step in your journey to fostering allyship, solidarity, and reconciliation.