Canada Bulk Water Export: NDP strongly opposed.

Dear John,

Thank you for taking the time to write. Canada's New Democrats share your concerns and have consistently opposed bulk water exports of this precious natural resource. In fact, our interest to protect Canada’s water resources date back to Canada’s early involvement with the North American Free Trade Agreement.

First and foremost, New Democrats believe that the access to clean water is not a privilege but a human right for all Canadians and people world-wide. Unfortunately the Conservative government refused to support a recent United Nations resolution to recognize access to water and sanitation as basic human rights.

Our vision for Canada includes a commitment to protecting our supplies of fresh water by excluding it from all international trade agreements, privatization and deregulation. That`s why New Democrats want to ensure that NAFTA excludes water and bulk water exports from its scope. Water is our most precious natural resource, but it belongs to both all of us and none of us— it is not a commercial commodity. We have been told repeatedly that our water resources would be protected in trade deals. However, neither Conservative nor Liberal governments have added water to the list of goods to be exempt from NAFTA. This omission has left a loophole which could eventually cause us to lose control over our own water resources.

We have consistently called on successive Liberal and Conservative governments to develop a robust National Water Policy. Such a policy is urgently needed to address important water-related issues facing all of us today-- including the roughly 1,700 boiled water advisories affecting Canadians and the negative environmental impact of water use in the tar sands development. While the Harper government committed to a clean water strategy in the past, it has yet to produce one.

As you may know in the 2007 spring session, Parliament voted 134 to 108 in favour of a motion to prevent bulk water exports. The motion came about from a push by the New Democrats to have hearings on the impact of the so-called Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America (SPP) because SPP negotiations have revived troubling questions over access to Canadian water. For more information on the SPP. 

Again, thank you for writing. Again, I appreciate knowing of your interest to have effective measures in place that will preserve and protect our water for future generations. Please know that we will continue to press this important issue.

All the best,

Jack Layton, MP (Toronto-Danforth)

Leader, Canada's New Democrats

Canada Bulk Water Exports to US and abroad is imminent!

From June 16-2010:British Columbia Premier Gordon Campbell joined his counterparts from Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Northwest Territories, Yukon and Nunavut for the two-day conference at the Pan Pacific Hotel.

Followed by: Lawrence Cannon – Min of Foreign Affairs – Trans boundary Waters Protection Act – May 13, 2010
“The new act strengthens existing protections by bringing waters within federal jurisdiction under a more comprehensive prohibition against bulk water removals. Rivers and streams that cross international borders will now receive the same protection already in place for waters, such as the Great Lakes, that straddle them.

The Act gives the federal government new powers of inspection and enforcement and introduces tough new penalties for violations, including fines of up to $6 million for corporate violations. The bill offers unprecedented federal protection against bulk water exports while respecting provincial constitutional jurisdiction.”

Bill C-26 – Summary of the bill can be found here.

There were two news items in Alberta. Drumheller Alberta and Okotoks Alberta purchased water allotments. The first was from an unnamed party (insider) the other was from an Oil Company. The latter, cost Okotoks over a million dollars for rights to some 230,000 cubic meters of water annually.

Water allotments have never been sold in the past. The oil companies, towns and cities received them free of charge as did the unnamed insider. Bolstered by the Alberta Government the towns had to pay up.

This adds many dollars to the resource and forces the price of water utilities up in the extreme!. When it comes time to export, they will tell Albertans the cost is the same. Edmonton now has the highest water prices in the world (National Geographic April 2010).

Following the long standing Conservative dream of including water into NAFTA and changing bulk water to a commodity is fore front in their plans. The Conservative Association of Canada went before the Privy Council to argue that Water bulk export was included in NAFTA and were told it was not! They said they would wait for a better day.

With Conservative Governments in across the map now seems like a good time to go for the gold!

If we export water under NAFTA rules (which are inherently unfair and biased towards the US), we must give the Americans first chance at the water and we cannot charge the Americans more money than we are now paying.

More details on NAFTA and Water:-

The higher they push the prices on Canadian water to Canadians, the higher the exporters can charge for the water going to the US! This is simply price fixing on a grand scale! Under the new scheme, when it comes time to export, people will be paying more money for water than those people in California who are the targeted export market. Costs of the necessary pipelines to export will be added to Canadian water bills.

This is Harper’s dream! . The Canada Environment are running TV is carrying subtle advertisements in fill in spots saying “our water is our finest resource and it must be shared.” This is a north American movement which has been kept away from the eyes of the public.

From the North:
GNWT seeks agreements with provinces to protect water. Yellowknife, N.W.T. - The NWT has developed a strategy to manage the territory's waters, but protecting rivers and lakes at home can't be done without the cooperation of neighbors from the South. Keep in mind the Alberta Pipeline would accommodate a steady flow from the Great Slave Lake!

On the east coast quote:
“Fortunately, there is some hope that the wisdom of water sales may eventually triumph over emotionalism. Last spring the McCurdy Group, a Newfoundland company looking for permission to tanker 13 billion gallons a year from pristine Gisbourne Lake, received an unexpected endorsement from Newfoundland's Liberal Premier Roger Grimes. Mr. Grimes has promised to use the money the government gets from the deal to underwrite university tuition in Canada's poorest province. A better plan would be to auction the rights and use the proceeds for much-needed tax cuts. (A striking difference between the Conservatives and the Liberals)

The above rhetoric is not true; bulk export of water from Lakes is not legal!

More on the subject here and here.

The McCurdy Group is still waiting for an official go-ahead but thanks to Canadian law, the federal government can't stop the province from granting the permit. "We don't want to sell water in bulk," says Mr. Chretien, "But at the same time, we have to realize that we don't have absolute control of the water. We have control of navigable waters, but we don't have control of other types of water that are under the provincial jurisdiction." Ontario and British Columbia have already said "no" to companies that want to sell water by tanker but if Newfoundland has success in water marketing that might change.”

And in Calgary a quote from the Green Party (Still another Fuzzy named right wing party; this one trying to find an agenda.

* The case for selling Canadian water is being presented more forcefully in the media by SPP proponents, journalists, business strategists and investors seeking profits in this potentially lucrative market.

* Massive NAFTA Super-Corridors, complete with plans for water pipelines, are in the works.

* Bulk water exports were the focus of meetings of the North American Future 2025
Project. According to documents leaked by a Washington-based think tank, SPP meetings in Calgary on April 28, 2007 were to discuss "water consumption, water transfers and artificial diversions of bulk water" with the aim of "maximizing the policy impact.”

An Item from California; Pipelines.
Our challenge is to not only conserve more and clean up the polluted water we have, but also to transfer large amounts of water from areas that enjoy surplus resources, such as Russia, Canada, Alaska and northern Europe, to areas that face long-term scarcity, like California.

Ocean shipping, already the medium for more than 90 percent of international trade, is a logical solution.
And the nail in the coffin from Alberta:
First consider the Peace River is a navigable water legislation changes would have to take place; that is Harper's job.

In the ‘80s the Alberta Government commissioned a fully engineered pipeline by Weatherford on moving water from the Peace River into Southern Alberta, using it to irrigate the pipeline corridor and export huge amounts into the American northern states.

This plan calls for an immense pipe line capable of moving two-thirds of the Peace River Flow through the pipe along with the assurances it will not harm the wild life. This same plan calls for 8 lift stations to move the water; each of them using the electrical power of a small city.

Further, this project was approved, only shelved, until the weather gets dry enough and the public can see the light or, the political opportunity arrives, such as now.

All this ties in with the new dam being proposed on the Peace announced by BC’s Gordon Campbell who at every opportunity is telling the world he is going to usher in a new way of looking after our water resource.

Between the existing dam on the Peace River and the New Dam on the Peace River proposed by Gordon Campbell there will be created a large lake, sufficient to act as a sump to draw down the amount of water this pipeline is capable of, all year around. If there is a shift away from the Conservatives or it comes to Canadian’s attention they are charged exploitative charges on their water service the whole scenario can change.

The only way to break this up is to vote the various participants out of office!