The New Oil
Climate change will require Canada to sell water to the U.S., says the author of American study
Kelly Patterson, CanWest News Service
Published: Friday, April 13, 2007
* * * * OTTAWA -- Canadian water is on the table at trilateral talks between politicians, businessmen and academics from Canada, the U.S. and Mexico, CanWest News Service has learned.
A series of closed-door conferences for the North American Future 2025 Project will include the discussion of "water transfers" and diversions.
According to the outline for the project, there will be a trilateral effort to draft a "blueprint" on economic integration for the govern- ments of Canada, the U.S. and Mexico.
The project was launched by the three governments in March 2006 to help guide the ongoing Security and Prosperity Partnership, a wide-ranging effort to further integrate the countries' practices on everything from environmental rules to security protocols and border controls.
A draft report will be submitted to the three heads of state at a partnership summit in Alberta this August.
"It's no secret that the U.S. is going to need water. ... It's no secret that Canada is going to have an overabundance of water.
"At the end of the day, there may have to be arrangements,"said Armand Peschard-Sverdrup, director of the project, which is spearheaded by the the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a powerful Washington think-tank, in partnership with the Conference Board of Canada and CIDE, a Mexican policy institute.
No one will force Canada to sell its water, he said Thursday, stressing the project is "an analytical exercise ... it doesn't commit the governments to anything ...
"Canada will have to make its own decisions. We recognize that," he said, recalling water was "the most sensitive topic in conversations" with the Privy Council Office when the the project was launched under the former Liberal government.
"But they all felt at the end of day that it's an issue that had to be looked at."
Water and other environmental issues will be the topic of April 27 talks in Calgary to which some environmental research groups, such as the Pembina Institute, have been invited, he adds.
News of the talks emerged the same day as the UN's blue-chip panel on climate change released a report predicting the U.S. would clash with water-rich Canada as the drought-stricken Midwest looks north to the Great Lakes.
Gordon Hodgson of the Ottawa-based Conference Board said Thursday that even though it includes the board's logo, the project outline does not necessarily reflect his institute's views.
"The reality the Americans perhaps don't fully appreciate is that we don't have a whole lot of water to export. ... There are near-scarcity conditions in Western Canada, and a lot of water is being used to extract bitumen from the oilsands," Hodgson said.
He said the outline is just a "catalyst for discussions."
But Maude Barlow of the Council of Canadians, which obtained the outline, said Thursday it "shows the American government and its think-tanks ... see Canada's water as a North American resource, not Canada's."
Barlow said there has to be a national debate on Canada's water policy, noting there is at present no law banning the bulk export of water, even as Canadian supplies dwindle.
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