{"id":344,"date":"2025-03-17T14:02:57","date_gmt":"2025-03-17T22:02:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/theholmteam.ca\/?page_id=344"},"modified":"2025-03-23T14:21:47","modified_gmt":"2025-03-23T22:21:47","slug":"hot-topics","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/theholmteam.ca\/index.php\/hot-topics\/","title":{"rendered":"Whiskey is for drinking, water is for fighting about… Trump’s Interest in Canada’s Most Precious Resource"},"content":{"rendered":"

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This page will follow key news reports on Trump’s battle to capture Canada’s water.\u00a0 As you read them, consider this:<\/p>\n

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In the March 18th Tyee article, the author notes “water is exempt from the NAFTA”.\u00a0 \u00a0NOT TRUE. John Crosbie is the one who first got away with this and it is shocking to see it still trotted out . Natural free flowing waters delivered at the whim of Mother Nature are of course not covered. BUT change in any way the timing or volume of Mother Nature’s delivery to meet the need of the market and water becomes a good. Whether as a jug of water at the cottage or the certainty that comes from using a dam to hold back spring freshets to ensure August irrigation, someone has been willing to pay someone else to undertake the works to get that water to them when and where they want it. Undertaking works to change Mother Nature’s own water distribution system to fit the needs of a market makes water a good.<\/div>\n
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Further, a federal ban on water exports would not hold water. All signatories to trade agreements commit to going home and undertaking whatever steps are necessary to give full force and effect to promises made at the trade table. The FTA and all subsequent trade agreements with the US guarantee that once water is removed from its natural state and dammed, released, diverted, bottled, pumped or otherwise subject to “works” to meet the needs of the market, water becomes a good and all terms of the agreement apply.<\/div>\n
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Want a selfie of you with Trump’s TAP? Go to Dunvegan, Alberta, just on the border of BC. Future site of the Amisk Dam, designed as the “elbow” that will siphon off water from the north-flowing Peace River and send it flowing south. Conveniently, all the upstream storage capacity is now in place: WAC Bennett dam, Peace Canyon dam and now Site C Dam. All ready to catch “water from the north” and send it south. EXACTLY as predicted by 8 American engineering firms in response to 1950’s call by USACE for ways to ensure Americans do not run out of water.<\/p>\n

Canadian’s can stop this you say? Well. let’s just take the first instance – water diverted from Alaskan outflows and, with a little engineering, sent down into the Peace River system, thru the Amisk elbow and down into the US. Once diverted, water is a good and all provisions of the trade agreements apply. Canada’s river systems are highways, used for centuries to move goods. Do you really think we can win this argument? Think again…Read Chapter 10 of Damming the Peace – the Hidden Costs of the Site C Dam (2018, Lorimer).\u00a0\u00a0 See also Michael Harris’ Feb 18 2025 article in the Tyee Trump’s Obsession with Canada’s Water<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n