The Peterborough - Kawarthas Chapter of The Council of Canadians

Campaigns: Safe Water

CANADA'S WATER IS VULNERABLE

Canadian water is so abundant. It's the natural resource we shall have forever, unlike so many other natural resources under dire threat. Well, think again, as you examine the following examples.

  1. The Great lakes - St. Lawrence River Basin Compact was signed in 2005 by Ontario, Quebec and eight US states. It is an attempt to prevent water diversions from the Great Lakes, but it actually only impedes diversions. It does not apply to bottled water and other products in containers of 20 L or less. Special, conditional rights have been granted to communities straddling the Great Lakes, particularly for the Chicago area, thus permitting out-of-basin transfers. It makes the International Joint Commission irrelevant and weakens the ability of the Canadian government to protect this basin.
  2. Alberta is experimenting with an open market for the sale and purchase of water licenses. This would allow license holders to sell water transfers and allow access to water resources to corporations able to pay and divert water to where they require it.
  3. Council of Canadians policy is to prevent bulk water exports. Note the cross-border diversions in 1. Also, there have been attempts during the last decade to pump and export huge volumes of water from Lake Superior and a Newfoundland glacier lake, Lake Gisborne, to foreign markets. These two developments were halted because of public outcry and the perceived cost of the projects. As recently as last October the Montreal Economic Institute has proposed a plan for $20 billion in annual bulk water sales from Quebec and Ontario to US.
  4. The responsibility to protect water, apparently, does not apply to metal mining companies. Lakes and rivers can be reclassified as ``Tailing Impoundment Areas (TIAs)`` to allow toxic dumping. A copper-gold mining project at Fish Lake, B.C. may be approved to include the draining of the lake in order to stockpile waste rock. A similar project is about to occur at Sandy Pond, Newfoundland, causing the initiation of a legal challenge to such TIAs. Last week the Council of Canadians, Mining Watch, the Newfoundland and Labrador Natural History Society, Sierra Club Atlantic, and scientists and activists in Newfoundland have legally challenged ``Schedule Two``, a regulatory loophole in the Fisheries Act, an Act designed to make it illegal to harm fish-bearing waters. Also, federal Liberal water critic, Francis Scarpaleggia intends to introduce legislation in the fall to close that loophole.
  5. Canada doesn`t have a BP offshore drilling disaster yet, but in Alberta the huge Tar Sands projects have led to several large tailings of toxic water wastes, leaching anywhere they can. There has been severe damage to Lake Athabaska and to the health of First Nations in the Fort Chipewyan area. Even without all the toxic by-products, it takes huge amounts of water to extract the crude oil to the surface, 3 - 5 litres to extract one litre of oil. Canada needs a national water policy to protect all Canadian water resources.

Roy Brady, chairperson, Peterborough and Kawarthas chapter, Council of Canadians

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