Conservative water strategy still murky following throne speech promise

Posted October 19, 2007 in [Water]

Jennifer Ditchburn, October 17, 2007, The Canadian Press, OTTAWA --

What will flow from the national water strategy promised in this week's throne speech remains murky, seven months after the Conservative government first talked about the concept.

Environment Minister John Baird says only that the government will roll out "initiatives" this parliamentary session without specifying the scope or details.

"The speech from the throne doesn't make all the substantive announcements, it sets out the direction we're going to take over this session of Parliament and we'll be coming out this session with the strategy," Baird said in an interview Wednesday.

The Conservatives promised a clean water strategy in March when the government tabled its budget, and earmarked money for several projects, including $11 million to clean up heavily polluted spots in the Great Lakes Basin. In September, Baird announced the government would regulate the dumping of sewage into waterways, and earlier this month Fisheries Minister Loyola Hearn unveiled $42.5 million dollars towards improving the health of Canada's oceans under the "National Water Strategy."

Still, it's not clear whether that strategy will go beyond a patchwork of funding promises by introducing a comprehensive approach to dealing with water pollution and shortages across the country.

Canada's top thinkers on water issues say the federal government needs to think globally.

The David Suzuki Foundation has written a pair of recent reports that deal specifically with drinking water and its effect on the health of Canadians, 90,000 of whom fall ill from contaminated water every year. Spokesmen point out that Canada has no legally binding standards for the quality of drinking water, unlike the United States and the European Union.

The foundation's environmental health policy analyst, Lisa Gue, said standards must be accompanied by a national tracking system for what ails Canada's water sources.

"Everyone acknowledges the need to address the problems, but we need ... to ensure accountability. We need to track water quality problems more consistently."

Rick Findlay, director of Pollution Probe's water program, says the government needs to articulate a more comprehensive vision of how it aims to protects Canada's watersheds - essentially the basins that feed major bodies of water. In particular, Findlay says Ottawa should be making a major effort to clean up the Great Lakes.

"It shouldn't be the same old agenda of cleaning up the dirty spots and making sure the sewage treatment plants are flushing correctly," Findlay said.

Environmentalists are also hoping to see the Tories take action on the Alberta tar sands, oil extraction projects that use copious amounts of fresh water and leave behind heavily polluted pools that go on to contaminate local waterways.

Said Findlay: "Both from a water quality and quantity point of view, it's simply unsustainable the path that they're on."