A lack of trade protection could force Canada to bulk export water to the United States, says a new report that also suggests Canada has much less fresh water than previously thought.
In fact, according to Turning on Canada's Tap? by the Polaris Institute, Canada's portion of the world's renewable freshwater supplies is about on a par with that of the U.S. And both countries face water shortages in some regions.
Tony Clarke, executive director of the Ottawa-based Polaris Institute and author of the report, says increasing signs of American thirst for Canadian water means NAFTA can force Canada to sell water for profit.
He wants water removed from the NAFTA trade regime, and the report recommends a five-pronged security policy and strategy to protect Canada's water from "a massive water grab by the U.S."
However, in a scrum on the Hill last Thursday, international trade minister David Emerson said it's "not true" that NAFTA could require Canada to export bulk water.
"Water under NAFTA is acknowledged not to be a traded good. It's not a commodity in the trade sense and, indeed, there is a clear prohibition in Canada on any removal of bulk water from trans-border water basins including for the purpose of export."
Regarding a total ban on water exports called for by the Polaris Institute and the Sierra Club of Canada, Emerson said that a ban could actually jeopardize Canada's water security.
"I have to say that when you put in place an export ban, you are implicitly admitting that it could be traded and in fact our whole approach has been to treat water as something that has to be managed in an ecosystem context because it's not a tradable product."
But Clarke says that under both the WTO and NAFTA water is defined as an economic good. He also points out that the declaratory note which excludes bulk water from NAFTA remains unsigned.
"If there are specific elements of NAFTA that are part of the core text that clearly protect water in its natural state and do not allow for bulk water exports…then [Emerson] has a responsibility to say that publicly."
Liberal water critic Francis Scarpaleggia, who introduced a private member's bill on protecting Canadian water this week, is also skeptical. "I don't believe our NAFTA agreement sufficiently protects our fresh water resources…. We still have a long way to go in making the issue a priority at the government level. This is the new frontier in terms of public policy."
Last week, Scarpaleggia sided with the government in blocking a UN resolution that would recognize water as a basic human right, believing it could open the way for bulk water exports.
In the October 2007 throne speech, Prime Minister Stephen Harper promised that his government would produce a "national water strategy." But the February budget contained no provisions for any such strategy, says Clarke.
However, the Polaris report says that "the prospects of bulk water exports to the United States continue to be a hot policy issue simmering just below the surface on Parliament Hill."
Stephen Hazzell, executive director of the Sierra Club of Canada which collaborated on the report, says that while the government does seem interested in a water strategy, what it's actually doing falls short.
"When you look at what they're actually putting forward, it is a very small grab bag of a few specific measures such as $11 million for Great Lakes clean-up, which is a drop in the proverbial bucket."
Both Clarke and Hazell believe a national policy and a ban on water exports is needed urgently for a number of reasons, one being talk in the U.S. primaries of re-opening NAFTA. In addition, worsening water shortages are being reported in the Southwest, Midwest and Southeast regions of the United States.
According to the report, 24 per cent of medium sized cities and 17 per cent of large cities in the U.S. are expected to be facing critical water shortages by 2015. The demand for Canadian water therefore is real.
However, the report states that it is "highly doubtful that the Harper government or, for that matter any federal government, is going to take the kind of bold leadership required on this issue without a great deal of public pressure from people across the country."
Although the World Resources Institute ranks Canada third in the world in terms of renewable water supply with 6.5 per cent, the report says this is misleading because approximately 60 per cent of the country's rivers flow northward, away from where the vast majority of people live.
Taking this into account, it is estimated that Canada's real portion of the world's freshwater supplies is 2.6 per cent. "That is a closer or better understanding of our water supplies," says Clarke.
According to the report, a blueprint on the Eastern, Western and Central Canada water export corridors, in existence since the 1960s, tells of a history of American demand for Canadian water. Although not operational today, these corridors could facilitate exports.
"We're saying that if the demand from the U.S. were acute enough, strong enough, then the capital would be there and the technology will be there to put the corridors into operation," says Clarke.
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