Green Party warns of hidden agenda on water exports, denounces secrecy of Security and Prosperity Partnership deliberations

Green Party warns of hidden agenda on water exports, denounces secrecy of Security and Prosperity Partnership deliberations

OTTAWA – Green Party leader Elizabeth May said today that a new threat to Canada's water is emerging in secret negotiations being held under the proposed Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP) between the United States, Mexico and Canada.

Ms. May said that background papers prepared for the behind-closed-doors negotiating sessions show that SPP deliberations are heading in an ominous direction. One of the papers, prepared by a Washington-based think tank, the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, is based on the premise: "Juxtaposed to the relative scarcity of water in the United States and Mexico, Canada possesses 20 percent of the world's water."

"The reality is quite different," said Ms. May. "Canada and the United States each have between 6 and 7 percent of the world's renewable water supplies. Meanwhile, the climate crisis threatens to reduce the quality and quantity of Canada's water – with anticipated serious declines in the levels of the Great Lakes.

"We need local solutions to local water problems, not continental strategies with a hidden agenda to permit bulk exports of Canada's water."

She said that the Security and Prosperity Partnership operates in a world of secrecy with an agenda advancing by stealth. In fact, the news that the next Canada-US-Mexico summit will take place in Canada (August 21-22 at the Chateau Montebello in Quebec) came through Mexican and US sources and remains unconfirmed by Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

Ms. May also denounced the decision of the parliamentary committee examining the SPP to reject the Green Party's application to testify. "The committee should be seeking the widest possible input on this important issue," she said.

"The Security and Prosperity Partnership has serious implications for every aspect of Canadian life. It will affect our energy policies, social programmes, environmental enforcement and much more.

"The hidden agenda on Canada's water is just one of the issues that needs to be brought out from behind the closed doors of the SPP meetings and into the full light of informed public discussion."

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Contact:
Camille Labchuk
613-882-4761