OK, I don’t mean to push my environmental concerns on you guys, but I think this is important enough to bother you all with.
This past February the Ontario government granted a giant Swiss corporation, OMYA, the rights to remove 4.5 million litres of water each day from Ontario’s tiny Tay River, which is near Perth. This works out to roughly 1.6 billion litres per year. This water isn’t even going to be used for drinking purposes, but for industrial processes (OMYA is a mining company). The Ontario government had initially denied OMYA’s request for the 1.6 billion litres per year. But, OMYA decided to appeal the ruling to the Ontario Divisional Court and the Minister of the Environment, Chris Stockwell. With OMYA threatening to warn foreign investors away from Ontario unless it got all the water it wanted, the Minister has decided to overturn the decision of the Tribunal. The Minister has taken this action despite the pleadings from his own ministry to wait until the issue has been given a full and fair hearing in court.
Needless to say, this removal will seriously impact the health of the river and the surrounding communities and environment that rely on it. But, worse than that, it sets a dangerous precedent which threatens every lake and river in Canada. Trade experts are already saying that if OMYA is allowed to take this amount of water, American corporations will come to Canada and demand equal amounts of water. And under the North American Free Trade Agreement there is nothing we can do to stop them. An article in the Ottawa Citizen has warned that if the OMYA ruling is allowed to stand, Canada will be opening the floodgates to water exports.
Fortunately, it isn’t too late to stop this from happening. For example a similar action was blocked a few years ago in B.C. (for which Sun Belt, a California company, is suing the government of Canada under NAFTA. The company claims that B.C.’s law violates several NAFTA-based investor rights and therefore is claiming US$10 billion in compensation for lost profits).
Here’s the article entitled Chris Stockwell’s Valentine’s gift: A slap on the face for citizens
OK, I’m gettin’ off my soapbox now.