October 11, 2006
Please see two recent articles of interest - "Tories face rising water pressure" by Eric Reguly in The Globe and Mail (October 10, 2006) and "Business leaders spar over water exports" by Lisa Schmidt from the Calgary Herald (September 23, 2006).
Reguly's article notes, "...Paul Michael Wihbey, president of a Washington consultancy called GWEST -- the Global Water and Energy Strategy Team -- said "it is nearly inevitable that bulk water exports from Canada" will occur within the next "two to five years.""
Reguly adds, "Specifically, GWEST thinks a water pipeline between Manitoba and Texas could be built for $4-billion (U.S.) to $9-billion. By coincidence (or not) Paul Cellucci, the former American ambassador to Canada, last month called for bulk water to be traded on the open market."
Schmidt in the Calgary Herald reported that, "The global water market is in a state of transition, and growing U.S. demand for water could ultimately be seen as a new source of revenue for the provinces, which have jurisdiction over the resource, Wihbey added."
The Council of Canadians believes that a new National Water Policy for Canada must ban the export of water, implement strict restrictions on diversions, and affirm the role of the federal government in international water issues.
A poll released last week by the Canada Institute of the Washington-based Woodrow Wilson International Centre for Scholars and the Toronto-based Canada Institute on North American Issues found that while 72% of Americans favoured exporting more water from Canada to the United States, 76% of Canadians opposed bulk water exports.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper has failed to clarify his government's position on bulk water exports, and the Conservative Party platform in the last election did nothing to address growing concerns about the stability and quality of Canada's water supply.
Contact Stephen Harper and let him know that you oppose bulk water exports to the United States. You may remember that in 2005 the Prime Minister's Office received 120,000 communications (e-mails, letters, telephone calls) on bulk water exports and water privatization. It is important to keep up this pressure. Stephen Harper's e-mail address is pm@pm.gc.ca.
You should also cc Paul Michael Wihbey, the President of the Washington-based Global Water and Energy Strategy Team, given that he is a proponent of bulk water exports. Your can e-mail Mr. Wihbey at pmw@gwest.net. You can find out more about his company, which bills itself as "a leading advisor to sovereign nations...(on)...issues surrounding water, and other vital commodities markets" at www.gwest.net.
On this website you will see that in a January 7, 2004 paper titled "Canadian Water: Vital Natural Resource and Tradable Commodity," Mr. Wihbey wrote, "GWEST believes...that any permanent strategy to address the growing scarcity of water in the American West will require importing Canadian water."
Furthermore, he writes, "...the notion that (water) cannot...be a tradable commodity is one who's time has past...Canada, home to less than one percent of the world's population, contains twenty percent of the planet's fresh water. With that kind of excess of this vital resource, Canada can ill-afford to sit on the sidelines as water becomes a traded commodity in the global marketplace."
