Hillary Clinton on Canadian Water: What's yours is ours

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon pledged to update the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement, during a visit Saturday to Niagara Falls. They made the announcement at the Rainbow Bridge to mark the 100th anniversary of the Canada-U.S. Boundary Waters Treaty, then met for about an hour on the Canadian side.

The 1909 Treaty, said Clinton, made official what people on both sides of the border had always known: "The rivers, lakes, the streams, the watersheds along the boundary do not belong to one nation or the other, but to both of us, and we are therefore called to be good stewards in the care of these precious resources."

Translation: "What's ours is ours and what's yours is ours."

Be afraid, be very afraid.

* * *

Going fishing until June 22.

International Water Day: Paint the Town Blue

It's that time of year when the Council of Canadians and other water preservationists get a little giddy. International Water Day is March 22, and the Council is brimming over with ideas for Canadians, individually and through organizations and communities, to spread awareness of declining water resources in Canada and the world. The above link to their "Blue Communities Project" is a starter kit for anybody ready to get involved.

In Ottawa festivities begin today, with the Parliament Buildings dressed up in a blue light show . The event is organized by the COC, the Polaris Institute and the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE). Maude Barlow, COC chairperson and senior adviser on water to the president of the UN General Assembly, asks Canadians to join in lobbying Ottawa to implement a national water policy. Said Barlow:

"The quality of Canadian drinking water exceeds that of almost any other country in the world. But without a national water policy to protect source water, promote public ownership of water services and ensure strong conservation strategies, we are beginning to see the impacts of a looming water crisis."

Barlow also urges Canadians to get into the spirit of the season of International Water Day and have fun. I'll raise a glass (of water) to that.

Bottled Great Lakes Water: Will That Be Flat or Sparkling?

Carlos Osorios, Toronto Star

Lake Michigan.

The Great Lakes-St. Lawrence River Basin Water Resources Compact is on the verge of passage in the U.S. Last week, it whizzed through House and Senate committees and is expected to pass the full Congress in the fall. It was praised publicly by President George W. Bush. All this has happened in record time in the two weeks since I wrote about the few lonely voices opposing this bill on both sides of the border. While they raise the alarm, the big victory of the bill's proponents is that they have brought most environmentalists on side because it's been sold as a way to stop bulk exports and water diversion.

That it does. Or does it? The devil, so to speak, is in the details. The huge problem at the core of this bill is that it officially turns Great Lakes and St. Lawrence River basin water into a "product," and that is a weighted word in international trade circles. (Ontario and Quebec signed on with the eight U.S. Great Lakes states in a separate agreement that mirrors the U.S. bill.)  Slipping a poison pill into a bill or treaty is an old negotiating tactic. Opponents, including powerful American environmental groups, had been fighting this compact for several years and were so relieved to get an exemption for bulk water exports, they heralded it as a victory. With that as a guarantee, what could go wrong? It was only those few free trade watchdogs, primarily the Council of Canadians, who understood what happens in freetradeland because they monitor trade issues, and have been since the Free Trade Agreement with the United States in 1989. As well, Michigan lawyer James Olson fought the bill based on the constitutional argument of water as a public trust.

Commodities/products can be traded freely and, since there is no special protection for water in NAFTA, opponents fear corporate interests — bottling companies, for instance — will attempt to use Great Lakes water for profit and fight any naysayers on the basis of free trade law. Probably, they have a good case; that's the scary part. It's important to note the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement did not protect water. Neither did the FTA or anything signed through GATT or the World Trade Organization.

NDP MP Peggy Nash (Parkdale-High Park), her party's water critic, argues "treating water as a product undermines what ought to be held as a public trust." Although Nash says, "I don't know if the U.S. is particularly interested in the opinions of Canadians," it's important for people who oppose water-as-product to make their views known to the U.S. Congress. It's not too late to lobby, she says. "The Americans have got to get this one right." It will be too late once that first court ruling (in either Canada or the U.S.) allows the export of bottled water from the Great Lakes because, to do otherwise, would supposedly harm free trade among nations.

It's also worth noting that free-trade rationale was probably what the Conservatives had in mind when the Canadian delegation derailed a recent resolution of the U.N. Human Rights Council in Geneva to make water a basic human right. Why do that when you can sell it? For  those who argue Canada should be allowed to sell its water and benefit from the sale, be warned, once commercial interests are involved, the coming drought may be playing in a theatre near you.