Editor’s Note: Zac Whyte (www.zacwhyte.com) is a gentleman and a scholar. He also wrote a fantastically scathing piece about Canada’s recent stance-taking around water, specifically how it is not a human right. And, being a good pirate, I have stolen Zac’s article and posted it here. Also, fun fact about water and bottled water sucking: Bishop’s University is the first university in Quebec to ban the selling of bottled water on campus. Yet another reason why Kurt and my alma mater is a leader of tomorrow, no matter what McLean’s says! But I digress. On to you, Zac.
If you’ve ever been stuck somewhere without access to clean, fresh water than you know what it feels like for over 1.5 billion people on the planet every single day. I’ve been thirsty plenty of times but I’ve only faced the feeling of dangerous desperation for water once in my life. That’s because when it comes to water, Canada is the king. Our country has about 7% of the world’s renewable fresh water and it only represents about 0.5% of the world’s population. We’ve collectively done our best to burn through oil, wipe out forests and fill our oceans with plastic but the future holds some big decisions for Canada that we’re going to need to think about. The world is looking at us with parched smiles of helplessness as desertification and drought sweep over lands where forests use to stand, pollution fills streams that were once laden with fish, and aquifers that supply entire cities are running dry. Yes, as Canadians we have some questions to answer. As a human, how much do I matter? As humans, how much do humans matter?
The bottled water industry in North America is a festering tumor. I watch people pass taps and buy water out of vending machines. They crack the Polyethylene terephthalate (PET) lid, massage the Polyethylene label with their thumb and take a big swig of water that has traveled 3000km by truck before it even hit’s their lips. They don’t even give the cleaner, tastier water flowing for free out of the bathroom tap a synapse of thought. Here’s the bizarre part. There is a successful water bottling plant about 20km from my house that uses the same water we drink out of our taps for the water it sends in bottles to China. Now, have you ever asked yourself what way the toilet flushes on the equator? Well it spins any way you want depending on the design of the toilet but right now our planet is the turd that is about to go down the hole sideways. We built this consumer based toilet and sure as shit we better stop flushing it.
As long as the United States holds the highest per capita water use record in the world and Las Vegas exists, I doubt Canadians will take my questions seriously. If you asked Canadians if they would be ok selling water for the fountains in Vegas for $8 a Liter, and I’m playing Prime Minister here, we’d say “hell ya, fleece the bastards.” But what if it wasn’t fountains that we were filling and it was water for people who were literally dieing of thirst on our doorsteps? Would we sell it then, or would we share it willingly? I would hope, as a Canadian, as a human, that we would share our water. The people on our doorstep have a natural right to water – as humans our bodies are made of it.
In 2009 I was in Kampala, Uganda without water for an entire day because the taps ran dry and the stores sold out of bottled water before 10am. I started to feel what being outside of Canada really meant. After $15 in cabs, hours of driving to stores and shelling out big bucks on the black market to get 3 Liters of bottled water, things really hit home for me. If I just paid $8 a Liter for water, what are the rest of the people in the city doing? They are averaging about $2 a day or about 250 milliliters of water before rent, clothes and food costs for their entire family. Privatization of water did this and it happens all of the time in the developing world.
As Canadians we need to start respecting our taps. There’s good water coming out of them for now but if we forget about protecting our stainless – we will lose it. I’m not talking about pollution or rusty pipes, I’m talking about corporate interests buying it up from our (that’s us) government. This is a serious reality that we will need to face as a country and we need to figure it out before it just slips on an election banana peel and plugs the pipes for good.
“There are some things we should consider,” our government will say. “We need to protect our water and keep it as perfect and pristine and clear as it was when it fell from the sky and melted off our almost extinct glaciers. The only way we can afford to do this is by creating a division of Environment Canada called Canadian Water and we’ll sell shares to the Canadian people, and other people too, that aren’t Canadian but should be.” And on it will go. I already own the most precious shares that Canada could ever offer me. It’s called a VOTE and it gives me the rights I was born with in this country. You want to give me a share worth $2 a Liter and sell me water for $8 a Litre? I don’t think so punk.
If you believe that water is a human right that all Canadians deserve – great – drink tap and vote. If you believe water is a human right for all human beings around the world even if we will have a little less for ourselves – amazing, you are a champion of human rights – drink tap and vote. If you are thinking of having kids, growing old and sitting in your rocking chair long from now with a glass of ice cold, perfect tap water – you are a leader – cheers, let’s go vote.
– Zac Whyte