Debate to heat up over North American water trade

Debate to heat up over North American water trade by Kelly Patterson, April 12, 2007, CanWest News Service
A series of closed-door conferences for the North American Future 2025 Project will include the discussion of “water transfers” and diversions, according to the outline for the project, a trilateral effort to draft a “blueprint” on economic integration for the governments of Canada, the U.S. and Mexico. “At the end of the day, there may have to be arrangements,”said Armand Peschard-Sverdrup, director of the project, which is spearheaded by the the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a powerful Washington think-tank, in partnership with the Conference Board of Canada and CIDE, a Mexican policy institute. No one will force Canada to sell its water, he said Thursday, stressing the project is “an analytical exercise … But Maude Barlow of the Council of Canadians, which obtained the outline, said Thursday it “shows the American government and its think-tanks…see Canada’s water as a North American resource, not Canada’s.”… Pressure on Canada from the U.S. will be intense, according to the UN report, which warns drought may cut a key Texas aquifer that supplies water for two million people by 40%, and decimate the Ogallala aquifer, which underlies eight U.S. states.