Water woes in Canada

Toni Lucas

Toni Lucas

Clean healthy water.  It has been the basis for where people settled in Canada since before it became a nation.  Without it you do not have drinking water, water for the irrigation of crops, or animal husbandry of any sort.  No water, no life.

As we organize and see the boards and advisory committees working on the South Saskatchewan Regional Plan, and the Oldman Watershed Council we should take comfort that the waters of our area are being managed with care and diligence.  Or should we?

There is a dark cloud on the horizon, and it doesn't hold clean rain.  More likely it holds the belching smoke of industry without the guidelines of environmental control.

A new act in the government's Omnibus Budget Bill C-45 will replace one of the country's oldest laws, the Navigable Waters Protection Act established in 1882.  In part that Act said that no one could block, alter or destroy any water deep enough to float a canoe without federal approval.  The original act protected over 2 million lakes, and over 8,500 rivers.  The bill  was passed on December 5, 2012.

Now the list that is under federal protection has dramatically shrunk to 97 protected lakes and 62 protected rivers.  87 of 97 protected lakes are within or next to ridings won by Conservatives in 2011.  A few of these lakes are the playgrounds of the rich and powerful, with property held by industry and land barons, celebrities,  sports stars, and politicians.  In Ontario 68 lakes are protected and 15 in British Columbia leaving 14 protected lakes in the rest of the country.

Canada has some of the most beautiful networks of water in the world, and I feel the population of this country has just been sold down the river without a paddle.  Will we soon be lamenting as did Samuel Taylor Coleridge character the Ancient Mariner 'Water, water, every where, nor any drop to drink'?