BEFORE the signing of the Free Trade Agreement and the North American Free Trade Agreement, Ottawa politicians made two important promises to Canadians: that water was not included in the trade agreements and that Canadian sovereignty over water resources would not be compromised.
Both promises were broken and there is no sector more affected by this than agriculture.
Water’s inclusion in the NAFTA effectively relinquishes sovereignty over Canada’s water resources in perpetuity. Any time water is used in a commercial context by an American entity Ñ for example, in industrial processes, for power generation, for bottling as a beverage or for irrigation Ñ NAFTA rights apply.
Read Also
High prices see cow-calf producers rushing to incorporate
Farm accountants are reporting a steady stream of cow-calf producers rushing to get their operations incorporated ahead of selling their calves this fall.
Water flooding in Canada’s oil patch is a good example. Before capping a wellhead, petroleum companies routinely inject water to recover the last 10 to 15 percent of oil and gas. This water is removed from available supply for an estimated 50,000 to 500,000 years.
If that petroleum company is American or has America investors, NAFTA rights include continuity of use, proportional sharing, no price discrimination, no interruption of normal channels of supply, national treatment and of course NAFTA Chapter 11, the right to compensation from the Canadian government for lost profits should any of these rights be denied.
In contrast, the farmers and ranchers on whose land these practices occur enjoy no such rights. Indeed, when push comes to shove, it will be the oil and gas sector that controls the discussion surrounding water use in the oil patch because financial compensation for denial of NAFTA rights is not an economic option.
Irrigation is another example. Whenever an irrigation project contemplated in Canada holds potential benefits for the United States, American farmers have the right to pony up their share of the costs and participate.
Unfortunately, to date, discussion of the sovereignty and public policy implications of water’s inclusion in the trade agreements has been couched in partisan politics and anti-NAFTA, kill-the-deal rhetoric. Not surprisingly, this approach has proven ineffective in resolving what is perhaps the single most important public policy crisis of our time.
In March 2002, I was asked by a group of Canadian farmers to lead the discussion in a different direction, and the Farmers Resolution to Exempt Water From the NAFTA was born.
It is a Canada-wide campaign to develop farm “voice” and farm “authority” in the dialogue to reclaim sovereignty over Canada’s water resources.
The message is simple: whether you love the NAFTA or hate the NAFTA is not the point. Whether you support or oppose water exports is not the point. The point is sovereignty. Canada must have absolute discretion over the management of its water resources in perpetuity.
To accomplish this, the solution is equally simple: water must be added to the list of goods, services and investments explicitly exempted from the terms of NAFTA, as are raw logs and certain species of fish from the Maritimes.
Because the federal government repeatedly and publicly assured Canadians water was not part of the trade agreements, this is not a renegotiation but rather a fix.
All that is necessary is the political will for change.
The Farmers Resolution to Exempt Water from the NAFTA takes its strength from the many farm organizations that support it: commodity groups, breed associations, farmers’ institutes, women’s institutes and 4-H clubs.
Already, more than 200 farm groups from across Canada have passed the resolution.
The objective is to collect resolutions from 1,000 farm organizations across Canada. Once this solid, non-partisan platform has been constructed, Canadians will be encouraged to jump aboard and stand shoulder to shoulder with Canada’s farmers in defense of water sovereignty.
Defining the frontier where the rights of the market end and the rights of communities and of nations begin has become a global priority. Water is that frontier.
Letters to the editor
letters
Save the lake
Apocalypse now for Lake Winnipeg, Man. Just how serious is the provincial government’s commitment to cleaning up and saving Lake Winnipeg?
About a year ago, when government awoke from a self-induced coma, they seemed to finally realize and be sincere about saving the lake. They installed a water stewardship minister who immediately implemented a fact-finding team. The final report on their findings is due in 2006.
Several encouraging interim steps have been recommended and some actions undertaken. All good strokes and positive indications that the government was concerned about the critical care needed to keep the lake alive and continue its recovery to good health.
But then something happened. What to do about the over abundance of phosphorus that has invaded the water shed and ultimately the water sources that lead into and feed Lake Winnipeg? This overabundance is related to many activities of people. However, a very significant input is the result of liquid hog manure spreading. Corporate hog industries produce millions upon millions of gallons of liquid manure and literally with no regulation for phosphorus application.
Phosphorus is a leading contributor of pollution and when unchecked, will eventually destroy and kill all life in a body of water, even as large as Lake Winnipeg.
Now it seems that the health of our lake is on a lower priority than some of the other ambitions of the government, and this places the lake, once again, in recession and dire jeopardy.
Yet the Manitoba government, under the leadership of premier Doer, has taken one other step to prevent pollution to Lake Winnipeg. Action has been undertaken to prevent the completion of the North Dakota Devils Lake water outlet. And as can be expected, there is an opposite reaction.
Perhaps much of the hostile re-action from our neighbours to the south could have been avoided if the premier simply said, “thanks folks, for your offer to help pollute Lake Winnipeg, but really, I think we are doing a pretty darn good job of doing it ourselves and do not need your assistance.”
Naturally, such a statement, although quite appropriate for our Manitoba situation, would not divert the residents of Devils Lake from trying to save their homes and themselves from the rising waters of their problem.
Regardless of our location on this continent, however, we must work together, unified as a people in our common struggle and hopefully wisdom will prevail and bring about a healthy and satisfactory solution.
What the final outcome will be remains to be decided but nonetheless, our neighbours to the south have a serious problem, as we in Manitoba also have a serious problem; and both concern water.
Ñ John Fefchak,
Virden, Man.
Ag help
I am writing to express my concern for the state of agriculture in this wonderful country we call Canada. My wife and I are young farmers, 36 years old. We left town life to take over the family farm.
My wife left a good government job several years ago to raise our four children. I left my full-time job as a heavy duty mechanic to farm full-time. We operate a cow-calf operation in Rose Prairie, in the Peace River Country of B.C.
It alarms me greatly when I attend agricultural meetings and see that most producers are near retirement age or past. Canada has a huge crisis looming ahead. Unless Canada wakes up and makes farming viable for our young families, no one will replace producers as they retire. …
Most of our older producers have most everything paid for and can hold on through rough times, like low prices, drought and BSE. The younger generation of farmers are trying to hold on too, but we have payments on top of huge operating expenses.
I work out all winter and as much as possible during spring, summer and fall. This is to cover family expenses and farm inputs, like insurance, fuel, seed, fertilizer and equipment repairs.
BSE has knocked our calf prices from $800 per calf on average to $500 per calf. Cattle, hay and crop sales normally cover land payments. But two summers of drought and a wet, snowy fall in 2004 prevented crop harvesting and only enough feed for our herd Ñ no extra to sell.
We used up savings and cashed in RRSPs to make payments. Input costs are steadily going up and the price for our products continues to go down. There is no money to update equipment, we just keep repairing the old stuff. …
About 850 producers in the B.C. and Alberta Peace are presently trying to get a slaughter plant going in Dawson Creek, B.C. It was to be built in Beaverlodge, Alta., but because of greed and corruption of multinational packing companies, the feedlots they control or own, and government bureaucracy, it was moved to B.C.
It has been a huge fight to get it going. Most politicians and bureaucrats stand in public and say they want plants like this to go ahead yet seem to stand in its way and oppose all that we do.
Our industry, our farms, our livelihoods and our families need these plants to go ahead. We need to get back to normal and be financially viable. …
Yesterday I received a cheque in the mail from Agriculture Canada for the amount of $196.20. When I called to find out what is was for, I was told it is my share of the $300 million pledge to help the cattle industry Ñ part of the $1 billion in aid promised by Mr. Martin.
They also told me everyone who applied in the fall of 2003 and early 2004 would automatically be sent their share of the $300 million. So that means the multinational packers and the feedlots they own will again get most of the money, not the cattlemen or farmers who it is supposed to help….
On the news lately also I heard the Canadian government is going to the U.S. with $60 million to entice American packers northward. That same money would build six plants in Canada, employ thousands of Canadians in good paying jobs, and put the cattle industry back on its feet, giving us some control back over our own industry….
We need to look out for Canadian interests and I could care less if the border opens. We’ve wasted enough time, let’s get the plants built, Canadian owned, employ Canadians, and sell the world the quality, safe meat it wants.
They will pay for it because that’s what they want. Canada can supply the best agricultural products the world demands, if our governments will let us.
If we don’t, the crazy young farmers will not be there to replace those retiring. Cheap food will become expensive and Canadians will know what hunger means.
Ñ John Stones,
Rose Prairie, B.C.
Complain or act?
I had been the Agricultural Producers Association of Saskatchewan representative for the RM of Glen Bain for the past few years. The ratepayers have decided to discontinue membership.
Over that time I have attended a number of annual and midterm meetings, committee meetings, council meetings, ratepayer meetings and trade shows.
When APAS started, the membership fee was 10 cents per agricultural acre. Over the first while we heard producers say the 10 cents an acre was too much. We took that back to the board and were able to get that reduced to six cents an acre or $9.60 per quarter.
Producers told us it should be voluntary membership, not as whole RMs. These same producers said it should be mandatory membership for all producers.
We hear that we as producers need one general agricultural organization that speaks for all producers with a unified voice. Membership in APAS is that voice. APAS is a member of the Canadian Federation of Agriculture. Through membership in the CFA, Saskatchewan producers are represented at the national levels as well as the international level at the World Trade Organization talks.
If we are not there, decisions are made for us, about us but without us. I think we would be far better off if we have some input into the decisions made for us about us and with us.
It seems to me that agricultural producers would prefer to complain about the poor state of agriculture then try and support an organization that is trying to make a difference.
Perhaps we as ag producers are getting what we deserve. We don’t need other countries to destroy agriculture. We are doing a real good job ourselves.
If we would work together, we could make changes. That is my opinion.
Ñ Darlene Richards,
Vanguard, Sask.
