Nestle Waters Canada gives Town of Erin at least $25,000

Nestle Waters Canada will give the Town of Erin, just northwest of Brampton an annual donation of at least $25,000.

The voluntary levy is based on how much water is pumped at its nearby Hillsburgh well. That amounts to 50 cents per 1,000 litres drawn. At the minimum, the donation should be $25,000 a year.

The plan is for the municipality to use the cash at their will, but Nestle hopes it goes toward some sort of community-based project within Erin.

For activists like Wellington Water Watchers, they see a problem with that. Chair of the group Mike Nagy tells 570 NEWS once a town accepts money from a corporation like Nestle, it’ll start a divide that for the most part has a concern about water-taking practices and has been for a while. “It sets a dangerous precedent, it really does. It’ll become difficult from a positioning standpoint to say no to Nestle like we have when the company is willingly giving the town money to help it out. Once you start getting used to a bit of money, it’s hard to say no later.”

But Nestle Waters Canada says its goal isn’t to divide the town, but rather to bring it together. Chief Natural Resource Manager Andreanne Simard with the company says Nestle will continue to give back to the communities it’s been serving for so many years. “It’s really up to the community to decide what they want to do with the money. We work, we live, and we love the communities we live in, and this is our way of saying thank you.”

Town of Erin Councillors accepted the donation at a council meeting on Tuesday.

Nestle Waters Canada has come under increased scrutiny in the past two years after Ontario said the company only pays the province $3.71 per million litres drawn. Sources told The Canadian Press in January that Wynne’s government was going to introduce new rules that would bump the water-taking fee to $503.71 for the same amount.