by Linda Safford

Yesterday. March 6, 2008, CBC-TV's The National, featured a story on "a yet-to-be released federal report, prepared by more than 100 Canadian scientists on behalf of Canada's Department of Natural Resources". The report focuses on the impact climate change will have on the country. It says water levels in Alberta and British Columbia are already dropping dramatically, as are the levels of the Great Lakes. The result could be a shortage of drinking water, the report says. It also warns that industries that rely on water - oil, gas, hydro-electricity, agriculture, even salmon farming - will also suffer."

The full article can be read at,
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2008/03/06/climate-study.html

Yesterday, I attended a conference to examine Water Governance, held in Nanaimo. The conference was attended by about 75 people from Victoria, the Cowichan Valley, Nanaimo, Port Alberni, the Comox Valley and Campbell River areas. They represented municipal, regional and provincial governments, First Nations, and a variety of stewardship groups. It was the third of four such sessions being held across the province (the first two were in Prince George and Langley, and the fourth will be next week in Kelowna.

The conference was sponsored by the Fraser Basin Council and the ministry of Environment , whose mandate is to ensure that the decisions we make now about how we live, work and play… will protect and advance the social, economic, and environmental sustainability (of the Fraser Basin, their Watershed) into the future. Those of us who were in attendance feel the same responsibilities for our own communities, our own Watersheds. The purpose of the gathering was to review, assess and give input into a research paper, prepared by Karen Bakker and Linda Nowlan, titled "Delegating Water Governance: Issues and Challenges in the BC Context. We looked at how our water is currently governed, on how to initiate regulatory reform, and to examine the state of our water in general.

The bottom line is, as reported on CBC yesterday, that water shortages already exist, and can expect to become more severe in the future without good management by both citizens and governments. The question to be resolved is: What are good management practices and how to we implement them - FAST?

There is clearly a push to privatize our water resources at the Federal level. Water should NOT be a commodity - it is a human right, and it is a necessity for human survival. Canada needs both a national water policy and a strategy to address climate change. We need to inform our elected representatives that we are NOT willing to have them negotiate bulk water exports, we are NOT willing to have them negotiate contracts to sell our public water to private companies, and finally, that we do expect they WILL manage our public resource in a responsible manner. Please act NOW to protect this priceless resource.