Maude Victoria Barlow is a Canadian author and activist. She is a founding member of the Council of Canadians, a citizens' advocacy organization with members and chapters across Canada. She is also the co-founder of the Blue Planet Project, which works internationally for the human right to water. Maude chairs the board of Washington-based Food & Water Watch, is a founding member of the San Francisco–based International Forum on Globalization, and a Councillor with the Hamburg-based World Future Council. In 2008/2009, she served as Senior Advisor on Water to the 63rd President of the United Nations General Assembly and was a leader in the campaign to have water recognized as a human right by the UN. She has authored and co-authored 19 books, including her latest, Boiling Point: Government Neglect, Corporate Abuse, and Canada's Water Crisis; and .
Awards
Maude is the recipient of fourteen honorary doctorates as well as many awards, including the 2005 Right Livelihood Award, the 2005 Lannan Foundation Cultural Freedom Fellowship Award, the Citation of Lifetime Achievement at the 2008 Canadian Environment Awards, the 2009 Earth Day Canada Outstanding Environmental Achievement Award, the 2009 Planet in Focus Eco Hero Award, and the 2011 EarthCare Award, the highest international honour of the Sierra Club.
Published works
Books: Principal author or co-author
Parcel of Rogues: How Free Trade Is Failing Canada – Key Porter Books, Toronto
Take Back the Nation – Key Porter Books, Toronto
Take Back the Nation 2 – Key Porter Books, Toronto
Class Warfare: The Assault on Canada's Schools – Key Porter Books, Toronto .
Straight through the Heart: How the Liberals Abandoned the Just Society – Harper Collins, Toronto .
The Big Black Book: The Essential Views of Conrad and Barbara Amiel Black – Stoddart, Toronto .
MAI: The Multilateral Agreement on Investment and the Threat to American Freedom – Stoddart, Toronto
The Fight of My Life: Confessions of an Unrepentant Canadian – Harper Collins, Toronto .
MAI: The Multilateral Agreement on Investment Round 2; New Global and Internal Threats to Canadian Sovereignty – Stoddart, Toronto
Frederick Street: Life and Death on Canada's Love Canal – Harper Collins, Toronto
Global Showdown: How the New Activists Are Fighting Global Corporate Rule – Stoddart, Toronto .
Blue Gold: The Battle Against Corporate Theft of the World's Water – Stoddart, Toronto .
Profit Is Not the Cure: A Citizen's Guide to Saving Medicare – McCelland & Stewart, Toronto .
Too Close For Comfort; Canada's Future Within Fortress North America – McClelland & Stewart, Toronto .
Blue Covenant: The Global Water Crisis and the Fight for the Right to Water – McClelland & Stewart, Toronto . Also available in French, Arabic, Japanese, Portuguese, Korean, Greek, Turkish, and Spanish.
Blue Future: Protecting Water for People and the Planet Forever - House of Anansi, Inc., Toronto , 978-1-7708-9407-5.
Boiling Point: Government Neglect, Corporate Abuse, and Canada's Water Crisis - ECW Press, Toronto .
Whose Water is it Anyway? Taking water protection into public hands. - ECW Press, Toronto .
Books: contributing author
Trading Freedom: How Free Trade Affect our Lives, Work, and Environment – Institute for Policy Studies, Washington
The American Review of Canadian Studies – Twentieth Anniversary Issue of The Association for Canadian Studies in the United States, Washington
Crossing the Line: Canada and Free Trade With Mexico- New Star Publications, Vancouver
Globalization and the Live Performing Arts, Conference Papers – Monash University, Melbourne
Alternatives to Economic Globalization, a Report of the International Forum on Globalization – Berrett-Koehler Publishers, San Francisco
Whose Water Is It? The Unquenchable Thirst of a Water-Hungry World – Edited by Bernadette McDonald and Douglas Jehl, National Geographic, Washington
Meeting the Global Challenge: Competitive Position and Strategic Response – BMA Program, Edited by Tom Wesson, York University Press, Toronto
Globalization, Human Rights & Citizenship, An Anthology From the Gannett Lecture Series – Rochester Institute of Technology, Edited by Robert Manning – trade paperback
Reports
– International Forum on Globalization, San Francisco
The Free Trade Area of the Americas, The Threat to Social Programs, Environmental Sustainability and Social Justice – International Forum on Globalization, San Francisco
Making the Links, A Citizen's Guide to the World Trade Organization and the Free Trade Area of the Americas – The Council of Canadians, Ottawa
The Global Fight Against Privatization of Water – Annual Report, The World Forum on Alternatives, Geneva
The Canada We Want, A Citizen's Alternative to Deep Integration – The Council of Canadians, Ottawa
Film
Barlow is in the feature documentary film ' by Sam Bozzo. Barlow is featured in two other recent documentaries about water rights issues: Irena Salina's documentary ', and Liz Marshall's Water on the Table. Barlow also contributes to a blog associated with Water on the Table. Barlow is the subject of a National Film Board of Canada documentary Democracy à la Maude as well as a CBC TVLife and Times biography. The Bollywood film Paani, being directed by Shekhar Kapur, is based on Blue Covenant: The Global Water Crisis and the Coming Battle for the Right.