Earth Day Fundraiser: W. Canadian Premiere of FLOW: For Love of Water
This post published on March 19, 2008
OPEN CINEMA
is proud to announce its first fundraising event!
An Earth Day Special Fundraising Eventwith VIDEA
in conjunction withThe Council of Canadians & The Victoria Water Watch Coalition
7pm, Monday April 21st 2008
Victoria Event Centre, 1415 Broad St. Doors open at 5:30pm
Western Canada Premiere!
FLOW: For the Love of Water
This award-winning documentary and 2008 Sundance favourite highlights the local intimacies of an emerging global catastrophe, in Africa, India, California and Canada.
With an unflinching focus on politics, pollution and human rights, FLOW: For Love of Water ensures that the precarious relationship between humanity and water can no longer be ignored. While specifics of locality and issue may differ, the message is the same; water, and our future as a species, is quickly drying up. Armed with a thirst for survival, people around the world are fighting for their birthright. www.flowthefilm.com
Post-screening discussion with Richard C. Bocking (filmmaker and author of Mighty River) and Gwen Barlee, Policy Director for Western Canada Wilderness Committee
Cash bar
Complimentary Appetizers
Courtesy of Paisley Restaurant/Sanctuary Café
Silent & Live Auctions
Dozens of great items, including a night for two at Sooke Harbour House!
Much more!
ADMISSION BY DONATION
20% of funds raised go to VIDEA’s Women For Change Water Projects
TAX RECEIPTS AVAILABLE
Support our vibrant community event!
Although it didn’t win any prizes at the Sundance Film Festival, the new documentary FLOW: For Love of Water was something of a hot topic with festival goers. As Canada’s Maude Barlow (who appears in the film) says, “the global water shortage means that it is fast becoming a commodity.”
One might be forgiven for thinking that private companies must own water in order to “commodify” it, but that is not the case. In fact, corporations need only acquire multi-decade service contracts (public-private partnerships or “P3s”) in order to drive up the cost of water to create profits for their shareholders.
For developing nations, forced water privatization is the cost of aid from the World Bank whose controversial Public-Private Infrastructure Advisory Facility (PPIAF) promotes private sector interests, often at the expense of the world’s poor. Idealistic Canadians, who overwhelmingly support the “human right to water,” would be shocked to realize that through the PPIAF our tax dollars help fund the establishment of multi-
national corporations in the water-for-sale business – and surprised to learn that Canada does not even recognize water as a human right.
Most Canadian waterworks are public, representing a huge potential market for water privatization. We are also the second biggest water wasters in the world, making us attractive as “customers” for water corporations that have no interest in encouraging us to conserve our share of the world’s water. Unfortunately, our public systems have been under funded for years and there is now a huge infrastructure deficit. The federal government plans to deliver this infrastructure by promoting P3s – the same “solution” that has failed the poor in the developing world.
Canadian municipalities are quickly becoming the stage for an ideological battle over water, as corporations – aided by our own governments – attempt to carve out new markets for themselves within our public systems. Any aspect of a community’s water system that is privatized is seen as fair game by the big players of the corporate water world, who view water not as a human right but as the ultimate commodity from which vast fortunes will be made.
Freya Keddie
for Communications Committee
Greater Victoria Water Watch Coalition
We’ve been asked to donate a gift certificate from Green Cuisine for the silent auction.Yes, you can pick it up from the cashier at Green Cuisine..a $20 gift certificate. Please give a reciept for this. Thanks, Catherine at Green CUisine.