The Council of Canadians

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Founded in 1985 to oppose the Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement, the Council of Canadians is a citizens' organization that advocates for progressive policies on behalf of its members across the country. The Council concentrates its advocacy around the core issues of fair trade, public health care and the right to water, but has recently focused on what it calls the deep integration of Canada with the United States.

The Council of Canadians is chaired by Maude Barlow, who is best known internationally for her work on water. In 2005, Barlow received the Right Livelihood Award, or the "Alternative Nobel Prize," with Tony Clarke, "for their exemplary and longstanding worldwide work for trade justice and the recognition of the fundamental human right to water." In 2002 Barlow and Clarke published Blue Gold: the Battle Against Corporate Theft of the World's Water, which was published in 40 countries.

In 2005, Barlow published a book on Canada-U.S. relations called Too Close for Comfort: Canada's Future Within Fortress North America. It argued that Canada and the United States were being pulled together by stealth through a series of working groups devoted to the harmonization of continental regulations on trade, the environment, immigration and citizenship, and labour.

In her latest book Blue Covenant: The Global Water Crisis and the Coming Battle for the Right to Water, Barlow lays out the actions that we as global citizens must take to secure a water-just world — a “blue covenantâ€