News Archive

In this occasional feature, the Post tells you everything you need to know about a complicated issue. Today: Sarah Boesveld examines Calgary’s debate about removing fluoride from the city’s water. Q: Why is Calgary talking fluoride? A: The presence of fluoride in Calgary’s city-supplied drinking water, meant to prevent tooth decay, is one of the […]

Council will delay deciding on the future of fluoride in Calgary’s water system until a public hearing later this month, but one aldermen questions whether members’ minds are already made up and that a hearing would be largely ceremonial. Ten of 15 aldermen had lent signatures to a motion Monday that would have ended Calgary’s […]

Although removing fluoride from Calgary’s water would save money, some aldermen argue cost shouldn’t factor into the debate. Ald. Druh Farrell will bring forward a notice of motion today asking city council to vote in favour of removing fluoride from the city’s water. She said if fluoride is kept in the water, the city’s fluoridation […]

It might not be decision day on fluoridation after all. Council should delay its debate on removing fluoride from Calgary water to hold a public hearing on the issue later this month, Ald. Druh Farrell said Monday morning. The alderman leading the anti-fluoride side had gathered signatures from nine of her 14 colleagues backing her […]

It was the fall of 1989. Madonna’s Like a Prayer blasted on radios, stores were filled with acid-wash jeans and moviegoers awaited the release of Michael J. Fox’s Back to the Future II. And once again, Calgarians were talking fluoride. Newspaper articles described the virtues of adding fluoride to water to prevent tooth decay since […]

Alberta Health Services is urging aldermen not to drop fluoride from the city’s drinking water. Ald. Druh Farrell is set to present a motion on Monday calling for city council to scrap its fluoridation program and says a majority of aldermen are prepared to support her. However, AHS says the city’s two-decades-old ­fluoride policy is […]

Calgary is once again preparing to tackle the issue of water fluoridation, one of the longest and most contentious debates in Canadian history. Advocates argue that fluoridated drinking water is a safe and effective way to reduce cavities. Opponents call it a poison and a gross infringement of individual rights. When first introduced, it was […]

A movement to remove fluoride from Calgary’s drinking water supply has a majority of city council behind it, the Herald has learned. The question over fluoridation of tap water has been subject to council verdicts and plebiscites repeatedly over the past five decades, including a decisive 1989 vote that finally saw the additive put into […]

A Fulbright Scholar from Penn State who’s visiting the University of Lethbridge says it’s OK to feel good about the city’s drinking water which is purified using state-of-the-art technology and residents need not worry about fluoridation. Fluoridation has come up in recent months as a topic of public debate, arising as an election issue this […]