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Topic: We need to know Conservative position on bulk water exports
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eau
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 10058
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posted 19 January 2006 11:21 PM
Michelle, I can't believe this hasn't been talked about. The Conservative environment policy seems non existent. Albertans are too busy making money at the moment to notice we have one.I know Harper doesn't want to sign onto Kyoto, they whisper about privatizing water. That our polar bears are drowning, and northern canada is suffering and they have no policy is alarming.I keep thinking about Bush being a uniter and not a divider..and all the promises.
From: BC | Registered: Aug 2005
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jester
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 11798
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posted 20 January 2006 12:25 AM
In the case of the Sun Belt Water Company, Sun Belt applied to export water from British Columbia. The Government of Canada denied their application under legislation enacted under intense pressure from the Council of Canadians, a non-governmental organization (NGO), to prohibit bulk-water sales. Sun Belt sued Canada and the Province of British Columbia for $600 million.http://www.waterbank.com/Newsletters/nws18.html View SunBelt Water's letter to PMPM and court docs here.
http://www.sunbeltwater.com/docs.shtml Fortune Magazine notes that "water will be to the 21st century what oil was to the 20th." Who owns water and how much they are able to charge for it will become the question of the century. The privatization of water is already a $ 400-billion-a-year business. Multinational corporations hope to increase profits from water commodification even further by using international trade and investment agreements to control its flow and supply. One Canadian water company, Global Water Corp., puts it best: "Water has moved from being an endless commodity that may be taken for granted to a rationed necessity that may be taken by force." Maude Barlow is on the case. http://www.globalpolicy.org/globaliz/special/2002/0305water.htm As far as I know,water is a provincial resource under sec92 CA,while international trade is a federal responsibility.There is a tacit agreement at present not to export water in bulk because once one export permit is approved,NAFTA requires US companies to be allowed equal access to Canadian water. NAFTA is a poor policy for Canada.It was badly negotiated. Canada has the resources,both natural and human to go its own way and I personally will be most pleased and proud if we become more independent of US influence and bully tactics.
From: Against stupidity, the Gods themselves contend in vain | Registered: Jan 2006
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jester
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 11798
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posted 20 January 2006 02:03 PM
Good source, Fidel.Some quotes from other sources: As Sun Belt's CEO Jack Lindsay explained, "Because of NAFTA, we are now stakeholders in the national water policy in Canada. "http://www.globalpolicy.org/globaliz/special/2002/0305water.htm This agreements comes amid recognition from the International Joint Commission that trade law permits nations to protect their natural resources but that they cannot use environmental legislation to deliberately hamper trade http://www.waterbank.com/Newsletters/nws18.html While these expansive investor rights currently are included only in NAFTA, plans are underway to incorporate similar provisions in the FTAA. FTAA is a proposed NAFTA expansion to all 34 countries of the Western Hemisphere (but for Cuba). The Bush administration has signaled that it wants the controversial fast-track trade negotiating authority in order to negotiate the FTAA. Once Congress delegates its trade negotiating authority to the president via fast track, it limits its own role to a single up-or-down vote on trade agreements' implementing legislation, which cannot be amended. Canada, which has been badly burned in a series of Chapter 11 cases, is no longer a believer. Canadian Trade Minister Pierre Pettigrew has declared that Canada will not sign FTAA if investor-to-state enforcement of broad regulatory takings rights are included, and Canada has called for a review of Chapter 11 within NAFTA http://multinationalmonitor.org/mm2001/01april/corp1.html Not only water,but medicare and education are under the same threat from Ch11 NAFTA Investor Relations. While not belittling the threat social issues face from a CPC government,the threat faced by Canada's social programs and resources from attack by corporations is much greater.
From: Against stupidity, the Gods themselves contend in vain | Registered: Jan 2006
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eau
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 10058
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posted 21 January 2006 08:57 PM
I know someone you could ask about water and its profitability. T Boone Pickens, the Texan oil zillionaire has been buying up water rights. So he must be onto something. Have you driven through the San Joachim valley in California recently? Without water, someplaces are just not viable, the desert is not called a desert without reason.
From: BC | Registered: Aug 2005
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C.Morgan
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 5987
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posted 21 January 2006 09:30 PM
quote: Originally posted by eaucanada: I know someone you could ask about water and its profitability. T Boone Pickens, the Texan oil zillionaire has been buying up water rights. So he must be onto something. Have you driven through the San Joachim valley in California recently? Without water, someplaces are just not viable, the desert is not called a desert without reason.
I am not denying that there are water shortages in some regions. What I am asking for, is for somebody to present to me a feasible plan which could take Canada's water in any meaningful way.
From: Calgary | Registered: Jun 2004
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C.Morgan
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 5987
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posted 21 January 2006 10:17 PM
quote: Originally posted by Contrarian: Water diversions. If the Alberta government decides to divert water from northern Alberta to southern Alberta, what is to stop it from send the water across the border?
The Panama canal was one of the biggest engineering feats of mankind. That canal is less than 80kms long and moves the amount of a very small river.
To move water from Northern Alberta to Southern Alberta would cost trillions. Could somebody point out a plan that would cost less than desalinization plants?
From: Calgary | Registered: Jun 2004
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C.Morgan
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 5987
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posted 21 January 2006 10:25 PM
I am familiar with the plan to dam the South Saskatchewan which would cost billions to irrigate the South in Saskatchewan and Alberta. That one is still not even close to getting to the preliminary planning stages. Do you have something better than vague references by the COC in a University Paper? Could you give me some costing? It would cost trillions. The Alliance pipeline which moves gas costed billions and could move the equivelent of a small creek in water. It would take billions more in compressor stations to push water through it. Contrary to what some seem to want to think, water is terribly difficult and expensive to move in quantities. Have a look. Work out some of the logistics. It simply isnt an issue.
From: Calgary | Registered: Jun 2004
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jester
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 11798
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posted 21 January 2006 10:56 PM
The issue is not the physical movement of water as it the fact that under chapter 11 Investor relations of NAFTA,responsible authorities in Canada can be constrained from making decisions in the best interests of Canadians if that decision could affect the commercial interests of American corporations.The links I posted above illuminate the situation Canada faces not only with water but also medicare and education among others. The commodification of public resources and services by WTO and the limitations government placed upon itself by signing NAFTA severely limits its ability to respond.
From: Against stupidity, the Gods themselves contend in vain | Registered: Jan 2006
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Contrarian
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 6477
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posted 21 January 2006 10:58 PM
Link here, Dec 2002 quote: ... Eight years ago, a colleague of mine, a lawyer in Alberta, was told by an executive with one of the large pipeline construction companies that they were laying two parallel pipelines."What for?" she asked. "One for natural gas and one for water," was the prompt reply... ... A few days before the G-8 Summit in Genoa, U.S. President George W. Bush finally said he wanted to talk about water. "I look forward to discussing this with the Prime Minister," he said, adding he would be open to "any discussions" about a possible continental water pact--along the lines of the talks now under way between Canada, the United States and Mexico on energy--to pipe Canadian water to the parched American southwest...
From: pretty far west | Registered: Jul 2004
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C.Morgan
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 5987
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posted 21 January 2006 11:24 PM
quote: Originally posted by No Yards:
I have to agree. With the possibility of a CPC government I suggest everyone start looking into how to get a export restriction certificate written up for their mothers, let alone water.
So it comes to fear mongering to the point of people fearing for their mothers being exported before I could get somebody to give me a logistically possible route for our water to be taken. I figured as much.
From: Calgary | Registered: Jun 2004
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jester
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 11798
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posted 21 January 2006 11:54 PM
quote: Originally posted by C.Morgan:
So it comes to fear mongering to the point of people fearing for their mothers being exported before I could get somebody to give me a logistically possible route for our water to be taken. I figured as much.
I have offered links in support of my views above. You have no interest in debating the issue,you are here to be disruptive.
To ignore debate and provoke others makes you a troll.
From: Against stupidity, the Gods themselves contend in vain | Registered: Jan 2006
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mytiturk
recent-rabble-rouser
Babbler # 6970
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posted 22 January 2006 11:15 PM
I think that the best way to avoid caving in to the U.S. (on water, on terrorism, on oil, on Star-Wars) is to continue indefinitely with a minority government.WHOEVER gets a majority will surely cave in to U.S. pressure on more than one issue. We frequently do. Under the present scary, corporation-driven circumstances a complicated parliament, with a dollop here and there of executive paralysis, is the only defense. I would prefer a Liberal minority. A Harper minority contains its own set of potential horrors. For example, under a Conservative-Bloc minority government, which appears likely, we might see the demise of the CBC, and hence intelligence on the air-waves, as we know it. The Bloc is deafeningly silent about the CBC and Harper is closely tied to the NCC, which has privatization of the CBC as one of its goals. After watching Harper with Peter Mansbridge on "It's Your Turn" I am so disappointed with the easy ride he had (they should have not allowed him such a tame set of pre-approved questions) that I begin to suspect the demise has already got quite a head of steam. I hope that I, in Mansbridge's position, would have had the courage to refuse to do it or resign. It was little more than an anointing. Shame! We live in sad times.
From: Brampton | Registered: Sep 2004
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