Canada Needs to Safeguard our Water

During the 2024 U.S. Presidential election, a bit of an absurd comment from then-candidate Donald Trump inspired some baffling chuckles on this side of the border. At a press conference at a golf course in Los Angeles, he said “so you have millions of gallons of water pouring down from the north with the snow caps in Canada and all pouring down. And they have essentially a very large faucet. And you turn the faucet and it takes one day to turn it. It’s massive.” It was a bizarre statement, because this was the first time Canadians had heard about the existence of their massive water faucet. While it’s easy to laugh off the statement itself as incoherent rambling, it does beg the question as to what measures the Federal government have taken, and which they should still take, to protect Canada’s water sovereignty, and ensure we aren’t pressured to export water for foreign interests?

It's important to point out that, while Canada does contain a significant amount of freshwater, about seven percent of the world’s supply, we don’t have the capacity to export it. Climate change has exacerbated our supply already, leading to droughts around many parts of country during the dry summer months. According to the Canadian Drought Monitor, at the end of October, “…64% of the country was classified as Abnormally Dry or in Moderate to Extreme Drought, including 67% of the country’s agricultural landscape.” And while it’s logical to assume industry is the largest water users across the country, it’s actually a staggering 91.2 percent of total water use across our country. According to a report from the Global Commission on the Economics of Water, worldwide demand for fresh water will outstrip supply by 40% by the end of this very decade.

While climate change remains the largest threat to our freshwater, there are further threats that may challenge Canada’s freshwater resources more directly. The Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement (CUSMA) is set to be renegotiated in 2026. While CUSMA’s predecessor, the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), allowed water to be treated as a “good” for sale if it’s bottled, it did prevent bulk water exports. CUSMA, while currently exempt from bulk water exports as well, may end up changing significantly under renegotiation. This presumes CUSMA holds while Trump threatens tariffs, which violate the agreement. However, water futures are already being traded on Wall Street as of 2020, allowing bankers to make money off water scarcity already.

It was therefore good to see the Federal government recently launch the Canada Water Agency. The agency is tasked with working with the provinces, territories, and Indigenous communities to protect water quality and aquatic ecosystem health. This is a laudable goal, but it’s vital that the agency be given some teeth to better protect our water resources. The first task of the agency is to review the Canada Water Act, the legislation that provides the legal framework for cooperation among all branches of government for the conservation, development, and use of water resources. It has been literal decades (the 1970s) since the Act was last reviewed. Additionally, the agency is also tasked with enacting the Freshwater Action Plan. The plan commits to regional activities designed to clean and preserve freshwater by funding opportunities for ecosystem monitoring and protection and scientific research.

While the agency is desperately needed, its vital that its work informs Canadians how to better manage our freshwater, and that our governments (federal, provincial, municipal, and territorial) listen to the outcomes of the research done by the Freshwater Action Plan. But the Agency alone does not have the ability to prevent the negotiation of bulk water exports. There must be Federal leadership to safeguard it, including keeping it off the table during trade negotiations.

According to the World Health Organization, one-quarter of the world’s population does not have access to safe drinking water, including still far too many First Nation communities in Canada. It is our absolute duty to protect what we have and ensure we don’t simply treat it as another commodity for sale.