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Water Scarcity In Canada Research Paper

Decent Essays

Globalization of water resources in Canada
As a signatory of the Canada-EU Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement, the government has given French utility giants such as Suez and Veolia the right to sue Canadian municipalities who have already privatized their private services to not be able to re-establish municipal control. CETA contains an "investor state" provision similar to NAFTA's that allows foreign corporations to sue the government of another CETA signatory if they believe its laws or practices can reduce or threaten their right to profit. Even more concerning is the fact that CETA will be able to permit Swiss bottled-water giant Nestle, whose water division is currently headquartered in France, the right to challenge provincial …show more content…

This gives way to the idea of a socially produced scarcity where corporate and private interests for short-term economic growth linked with the rise of corporate power is converting the abundance of a resource into one that is scarce (Shiva, 2002). As such, water private companies should be excluded from water management, and more efforts should be directed towards instilling a "water democracy". She argues that this dichotomy on both sides of the spectrum of the water governance versus privatization debate are a reflecting of equitable versus inequitable distribution. Water scarcity is a reflection of the users that manage it and the systems that are in place to deliver and distribute water from known aquifers. While this may not be true in more drought stressed areas of the world, in a province like Ontario, it certainly is a reflection of governance, not geographic factors. This urges for a decentralized, community-based, democratic water management under which water conservation will be politically, socio-economically, and culturally inspired rather than economically-motivated. A private regime would provide incentives for water conservation through pricing since the perception of scarcity correlates to increased prices. Problems are evident with our current governance system as well as the private sector and P3s are certainly not a …show more content…

Several figures from the literature reviewed for this paper highlight the importance of the municipal legal framework. Rob de Loë and Reid Kreutzwiser, in Bakker (2007), discuss a proposed water source protection system which recommends that municipal land use planning decisions and provincial instruments such as certificates of approval for wastewater discharges and water taking permits should be required to be consistent with source protection plans. This would integrate land use planning and water management in Ontario and foster a new kind of relationship between provincial and local decision making. The ensuing discussion of some of the problems this might pose (for example, questions of vertical primacy between provincial and municipal plans and policies, or of horizontal primacy between the requirements of different government departments at the provincial level) have a familiar ring to land use planners and lawyers, and one anticipates that their experience will facilitate the development of a decentralized water planning system. The current Trudeau-led Liberal government aims to restore funds to improve water quality and quantity and are directing funds towards

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