Not Counting Canadians: Canadians think water is a human right and want to ban bulk water exports

Canadians think water is a human right and want to ban bulk water exports

88% of Canadians agree that Canada should adopt a comprehensive national water policy that recognizes clean drinking water as a basic human right and also bans the bulk export of fresh water

of Canadians agree that Canada should adopt a comprehensive national water policy that recognizes clean drinking water as a basic human right and also bans the bulk export of fresh water.

So why is Prime Minister Stephen Harper discussing bulk water exports with the U.S. as part of the Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP)? And why did the Conservative government recently block a United Nations bid to recognize water as a basic human right? Through SPP discussions on bulk water exports to the U.S., and through diversionary tactics at the international level, the Harper government is making a mockery of Canadians’ desire for a strong national policy that treats water as an essential human right, not a commodity to be bought and sold.

In March 2006, at the second SPP summit in Cancun, Mexico, Harper, Bush and Calderon commissioned the North American Future 2025 Project – a U.S. Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) initiative to help guide trilateral discussions on integration. A closed-door meeting in Calgary targeted “water consumption, water transfers and artificial diversions of bulk water” with the aim of achieving “joint optimum utilization of the available water.”

“It’s no secret that the U.S. is going to need water. ... It’s no secret that Canada is going to have an overabundance of water,” said CSIS project leader Armand Peschard-Sverdrup in an interview with the Ottawa Citizen in April 2007. “At the end of the day, there may have to be arrangements.”

Canada does not have an unlimited supply of fresh water. While it contains many lakes and rivers, it holds just seven per cent of the world’s available freshwater supplies – water that can be used without damaging the ecosystem or decreasing overall water stock. This is the same amount of useable water as is available in the United States.

Canada is already exporting water to the U.S. through the Alberta tar sands project, which requires between three and five barrels to produce one barrel of oil. Most of that oil heads due south, and the SPP calls for a fivefold increase in production. A recent legal study warns that Canada could face a NAFTA challenge if it attempted to stem the flow of water to the tar sands.

Water was included as a “good,” a “service,” and an “investment” in NAFTA. So like energy, once Canada begins exporting fresh water to the U.S. for commercial purposes, it will be enormously costly, if not impossible, to stop. In June 2007, the opposition passed a resolution in Parliament that urges the Harper government “to quickly begin talks with its American and Mexican counterparts to exclude water from the scope of NAFTA.” There is no indication the Prime Minister has taken the resolution seriously.

According to our poll, 84 per cent of respondents who were Conservative Party voters support the above statement on the need for a Canadian water policy that bans exports and treats water as a basic human right.

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