Canada needs leadership on water
Regarding the story, Manitoba farmers welcome national water agency, on page 21 of the April 13 Western Producer, it’s better than a kick in the shin, but scope and powers need to be defined.
Canada needs to become a leader in fresh water protection. Today, our waters suffer from ignorance and denial, for we have entrusted the care of our water sources to the wrong people.
With a mere 0.5 percent of the world’s population, Canada has jurisdiction of over 20 percent of the global fresh water supply, a vast and valuable resource that is largely taken for granted by those who use and depend on it.
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Canada and the water issues in provinces needs attention, not rhetoric.
This is the result of governments’ wishy-washy drainage policies and the illogical practice that agricultural operators and commerce have a right to run the show. Whatever happened to the public good as the guiding principle for public policy?
What Canada so desperately needs is a federal water commissioner, someone with the courage and resourcefulness — and clout — to lay down the pertaining regulations, which are yet to be put in place, to protect all the waters within our nation, Canada. The present mishmash of every province doing their own thing with an out-of-sight, out-of-mind syndrome and attitude is not acceptable, as we have well experienced and recognized in the past.
Working with our U.S.A. neighbours to help achieve similar water protection would entail a diplomatic Canadian envoy to also pursue and achieve meaningful results.
Let’s get serious about water consumption, caring for and protecting all our water sources.
Let us work and look to the future, for the sake of our children and future generations, a future that isn’t filled with disaster and water hardships.
John Fefchak,
Virden, Man.
