Leaked Document Reveals Bulk Water Exports to be Discussed at Continental Integration Talks
Leaked document reveals bulk water exports to be discussed at continental integration talks
Ottawa – The leaked document of a prominent Washington-based think tank obtained by the Council of Canadians reveals that government officials and business leaders from Canada, Mexico and the United States are scheduled to discuss bulk water exports in a closed-door meeting at the end of the month as part of a larger discussion on North American integration.
Titled the “North American Future 2025 Project,” the initiative being led by the U.S.-based Center for Strategic and International Studies, the Conference Board of Canada and the Mexican Centro de Investigación y Docencia Económicas calls for a series of “closed-door meetings” on North American integration dealing with a number of highly contentious issues including bulk water exports, a joint security perimeter and a continental resource pact.
According to the document, a roundtable on the “Future of the North American Environment,” is planned for this Friday April 27 in Calgary, and will discuss “water consumption, water transfers and artificial diversions of bulk water” with the aim of achieving “joint optimum utilization of the available water.”
"This is just the latest in a series of closed-door meetings that grant the business sector privileged access while shutting out the public,” says Maude Barlow, national chairperson of the Council of Canadians. “The document is damning not just because it outlines a process that lacks transparency and accountability,” says Barlow, “but also because of what is being discussed by governments and so-called corporate stakeholders.”
The document also reveals that “trilateral coordination of energy policy” and the development of “North American security architecture” are being discussed by high-level government officials from Canada, the U.S. and Mexico.
The Council of Canadians is demanding that the Canadian government cease all further participation in such talks on North American integration until there is parliamentary debate and meaningful public consultation on the issue.
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CoC continues to miss the point
the water export issue is an important one. it is another phase in the battle to privatise water (and everything else). but not because it means americans will drink the water instead of canadians. or that somehow, it will mean we are less canadian if they get their hands on it. it matters because it means corporations will own the water and the market will decide how it should be used, serving it up with a logo to the highest bidder. or serving it to no one. instead using it to fuel industrial processes that toxify it to the remaining future generations.
i can't help but feel that the Maude Barlow crew hasn't realized that Canada is already part of the US. sure, there is that border. i know, they make it harder and harder to cross at every opportunity. but that border is only necessary to maintain appearances. it needs its good cop buddy to the north. without a line there, there is no "international" opinion on who needs to submit to american democracy next. deleting the line would jeopardise the empire.
we are already obedient to our masters, only taking action on significant international issues as instructed by big bully brother. for the CoC to fight to maintain the status quo is a bit silly. we are already one. we send troops to haiti and afghanistan to free up american troops destined to iraq - a war no other (re)public will swallow in a media propaganda pill. we sell them the bullets they need to import democracy. we build the pipelines to gas the tanks. we'll give them all the water they need - until they are stopped. stoping them doesn't mean pulling the plug on the water deal, it means taking them out of the international driver's seat.
Water is not just for the US...
Ron writes:
the water export issue is an important one. it is another phase in the battle to privatise water (and everything else). but not because it means americans will drink the water instead of canadians. or that somehow, it will mean we are less canadian if they get their hands on it. it matters because it means corporations will own the water and the market will decide how it should be used, serving it up with a logo to the highest bidder. or serving it to no one. instead using it to fuel industrial processes that toxify it to the remaining future generations.
--
Yes this is the plan, and for reasons that we need to understand are systemic to capitalism in all of North America. Oil is running out or is in the middle of an insurrectionary situation the world over. Tar sands are being touted as the only way that North America can continue to consume such volumes of petroleum and petroleum based products.
Here are some stats:
1.3 million barrels of tarsand oil *alone* are being sent to the US and eastern Canadian refineries *every day*. for each of those barrels, four barrels of fresh water from the waterways nearby get used up. Much of this remains toxic in giant holding vats.
This water use, now, every day, is three times that of Calgary. They want to quintuple production-- that is, according to my grade 4 math, fifteen times the water use of calgary (making the waste of water happen much faster than ANY urban centre in Canada and be equivalent to a little more than New York, should consumption per capita be the same across the board).
Right now, the water can be regulated. It can also be bought, slowly, by small farmers in the souh of Alberta. Soon, GATT and similar trade deals will kick in, forcing-- since there is a sale to small producers already-- "free market principles" to the entire supply. Water will then be bought, completely draining not just the Athabasca River (currently already down over 3 meters) but perhaps the northern Great Lakes.
This is a plan to turn a lot of water into some _fake_ oil (real oil needs water, but only to force the crude to the surface and would be almost entirely recyclable into the same process).
We haven't even begun to talk about where this ater will come from. It won't be for Canadians, Americans and even less for the nations who both own it and have survived off it for thousands upon thousands of years. It will go to Canadian and American owned *corporations*, some with their headquarters in Calgary, some in Texas, Oklahoma... it doesn't matter.
It's all just a process of subduing our earth for the same of turning water into gas for your car, and destroying everything that tried to get in the way. Now, if that scares you, try to imagine that on a scale from the north slope of Alaska all the way (criss crossing) to the Gulf of Mexico, and we are almost ready to talk about what the Canadian and American governments and corporations are working in tandem to do to all of us, with the nations whose land they are stealing and have stolen on the front line-- sadly, as always.
We have a choice-- but not hiding behind the Maple Leaf.
Macdonald