Should BC start selling its fresh water?
KAMLOOPS — With all this post-Trump inauguration talk of NAFTA and America’s return to a 1930’s style of isolationism, I’m wondering if we are missing something. Something, if you will pardon the pun, that trumps our oil, pipelines, natural gas, forestry and yes, even copper and gold.
It represents undreamed of national wealth yet holds the potential for unimaginable controversy and conflict. It is an economic resource and we own close to 20% of the world’s supply. And unlike oil and gas, it is impossible for humans and most of the planet to survive without it.
Recognizing the lucrative business case, the American biotech giant, Monsanto, in polite business-speak, proclaimed, “There are markets in which there are predictable sustainability challenges and therefore opportunities to create business value.” The untapped economic resource and opportunity Monsanto refers to is Canada’s fresh water.
The business case being put forward recognizes that seven per cent of the world’s population does not have access to an adequate supply of water and survival for many is increasingly questionable. According to Christopher Maravilla (The Canadian Bulk Water Moratorium and Its Implications for NAFTA), somewhere between two and five million people a year die due to a lack of water. And Ismael Serageldin, retired VP of the World Bank predicted back in 1997 that, “the wars of the next century will be over water.”