Water On The Table - Wednesday March 21 2012 at 9 pm ET

Water On The Table
Wednesday March 21 2012 at 9 pm ET
60 minutes
Written, directed and produced by Liz Marshal
produced in association with TVO

Is water a human right, or a commodity to be bought and sold like gold and oil? Thats the question at the heart of this timely new documentary by filmmaker Liz Marshall. Over the course of a year in Canada and the United States, the film follows Canadian activist Maude Barlow as she campaigns against the privatization of water and tries to bring attention to how industry is polluting the water table.

As the national chairperson of the Council of Canadians, co-founder of the Blue Planet Project, and the United Nations Senior Advisor on Water from 2008 to 2009, Barlow has acquired the moniker of water warrior. With cameras close on her heels, Barlow leads a hectic schedule of speaking engagements and frontline community actions that take her from the United Nations, to the Alberta tar sands, to a protest by Aboriginal women in Simcoe County, Ontario, to stop a proposed landfill site on what has been named the purest water source in the world.

While many embrace Barlow as a leader in the global water justice movement, others regard her as an alarmist and agitator. Barlows opponents in Canada and the United States argue that water is no different from any other resource, and that the best way to protect freshwater is to privatize it. They argue that Canada is water-rich and propose that Canada make its freshwater available now and into the future, especially to the United States as it faces an imminent water crisis.

Category:

Education

Tags:

• water
• politics
• science
• environment
• climate
• change
• human
• right
• commodity
• gold
• oil
• documentary
• Liz
• Marshall
• Maude
• Barlow
• privatization
• Council of Canadians
• Blue
• Planet
• Project
• TVO
• TVOntario
• Ontario
• Canada
• Flying
• Solo