The ProblemWater is not a renewable resource—it is finite. It can only be transformed; more cannot be created. There is only so much clean groundwater. It must be pro-tected so that it will be available to future generations.

Nestlé Waters Canada currently has permits to extract 4.7 million litres per day of groundwater in Wellington County, and wants to extract an additional 1.6 million litres. This water leaves local watersheds, never to return, while creating a plastic waste epidemic—the majority of which winds up in landfills or as litter. In places like Centre-Wellington, for-profit water-taking for bottling ultimately interferes with public needs for access to drinking water. A recent City of Guelph re-port, similarly, shows that water-mining for bottling in Aberfoyle will come into direct conflict with Guelph’s water needs in as little as 20 years.

Campaign GoalsPhasing out permits to bottle water in Ontario is an easy and immediate action that we can take now to protect groundwater for current and future genera-tions. (See Wellington Water Watchers Water for Life, Not Profit program)

Ontario can be a leader in protecting groundwater by announcing a commitment to phase out permits to bottle water in Ontario over the next ten years.

Ask people to sign post-

cards and deliver them to your MPP

Download and print letter from our website, sign and add your own personal comments.

Here are three actions you can

take before March 22, 2018

(World Water Day).

2Ask your MPP to endorse our Water For Life, Not Profit program1

Send a letter to Premier Wynne today! 3

Order postcards by emailing us at wellingtonwaterwatchers@gmail.com

Bring postcards to a meeting of your organization.

Table with postcards at meetings or events in your community.

Deliver postcards to your MPP before March 22, and ask your MPP to take them to Queen’s Park. (You might deliver the post cards as part of a strategy of meeting with your MPP).Important: See the

section “4 Steps for Meeting with your MPP” for more information.

GET YOUR MPP TO SIGN IT!

Say to Nestlé NOTAKE ACTION NOW!

We also see how the effects of climate change become more intense with every passing day. There is a wide range of bold actions that must be taken to protect the ecosystem on which life depends. The clock is ticking.

Campaign History - We have already made important progress!Fall 2013

Wellington Water Watchers and allies force Nestlé to accept mandatory drought restrictions on their water-taking in Hillsburgh, thereby setting a precedent toward a more restrictive approach to the approval of permits for all bottling operations.

Fall 2016 In response to campaign of Wellington Water Watch-

ers and allies, Premier Kathleen Wynne declares existing water taking regulations are out of date and were never intended for this purpose.

Winter 2016 Wellington Water Watchers campaign caused the

Liberal government of Ontario to announce a two year moratorium on considering Nestlé’s application for a water taking permit for its recently purchased well in Middlebrook.

Nestlé’s applications to renew their water taking permits in Aberfoyle and Hillsburgh are on hold until new regula-tions are in place.

Winter 2017 The Ministry of Environment and Climate Change

(MOECC) drafts new guidelines to govern the permit to take water process and raises the permit fee from $3.71 per million litres to $503.71 per million litres due to cost of managing these type of consumptive permits.

MOECC is consulting stakeholder groups—including Wellington Water Watchers—on the new guidelines.

The moratorium temporarily halted the expansion of corporate control and the wholesale removal and resale of precious Ontario ground water. However it is un-known what will happen once this pause for reflection is lifted.

But our biggest tasks still lie ahead of usPremier Wynne has expressed serious doubts about bottled water—now is the time for action. It is time to phase out the bottled water industry in Ontario and ensure public ownership and control of municipal water.

PROGRAMThe Government of Ontario must establish policy and regulations that phase out the bottled water industry in Ontario.

Say “No to Nestlé” in Wellington County.

2 4

1 3

• Start by denying for-profit water bottling permit applications at new sites while scaling back existing permits.

• Prohibit municipalities from letting for-profit water bottling corporations bottle municipal water.

• Design and implement a 10-year plan to completely stop the bottling of Ontario water by for-profit water bottling companies.

• Establish a provincial fund to enable workers of for-profit water bottling companies to transition to equivalent or better jobs.

Phase out the bottled water industry within ten years.

• Deny Nestlé’s applications to take water from Aberfoyle and Hillsburgh for bottling and sale.

• Don’t allow Nestlé to take water from Middlebrook (Elora) for bottling and sale.

• Require any facility that receives provincial funding to make drinking water available to the public (via drinking fountains).

• Prohibit private/public partnerships (so-called P3s) in municipal water systems.

• Return existing municipal water P3s to public owner-ship and control, and invest in water infrastructure and training in conservation and management.

• Provide portable, potable water and water filtration systems as part of emergency planning and response.

Ensure public ownership and control of water.

• The Ministry of Environment and Climate Change (MOECC) and applicants seeking new or renewed permits must comprehensively consult with all indig-enous peoples, whose asserted or proven Aboriginal and treaty rights may be adversely impacted by water taking within their traditional territories.

Respect the duty to consult Indigenous communities.

Signature Date

MPP for the riding:

endorse the Water for Life, Not Profit program

1 Assemble a delegation Make sure it represents the composition of your orga-nization and your community. Never go in alone. The delegation should have at least three members.

2 Prepare the Information KitThe information kit for your MPP should include:

Water for Life Not Profit program

Water, A Sacred Gift

Public Opinion Poll summary

F.A.Q.

3 The meeting

Things to consider before you start It is usually best to have one main spokesperson. Others can speak briefly on specific points. One person should keep notes.

Politicians often wander off topic. If your delegation is committed to staying on topic, it is much easier to keep the politician on topic!

The meeting should last 20 to 30 minutes.

Starting the meeting Introductions of the people present.

Some warm-up chatting with the MPP is fine but do not allow this to go on for more than a few minutes. Be assertive in a friendly way—if necessary—to start your presentation.

The spokesperson’s presentation Plan to speak for no more than 10 minutes.

Use the contents of the information kit to prepare your presentation.

Give the MPP a copy of the Information Kit.

4 Steps to Meeting with your MPP Deliver your message.

Make sure that you are clear about what you want.

Ask the MPP directly: We are here to ask you to endorse the Water for Life, Not Profit program.

Ask the MPP if they have any questions.

MPP response and discussion Listen carefully to the MPP.

Speak to the points they make.

Keep bringing the conversation back to the key points in the Water for Life, Not Profit program.

Push for a signature on the “endorsement” of the Water for Life, Not Profit program.

Wrap-up If the MPP does sign the endorsement, thank them!

If the MPP does not agree to sign the endorsement, tell them that you hope they will do so at another time.

Tell the MPP that the campaign will be very active during the provincial election and that you will be back to meet with them again.

Thank the MPP.

4 After the meeting Sit down with your delegation to discuss what hap-pened at the meeting. Note possible improvements for future meetings.

Send an email report on the meeting to the Welling-ton Water Watchers at wellingtonwaterwatchers@gmail.com

If your MPP signed the endorsement, please scan and email it to wellingtonwaterwatchers@gmail.com, or send it by mail to:

Wellington Water Watchers@ 10C Shared Space, 42 Carden Street Guelph, ON N1H 3A2

FORLIFE

NOT PROFIT

WATER

Wellington Water Watchers42 Carden Street

Guelph, ON N1H 3A2

wellingtonwaterwatchers@gmail.com

The campaign to phase out permits to bottle water in

Ontario

Informationfor MPP

PROGRAMThe Government of Ontario must establish policy and regulations that phase out the bottled water industry in Ontario.

Say “No to Nestlé” in Wellington County.

24

1 3

• Start by denying for-profit water bottling permit applications at new sites while scaling back existing permits.

• Prohibit municipalities from letting for-profit water bottling corporations bottle municipal water.

• Design and implement a 10-year plan to completely stop the bottling of Ontario water by for-profit water bottling companies.

• Establish a provincial fund to enable workers of for-profit water bottling companies to transition to equivalent or better jobs.

Phase out the bottled water industry within ten years.

• Deny Nestlé’s applications to take water from Aberfoyle and Hillsburgh for bottling and sale.

• Don’t allow Nestlé to take water from Middlebrook (Elora) for bottling and sale.

• Require any facility that receives provincial funding to make drinking water available to the public (via drinking fountains).

• Prohibit private/public partnerships (so-called P3s) in municipal water systems.

• Return existing municipal water P3s to public ownership and control, and invest in water infrastructure and training in conservation and management.

• Provide portable, potable water and water filtration systems as part of emergency planning and response.

Ensure public ownership and control of water.

• The Ministry of Environment and Climate Change (MOECC) and applicants seeking new or renewed permits must comprehensively consult with all indigenous peoples, whose asserted or proven Aboriginal and treaty rights may be adversely impacted by water taking within their traditional territories.

Respect the duty to consult Indigenous communities.

Email@address.com

Visit our Say No to Nestlé campaign and endorse the Program

www.SayNoToNestle.ca@wwaterwatchers #SayNoToNestle #SayNoToBottledWater

Frequently Asked Questionsabout the campaign to phase out permits to bottle water in Ontario

Doesn’t Ontario have more water than it needs? Why should we worry about the amount bottlers take? There is often a false perception that Ontario has more water than it needs. Our culture has become “how much can we take before it is too much?” It should be about leaving as much in the ground as possible. Most of Ontario residents experience water stress due to longer droughts and effects from climate change. Ontario has been focused on granting more permits to take water rather than on conserving water. Bottlers take the best drinking water and a lot from areas where there is great competition for it. All unnecessary extraction especially thosebased on reselling our water need to be halted.

What is the moratorium I’ve read about?The Ontario Government has adopted a 2 year moratorium on new or expanded permits to bottle water. This gives us time to make sure the Ministry makes needed changes to regulations governing Permits-To-Take-Water (PTTW). New water regulations and ground water science protocol are being developed and will be applied to new and existing permits for this industry.

Don’t we need bottled water for Emergencies? There are circumstances where bottled water may be needed as a short-term solution, but it shouldn’t be the default. We need to work harder to be ensure that affordable potable water is available to all. This should be our right. Our governments must make access to clean water a top priority. Where water is not potable and replacement water is temporarily needed, using large containers that can be refilled is the answer, not single serving, one-time use, disposable 500 ml bottles.

Why don’t we focus on telling consumers: “if you don’t like bottled water, just don’t buy it”? The water bottling industry has negative Implications for all of us, whether we participate in it or not. In much of the world they profit from shortage most often from those who are impoverished. Water mining companies will continue extracting water from beneath our communities to fulfill shareholder demands while spewing millions of plastic bottles into our rivers, lakes and oceans.

I really like the convenience of having water available when I’m thirsty. If bottled water is not available, what can I do? Lobby for the return of drinking fountains that used to be everywhere. Use your refillable water bottle and encourage your family and friends to do the same for ‘on the go’ lifestyles. Use filtration systems if needed or leave a pitcher of water in fridge to let any chlorine dissipate over night. Consider that water is a commons and in the public trust. Clean safe reliable drinking water should be available for all. Your choices make a big difference. PH

OTO

: JAM

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Why is the campaign focused on Nestlé?The goals and activities of the Wellington Water Watchers are focused on changing policy, not on targeting individual companies. We oppose any extraction of water that is reckless and harmful to the environment, our communities, and our health. While we therefore oppose all corporate water bottling, the campaign is focused on Nestle because Nestle is the only corporation bottling water in Wellington County, is seeking to expand its water-taking in the County, and is by far the largest water bottler in Ontario.

Why single out water bottling? What about other water users such as pop and beer?The Permit to Take Water PTTW system was never intended for the mere wholesale extraction and resale of water for pure profit. Ontario’s Permit to Take Water (PTTW) system was created 30 years ago to provide access to water for municipalities, farmers and value-added industry including things like beer and other beverage producers. As Premier Wynne herself has noted, no one could foresee a market for bottled water at that time, so no provisions were built into the PTTW system to properly assess applications for this type of consumptive extraction. In Ontario, multi-national companies that pump water into plastic bottles and truck it out of the watershed to maximize shareholder profits have the same access to water as farmers, for example, who grow our food. We believe this needs to change.

What is the most important reason to you that the permits for groundwater-taking that Nestlé and other water-taking companies have should not be renewed?

Survey MethodologyMainstreet surveyed a random sample of 4,016 Ontarians on March 5-6, 2017 through Chimera IVR. Respondents were screened to confirm voting eligibility. Landline and Cell lines were included. Responses were weighed using demographic information to targets based on the 2011 Census.

The margin of error for survey results is ± 1.55 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.

Over a third of the respondents who do not want to see the water-taking permits renewed cite the negative impact of excessive water- taking as the main reason for why they do not want to see the permits renewed. Just over a quarter of them cite their disapproval of water being treated as a commodity, while 21.2% cite the excessive waste from plastic water bottles are their main concern.

We see similar trends among respondents from different regions in Ontario, except in eastern and southwestern Ontario where disapproval of water being treated as a com-modity is the most cited concern. We see no major differences between gender groups.

(Answered by those opposed only)

33% Concerned about the negative environmental impact of excessive water-taking

20% Concerned about the excessive waste from plastic water bottles

9% Believe that bottled water undermines the perception that tap water is safe

24% Disapprove of water being treated as a commodity

9% Other

4% Not sure

In terms of age groups, only the 35 to 49 age cohort cite disapproval of water being treated as a water commodity more often, and all other groups mostly express concern about excessive water-taking’s negative impact on the environment.

All supporters of provincial political parties cite excessive water-taking’s negative impact on the environment as their main concern, except for Progressive Conservatives, who are more concerned with the excessive waste that plastic water bottles produce. Respondents who are undecided about which party to sup-port cite disapproval of water being treated as a commodity as their most frequent concern.

POLL QUESTION