by Alex Ognibene, University of Toronto
While many nations face constant water shortages, Canadians are privileged to have access to roughly 20% of the world’s fresh water. However, for a nation so generously endowed, Canada has a rather poor track record of water management. Canada’s outdated and limited water policy was even called “shocking” and “unacceptable” by a recent Senate Standing Committee report on Energy, Environment, and Natural Resources. Water, managed on the assumption of unlimited abundance, often takes a back seat to other issues on the political agenda. In fact, Canada possesses only about 6% of the world’s renewable freshwater – much less, for instance, than Brazil and Russia. Canada, however, uses more water per-capita than any nation except the United States. Even more alarming is that Canadian water use has grown by 25% over the past two decades, despite reports of water shortages by approximately one quarter of Canadian communities each year. Experts agree that Canada is in the midst of a potentially catastrophic water crisis that requires immediate attention – and action – in the form of a pan-Canadian water policy that emphasizes intergovernmental coordination. Existing policy will need to be applied and strengthened, and new legislation will need to be introduced to bring Canada’s water strategy into the 21st century. The new policy should support sustainable water management approaches that encourage conservation and environmental protection as a means of achieving water security. Finally, bulk-water exports must be banned indefinitely to reaffirm Canada’s control of its own water supply.
The objectives of Canadian water policy reform may be clear, but the means of pursuing them remain somewhat murky. The first step to formulating a comprehensive national strategy will be identifying the problems with Canada’s current policy. First, Canada’s Federal Water Policy has been poorly enforced, and has not been updated since 1987, long before many of today’s water-related concerns were widely understood. Second, jurisdictional overlap between the federal and provincial governments on resource management has caused redundancy and disorganization. Fisheries, navigation, and international waters are federal responsibilities, while water resources and supply fall into the hands of provincial governments. Without adequate intergovernmental coordination, it is impossible to effectively assess the state and extent of Canada’s water supply. Research and data collection have decreased so sharply in recent years that Canada’s aquifers and groundwater reserves aren’t even completely mapped.
Water supports many of the industries that contribute to Canada’s GDP, including the natural resource sector, which accounts for 15% of the GDP and employs one million Canadians. Without water these industries cannot hew wood, mine coal, drill oil, or grow crops. However, the natural resource sector also accounts for 22% of Canada’s water consumption. The oil and gas industry, in particular, uses large quantities of water. It takes 2-4 barrels of water to extract 1 barrel of oil, which makes it difficult to fathom the quantity of water that will be required by 2015, when estimates suggest 3 million barrels will be extracted from Canada’s oil sands every day. As part of the new water strategy, the Canadian government will need to offer incentives to industries and businesses that are willing to trade old practices for more environmentally sound approaches.
In addition to encouraging industries to minimize water consumption, Canada will need to address strained water relations with the United States in a way that affirms the importance of water to Canadian sovereignty and outright bans bulk-water exports. In the past Canadian policy makers have avoided passing a federal law forbidding bulk water exports out of fear that it would violate the terms of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). NAFTA defines water as a “service” and “investment”, which leaves the door wide-open to trade disputes. With the American government projecting that 36 states could face water shortages by 2013, it’s obvious that swift action needs to be taken to ensure that water is removed indefinitely from the bargaining table. An ideal first step might be an attempt at negotiating a specific exemption to NAFTA for freshwater as was done for raw logs and unprocessed fish.
Of more urgency than international trade, and primary concern to Canadians, is the issue of drinking water quality. Twenty Canadian and American cities flush 90 billion litres of untreated sewage into the Great Lakes every year. These very same lakes supply millions of families with drinking water. In 2008 alone there were 1,760 boil-water advisories issued in towns across Canada, a majority of them in Ontario. This figure doesn’t include aboriginal reserves, which are infamous for atrocious drinking water quality. The primary reason for these advisories is the absence of legally enforceable drinking water quality standards. Such standards exist in most of the world’s industrialized nations and seek to prevent events like the E. coli outbreak in Walkerton nine years ago. This issue is perhaps the most likely to excite the indignation of Canadians and the recent explosion of interest in water management among citizens, NGOs, and think tanks suggests it has. A poll conducted by the Institute for Research on Public Policy found that 62% of Canadians believe water is Canada’s most important natural resource. Even in petroleum-rich regions of Eastern and Western Canada, water was selected at a 3-1 margin over oil and gas. These statistics prove that Canadians recognize the importance of water to Canada’s future and are ready to embrace a new national water policy.
Canada has the capacity to solve its water crisis, but action should be taken in the immediate future. Water management innovations at the provincial level such as Alberta’s Water for Life strategy, Ontario’s Clean Water Act, Quebec’s National Water Policy, and Nova Scotia’s Drinking Water Strategy are instructive. These initiatives share three common goals; a secure and safe drinking water supply; the reconstruction of healthy aquatic ecosystems; and maintenance of the water supply for a sustainable economy. Several have established funding programs to assist in the development of municipal planning strategies or intake protection zones to ensure the protection of water as a valuable Canadian resource. Such plans include incorporating water-source protection in highway designs and improving databases and information management systems. Nova Scotia in particular has instituted a policy for the accreditation of all drinking water testing laboratories and regular testing of all public drinking water supplies. All of these are examples of measures contributing to a progressive movement for a modern Canadian water policy.
In reforming its national water policy, Canada would be following the example of other jurisdictions like New Zealand, Australia, South Africa, Brazil, and the European Union. Reforms will allow Canada to respond efficiently to domestic priorities, while strengthening Canada’s ability to meet growing international expectations and obligations for water management and conservation. To create a pan-Canadian water policy would be beginning to conserve the world’s water resources, and firmly establish Canada as a major international resource holder.
Is drinking water quality really an issue that Canadians should be all that concerned with? According to the world health organization, Canada is one of the few countries considered by the World Health Organization to provide 100% of citizens with access to safe drinking water; we have since 1970. Unsafe water kills 90 Canadians every year, tragic but not particularly significant. And while the federal government may have failed to provide a legal framework to establish regulations regarding water quality, provincial governments have. Do we really need a united national water policy when the needs of each province regarding water are so unique?
The whole issue seems somewhat inflated in significance. We don’t use the second most water per-capita in the world. Canadian per-capita consumption is somewhere below 500 liters per day. The United Arab Emirates, which obtains roughly 80% of its fresh water from desalinization, has a per-capita water consumption of over 550 liters per day. Canada may rank poorly among OECD countries, but internationally, there are plenty of more wasteful nations. Even if our usage is uncomfortably high, our industries are reliant on it, and Canada is afforded the luxury of being able to meet those needs. According to the Keele Water Poverty Index, Canada’s water usage is high, but still well below our capacity. Canadian residential water-usage has even fallen slightly over the past few years. And even if our water usage per capita is enormous, our population is but a fraction of the United States. While we may be wasteful, it seems that we can certainly afford it.
If we really want to lessen our water usage, we should probably focus on reforming our regulation of the agricultural sector. We don’t really need a comprehensive federal system for regulating water use and quality. Instead, we should probably focus on provinces establishing their own regulations based on their own needs, scaling back use where they can without hurting our industrial capacity.
Aside from that, we just need to figure out what to do as the United States becomes more and more reliant on Canadian water. Removing water from the bargaining table hardly seems plausible, if not outright impossible. It seems like there should be more discourse between both side of the matter before decisions regarding Canada-US water relations can be made.
Thank you for your comment Colin, nice to see my article inspired you to write a 400 word response!
We obviously have differing opinions on both the state of Canadian water security and the approaches that should be taken to rectify the plethora of issues at hand. You mention that the WHO consistently ranks Canada as an excellent provider of safe drinking water, however, such standards are subjective. The fact of the matter is that hundreds of boil-water advisories are issued every year in municipalities across Canada and that people do die from water related illness every year within our nation’s borders. Should an industrialized, water-rich nation like Canada not have the obligation to provide all of its citizens, including aboriginals, with safe drinking water? Furthermore, is it not in Canada’s best interest to ensure continued data collection and the mapping of groundwater reserves? We pride ourselves on having an large share of the world’s fresh water, however many of our water sources are not mapped or monitored.
In your comment you also suggest that Canada’s water problems can be dealt with most effectively by provincial governments. Provincial initiatives are undoubtedly helpful, however, I argue that reforms at the federal level will be the most powerful response. Only a coordinated policy spearheaded by the federal government can adequately address regional disparities and jurisdictional overlap in water management responsibilities. Canada needs an enforceable federal approach to water policy that not only implements legal drinking water standards, but also stresses the importance of sustainability and conservation. Residential water use in Canadian households may be declining, but the quantity of water used in industrial processes and by the natural resource sector (yes, agriculture is part of the natural resource sector) has steadily increased over recent years. It is naive to suggest that cutting back on industrial water use will hurt our industrial capacity. In many cases small infrastructural improvements and modifications can reduce water consumption without having any significant effect on production or output.
Finally, I would like to address your criticism that negotiating an exemption to NAFTA for freshwater is impractical. I agree – it is a toilsome approach and a last resort. Let’s remember though that freshwater is crucial to Canada’s sovereignty and that the United States already has the water resources necessary to sustain itself in the foreseeable future.
Ultimately, this pan-Canadian policy will better equip Canada to deal with future domestic concerns. Equally importantly, it will further Canada’s position as a water leader that is ready to help address the world’s water crisis and recognize the global “right to water.”