Arrow Arrow:
Commodify it and it falls under NAFTA. Why do people give the sort of assholes who pump these braindead 'reports' the time of day?
Perhaps because the US has been eyeing Canadian water for a number of years now and have been trying to claim we shouldn't hold a monopoly over our own water.... much like our own artic territory
Selling Canada's waterhttp://www.cbc.ca/news/background/water/$1:
Estimates of Canada's supply of fresh water vary from 5.6 per cent to nine per cent to 20 per cent of the world's supply, depending on how one defines "fresh water" – whether it means "available," "usable," or merely "existing." One study says Canada has 20 per cent of the world's fresh water – ranking it at the top – but only nine per cent of "renewable" fresh water......
^ We already waste almost as much of our water as the US wastes their own.... and some think it's a good idea to let the US tap into our water on top of us tapping into it?
$1:
.... She cites a United Nations study that says by the year 2025 – less than 25 years – two-thirds of the world will be "water-poor."
"The wars of the future are going to be fought over water," Barlow has declared.
She endorses a 1999 paper from the Canadian Environmental Law Association (CELA) that says: "Water is an essential need, a public trust, not a commodity. It belongs to everyone and to no one." The CELA paper continues:
"Even large-scale water exports cannot possibly satisfy the social and economic needs of distant societies. Water shipped halfway around the world will only be affordable to the privileged and will deepen inequities between rich and poor. International trade in bulk water will allow elites to assure the quality of their own drinking water supplies, while permitting them to ignore the pollution of their local waters and the waste of their water management systems."....
Also:
U.S. Company Using NAFTA to Sue Canada for Waterhttp://www.albionmonitor.com/9903a/copy ... water.html$1:
Thirsty nations elsewhere will pay big money for Canadian water, so much so that the government has now imposed a moratorium on water exports.
But some environmental activists worry that the country may already have ceded control of this resource by its membership in NAFTA.
Sunbelt Ltd., a U.S. company, filed a lawsuit against the Canadian government late in 1998 declaring it was against NAFTA rules to refuse it permission to ship fresh water from a British Columbia river to the U.S. The company wants $220 million for alleged loss of profits......
^ Apparently they already think they have some right to our water due to NAFTA.... that agreement has been one giant mistake. Canada did perfectly fine before it, and now after it, we have the US trying to dictate to us what we give/sell/trade them.
More jobs? Sure... probably... at what expense? Everything I have seen is at the expense of our own nation's environment and communities.
Wasn't there a report a few months back of a US company planning on sueing New Brunswick over not being allowed to mine Uranium near a local community and which would destroy a large area of natural habitat and perhaps cause health concerns to the nearby community?