Don't share water with U.S

<strong>Written By:</strong> Anonymous
<strong>Date:</strong> 2005-12-18 12:10:32
<a href="/article/215932104-dont-share-water-with-us">Article Link</a>

Lougheed says even though bulk water exports are specifically excluded from the Canada-U.S. free trade agreement, he says the United States would use that mechanism to get to the resource.

"It would come through a motion, probably, or a resolution within the U.S. Congress, 'let us look at the free trade agreement, let us call upon Canada to share its fresh water with us,'" he said. "It's not included in the free trade agreement now, and so we should take a very firm position.

"And if we take the firm position and communicate that, then the Americans are less likely to come forward and argue that the water transfer is part of the free trade agreement."

Studies have found that almost half of the U.S. states are going to be short of water in less than 10 years, Lougheed said, adding he can imagine water becoming more valuable than oil.

<a href="http://www.cbc.ca/story/canada/national/2005/12/14/lougheed-water-051214.html">http://www.cbc.ca/story/canada/national/2005/12/14/lougheed-water-051214.html</a>

[Proofreader's note: this article was edited for spelling and typos on December 19, 2005]

I second that notion.

---
Dave Ruston

Let them drink Coca-Cola !

TT

---
‘The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.’ (Edmund Burke)

Drown in it for all we care. I am going to go take a 20 minute shower of abundant Yankee water now and laugh at your paranoia while I am doing it.

Let's not get meloddramatic, salt water can be desalinated--techniques are improving.

Donald Trump gets the source of his bottled water from
Manitoba...

Enter Trump bottled water on google and you only
get a gov't of Manitoba statement and not
much else on the story...

The USA built wayyyy to much in the desert (California, Phoenix, Las Vegas) due to short-term
monetary desire (capitalist greed).But
they forgot just one minor little detail
they thought was as 'limitless' as oil...
WA-ter.

(due to being blinded and dazed by $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$)

Melodramatic over something
so trivial ? Sheeesh, wake
up and smell the coffee.Ooops, y' can't, ...
no WATER.

Will desalination facilities be everywhere when
water starts running out in California, Nevada,
Arizona and New Mexico ? Will they be
the next saving corporate grace ? No
gouging by the salination machine
manufacturer ?

"Short-term profits over environmental
concerns !!! Development and profits
must not be restrained !!! damn
tree-huggers !!! Who the
heck needs water !!! What ??? We have
80 million people in a droughted desert ????
No, there IS NO climate change !!!!!
Do as Donald trump did, invade
Manitober and get their
water down here ASAP, y' hear ???!!!!"

Except that since it requires vast amounts of energy to do it this is not economically feasible right now.

There's another side to this question, however. Canada depends on the USA and Mexico for fresh fruits and vegetables in the winter, most of which is produced with irrigation. Therefore, for this I believe Canada has an obligation if the USA runs out of fresh water for this purpose to export fresh water (for a good price and under full legislated Canadian government ownership with no private involement whatsoever). However, this is with the caveat that the US stop wasting water wherever possible such as in swimming pools or lawns in desert areas or similarly dry locales. As well, California is water deficient and yet uses vast amounts of water for its cattle industry, an industry that should not exist there since this product can easily be supplied from elsewhere where water is in greater supply. I believe that if this one industry was banned from California there would likely be enough water for their needs, so this issue is possibly being blown completely out of proportion.

Canada can grow fresh fruits and vegetables
all year round in greenhouses and hydroponically.
Certain regions like the Okanagan, Vancouver
island and others have quite long growing seasons.
Frozen, canned or jarred fruits and vegetables
don't kill you.Many fruits and vegetables are
bought from South America (Chile, Brazil, Ecuador)
and Asia/pacific.

So if all winter fruits and vegetables were stopped
from the States, Canada could completely
avoid being significantly affected.

The same cannot be said on the other side of the issue ... WATER.

YEAR ROUND WATER SUPPLY for 80,000,000 people
in California, Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico and other states cannot be equated AT ALL with Canadian wintertime supply of fresh fruits and vegetables from the States.

When the former runs out, death in the millions immediately occurs.When the latter runs out, no deaths are likely.

Well, if US citizens actually did face a water shortage in the future (something that`s going to happen) then sure, Canada could not sit by and watch. However, my original point hinges on the fact that it is the Washington concensus that pushes for making water a commodity as opposed to a human right. So if the US wants to commodify global water supplies, then I say, no, you can`t have ours! Also on that note, I criticize my own government for not trying to prevent the commodification of water!

---
Dave Ruston

Lougheed is a conservative of the original variety. What he's saying is let's not intentionally harm the ability to improve our relative competitiveness by intentionally introducing what might end up being a domestic shortage--i.e. something that causes domestic demand to outpace available supply and thus raise production costs.

Agreement to sell a resource like water will not be of the unfettered variety--once that market is integrated into U.S. production (ie: it becomes a matter of national security), supply guarantees like that for oil under NAFTA will be soon to follow--or, in the worse-case absence of a functioning agreement, more arbitrary political threats. At any rate, a free market it will *not* be.

Canada's productivity lags behind the U.S.. There are many reasons for this, and not all related to the neo-conservative fantasy about our euro-welfare state. Whether geography, population, climate, domestic market size--we have few competitive advantages over the U.S.. The one competitive edge we do have: abundant resources (lower per-employee-capita health care costs are another, but let's not start into *that*...).

Why start down the NAFTA-oil slippery slope with water--voluntarily agreeing to turn an American domestic resource shortage (esp. a critical input) into an *articifial* continental one, forfeiting our one competitive advantage? A fair trade for "market access"? This is not 1986, and if even an old guard conservative like Lougheed is saying "bad deal", it might be a good idea to pay attention.

Water is a critical industrial/economic input. Our water policy vis-a-vis the U.S. (or any nation, China for example) should be designed around *real* free market principles that naturally promote Canadian competitiveness. Consumers closer to the source, who waste less of it, and minimize their cost of cleaning it up afterward, should realize competitive advantage and not have to subsidize those who took the corp-welfare (tax break) and set up shop in the desert (or wherever).

Problem is, designing this around 'real' free market mechanisms ultimately means that in time, the rich have access to all they want, and the poor get not enough to live on, or none.

---
Dave Ruston

Now you are praising Red Tories ! Peter Lougheed is a Tory, not a CPC'er.

Water CAN be a commodity, but increasingly it is a "strategic resource" - which is what PL's real point is. We can USE this SR with the USA for all kinds lf leverage. In order to preserve this SR, we also need to conserve it.

TT

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‘The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.’ (Edmund Burke)

Canada may have a lot of water, but a lot of people here in the interior of BC, the "land of 90,000 lakes" don't.

Here in the Cariboo, we're surrounded by lakes, there's one about 50 feet from our house, but our water table is sinking by the day. When we first drilled our well, about 10 years ago, it took 17 minutes to pump it dry. Now it takes, perhaps 5. We have enough water for cooking and drinking, but we can't wash a full load in our washing machine and the rinsing for even a small load has to be done the next day, etc. etc..

This is par for the course all over the area. We'll have to drill our well deeper one day, hoping it will last for a while, but with global warming, the lack of snow and precipitation, the clearcutting of the forests, plus more and more demand, the water tables will just sink deeper and get more polluted with all kinds of industrial poisons. We should already have quite a bit of snow, but there's hardly any and the temperatures are way up.

When one of our neighbours clearcut his land before selling it, the water in our well went down, yet clearcutting is going on all over the BC and Alberta.

What people will have to realize one day, is, that water shortages are not caused by people drinking and washing, but by climate changes, forced urbanization, where each person's use is calculated for 1,400 US gallons per day, industrial mass production, e.g. the production of 1 6" computer chip costs 100,000 litres of water etc. Industrial countries are not exporting manufactured goods, but huge amounts of water needed to make them.

Again, these water shortages, as are our cancer and other epidemics, are the transferred costs of "costs cuttings and wealth creation", coming back to hit us on our heads.

So, what are the solutions offered by our great economic minds, like the disciples of Julian Simon: "Weeeeell, humanity always managed to solve its problems, we will solve this one too !"

We'll see........

Ed Deak, Big Lake, BC.