I vote to lift the ban on bottled water in Toronto!

In 2008 The Toronto City Council voted to ban bottled water at all city owned facilities by the end of 2011 (http://www.toronto.ca/union_station/pdf/2008-12-01-cc27-dd.pdf) and serve tap water instead.

Unfortunately, a recent bid to lift the ban was unsuccessful. This campaign has also expanded to university campuses nationwide, who are installing "hydration stations" in place of bottled water, and to restaurants who are serving "Q water" as an alternative. Here's the problem: Toronto tap water contains 0.6 mg/ L of Fluoride (in the form of hydrofluorosilicic acid) which is a toxic industrial waste product (www.solvaychemicals.us/static/wma/pdf/5/1/4/9/HFS.pdf).

Many bottled water companies filter out this harmful substance and other impurities using reverse osmosis filtration systems. Hydration stations and the producers of Q water however, use carbon water filters that do not remove the harmful fluoride. We as Canadians live in a democratic society and have the RIGHT TO CHOOSE whether or not we want to consume fluoride!

97% of Western European countries DO NOT fluoridate their water partly because it infringes on peoples' right to choose.