The debate surrounding bottled water finally came to a head Monday morning, when John Challinor II appeared at Sacred Heart/Sacre Coeur School to defend bottled water against a team of Development and Peace representatives, including Dick and Helen Peters, Anna Weber, Bert Pitzel, and Judy Corkery.
The debate was spurred by the appearance of an article in the April 13 edition of The Estevan Mercury explaining Sacred Heart's decision to remove bottled water from the school's vending machines. Several letters to the editor from both Challinor, who represents the Nestle Water Canada's day to day corporate communications and public affair activities, and the Polaris Institute, described on their website as "designed to enable citizen movements to re-skill and re-tool themselves to fight for democratic social change in an age of corporate driven globalization," were published in response to the April 13 article. Development and Peace, the official international organization of the Catholic Church in Canada, stepped in to debate Challinor in place of Polaris.
Principal Mary Ellen Barreth acted as mediator for the event. Both Barreth and Hanna Keating helped to organize the event. Grade 7 and 8 students were on hand to witness the debate, and participated in a question and answer period following both sides' arguments.
Challinor, who is the director of corporate affairs for Nestle Waters Canada, spoke first, first opening the discussion by saying that his interests in Estevan were not to protect the business interests of Nestle, as the company does not sell their products in schools. He also pointed out that there was nothing wrong with tap water, assuming that infrastructure was being maintained to protect the water's quality. The main argument Challinor presented was that the Sacred Heart students had the right to purchase whatever drink they preferred, and cited statistics from a third party study that claimed that banning bottled water did not reduce the number of plastic bottles entering landfills, as most of those who would have bought bottle water if it were available would buy other bottled beverages instead. He also pointed out that thanks to great recycling programs in Saskatchewan, 80 per cent of bottles were being recycled.
He also stated that efforts by the Development and Peace organization to "wrap this matter up in a clock of religiosity" is something Catholic theologians are concerned about.
In their rebuttal, Development and Peace took a more religion-based route, explaining that everything on Earth is a gift from God to be shared and to be thankful for, including water.
Pitzel said that "if anything impedes that [sharing], then we need to remove it." Pitzel stated that over the last 30-40 years, development has changed from something that involves the whole person and all people, to something that is driven by one's pocketbook.
He went on to say that we currently are living in a society where many corporations are "money must make money operations," something he claimed causes people to "value things and use people."
To conclude the Development and Peace group's opening comments, Pitzel said "if we are living to maximize profits, then we are saying we must have more in order to be more."
The debate broke for several minutes as both sides prepared their rebuttles.
Development and Peace representative Judy Corkery started off by saying that "we believe that water is the essence of life. It is a God given gift." She went on to point out that bottling water makes God's gift into a commodity, something that is not accessible to all people.
Coming back to the intended topic of the environmental issues surrounding bottled water, Corkery said that reducing and reusing were just as important as recycling. She pointed out that while many bottles are recycled, not all are completely recycled, and some of the recycled plastic is turned into plastic toys that eventually end up in landfills.
Challinor rebutted by saying that he agreed that water was a human right, but pointed out that it has been a commodity for thousands of years and was not about to change.
"I want to ensure you that what is taking place in Canada is responsible," he said, citing the fact that Canada's water is all owned by the Crown, something corporations do not want to change. However, Challinor was quick to point out that there is room for improvement: "could we be better users of water here in Canada? We certainly could be."
He also spoke about current ongoing efforts to improve recycling programs in Canada, citing his own work in Manitoba to improve the province's recycling program.
The debate concluded with a question and answer session, with students asking Challinor questions they had researched and prepared beforehand, and Development and Peace commenting on his answers.
To see a video of the debate, visit estevanmercury.ca
