Blue Community bid evaporates despite watered-down

By Philip Round/Echo Staff / Comox Valley Echo April 25, 2014 08:49 AM – See more at:

A City councillor's hope of persuading fellow elected officials to support the idea of Courtenay becoming a Blue Community evaporated earlier this week.

Councillor Ronna-Rae Leonard said the fact that Tuesday was Earth Day was a particularly good time to propose three motions on the issue of water security and availability.

She noted that both Cumberland and Comox had adopted at least some elements of the Blue Communities campaign being promoted by the Council of Canadians, and she hoped Courtenay would play its part, too.

But even though Leonard watered down the wording of two of the motions in a bid to make them more palatable to a wider range of political opinion, all were defeated.

The closest she got was a tied 3-3 vote on her first, and in BC local government law, a tied vote is a lost vote.

That initial motion sought to recognize and affirm that access to clean water was a human right (a step already endorsed by the United Nations General Assembly); called on the federal and provincial governments to enshrine that right in our laws; and urged senior governments to develop a national action plan to ensure the right became a reality across the country.

Leonard was supported by Councillors Doug Hillian and Bill Anglin on that vote, and opposed by Mayor Larry Jangula along with Councillors Manno Theos and Starr Winchester.

Her other two motions, promoting the merits of public ownership of water supplies and waste water infrastructure (having removed phrases about opposing privatization), and affirming that bottled water should not be sold in municipal establishments, were lost on 4-2 votes, with Anglin joining Jangula, Winchester and Theos in opposition while Hillian continued in support.

But while being defeated on all three counts, a suggestion made by Leonard about increasing the number of drinking fountains and accessible bottle-filling stations drawing from public water supplies did spark interest. Several councillors agreed those were ideas worth pursuing.

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http://www.comoxvalleyecho.com/news/local/blue-community-bid-evaporates-despite-watered-down-1.984698