From: brewnoserii@gmail.com   
      
   The Premier of Ontario from 1995 to 2002 was Mike Harris.  This is what   
   happened in that province during his reign.   
   _______________   
      
   Selling Our Water - Water Taking in Lake Superior   
      
   We have a regular ritual at CELA (Canadian Environmental Law Association) we   
   affectionately call "reading the paper with Martin McPherson".  Martin is from   
   Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario and his environmental antennae are always on full   
   alert.  His instincts    
   and concerns about environmental issues are exceptionally good.  His phone   
   bill must be enormous.   
      
   Our relationship with Martin served us well in early May when Martin heard   
   about the permit to export Lake Superior water to Asia in a local news report.   
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   The next day the story was picked up by the Kitchener-Waterloo Record.  Martin   
   called Sarah.   
      
   Sarah got on the phone to her 20 years worth of contacts in the Great Lakes   
   basin on both sides of the border.  Over a month later, the story has not quit   
   yet.  This feature article contains much of the materials recently loaded to   
   our website on this    
   issue and looks ahead to the continued interest and activity around this story.   
      
   On March 31, 1998 the Environment Ministry issued a five year "water-taking"   
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   ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^   
   permit to a private company, the Nova Group of Sault Ste. Marie, allowing   
   withdrawal by tanker of up to 600 billion litres a year of Lake Superior water.   
   After the issue mushroomed into an international incident, Ontario consulted   
   the public about cancelling the permit, see related information below.   
      
   The stakes in this issue are high.   Will governments enact laws to protect   
   this ecological treasure and ensure its long term sustainability?   The   
   governments of Ontario, all the Great Lakes States, Canada and the US are now   
   involved and actions they    
   have taken so far are inadequate.   
      
   In a 1997 report entitled The Fate of the Great Lakes: Sustaining or Draining   
   the Sweetwater Seas?, CELA and Great Lakes United documented the many stresses   
   on Great Lakes water quantity and the sorry history of inaction.     
      
   Issued on February 10th, 1997, to mark the 12th anniversary of the Great Lakes   
   Charter, the report included an urgent call to action for a comprehensive   
   management strategy based on environmental and sustainability grounds.  That   
   call remains unheeded    
   and the Pandora's box opened by this ill-advised permit is one consequence of   
   the prevailing crisis management approach.   
      
   Water taking permits in Ontario are issued under the Ontario Water Resources   
   Act for any water-taking above 50,000 litres per day.  This law was not   
   written for anything like the Nova Group permit.   Environment Ministry   
   officials did not evaluate the    
   long term environmental, social or trade policy impacts of issuing this   
   permit.     
      
   'Public consultation' was limited to posting notice on a computer bulletin   
   board, the Environmental Registry.  It's one of the few remaining ways the   
   government notifies the public about significant environmental matters.  Then,   
   on the basis of an    
   extremely limited amount of information, the permit was issued and would have   
   allowed a private company to take, for free, Great Lakes water and put it on   
   the international export market.   
      
   After a month of negative reaction, the Ontario government sought public   
   comment on a proposal to cancel the permit.  Ontario has also adopted a policy   
   on Surface Water Transfers which contains some important features including   
   language about Ontario    
   being "generally opposed to proposals to divert water" and the need to   
   preserve water quantity to sustain ecosystem integrity.  It also requires   
   broad consultation and that reviews of permit applications must consider   
   cumulative effects of existing and    
   proposed water takings.  However, unenforceable policy is no substitute for   
   law.   
      
   Public comment was sought on both the proposal to cancel the permit and on the   
   Surface Water Transfers Policy, even though the policy is already in effect.    
   Since the Nova Group water taking had not begun, the new policy applies and is   
   used to justify    
   cancelling the permit.   
      
   Caught off guard by the Nova Group permit, the federal government looked up   
   its unenforceable 1987 policy "discouraging" water exports.  In this legal   
   vacuum Canada has made a request to the United States that the two countries   
   jointly refer the matter    
   to the International Joint Commission (IJC).   Negotiations are currently   
   underway on the possible mandate for this referral.   If the referral goes   
   ahead, public consultation by the IJC could occur in late summer or early fall   
   (watch CELA's website for    
   further details).   
      
   While the IJC should be involved in discussions on this matter, it has no   
   authority to resolve problems.   More important, the IJC has already   
   undertaken references, and written reports on this issue.   In 1985, the IJC   
   issued an excellent report, Great    
   Lakes Diversions and Consumptive Uses, that recommended stronger measures to   
   prevent diversions, large withdrawals and exports of Great Lakes waters.   If   
   those recommendations had been followed, governments might have prevented   
   their continuing crisis    
   management of this significant resource.   
      
   This summer, the federal government also intends to review, with the   
   provinces, all of its freshwater policies.  The work will be overseen by   
   Environment Minister Christine Stewart under the recently signed Harmonization   
   Agreement between the federal    
   government and the provinces.  This task is potentially huge and like many   
   federal-provincial negotiations could be controversial, acrimonious and   
   lengthy.   
      
   Nevertheless, on a parallel and likely swifter track, Christine Stewart has   
   said that Canada hopes to pass a law in the fall of this year banning bulk   
   water exports (stay tuned to the Intervenor for more on the trade implications   
   of selling off our water)   
   .   
      
   Despite the much-delayed move to cancel the permit, the public should view   
   this controversy in a much larger context.  The Ontario government has   
   systematically made its water resources vulnerable to private takeover and   
   control (Intervenor v.22 no.1 &    
   Intervenor v.22 no.5&6, dereg issue, print only).   
      
   For three years, the Ontario government has been paving the way for   
   privatizing Ontario's water and sewage utilities.   
      
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)