Hike water prices to stop waste: expert

The rich get richer is what I see. My family and I do all we can to conserve not only on water, but on what I buy everyday including composting and separating my garbage. Then I look across the road and see these large houses going in and see not only the waste of large homes for people (including large SUV's )but the waste of making a house going in the gargage.

Expert? I was always told what an expert is is a drip under pressure.

Prices hikes, for anything, are more to make profits more than to slow consumption.

Anyone, including the Government for tax increases, use this tactic often to support their cause.

Water is a form of political power.

I live in Toronto, on Lake Ontario - that's where are water supply comes from. Mayor Miller has been advocating saving water, eh. Like there isn't enough of it in Lake Ontario.

I live in the mountains, and water supply is short in Summer. Watering bans all over the place, no filling of swimming pools after June 21 (or something), yet, if you want to keep your shower running all day, no one cares. Water meter? We don't have them.

People don't care unless they see what they really use.

Hard to care when it never stops raining and your front yard today could wash away and end up being part of Richmond next spring.
This is just bullshit to help convince Canadians that water's a marketable commodity. Soon as we accept selling it to ourselves the cry will start that others should be able to outbid us for it.

I especially like the government office buildings running their automated sprinkler systems when it's pouring outside.

Thanks god I am on well water now and don't have to put up with the sprinkler police.

the whole idea that water prices are kept artificially high to punish the wastful people when in fact EVERYONE will be paying it is a drug induced lunacy that only a fucking communist would believe in.

I don't waste anything I pay for as it is.
Any time they try to justify raising rates to promote saving makes them sound like greasy salesmen.

We live under a capitalist system. None of this commie public owner ship of water. We should immediately privatize water, sell the resource to the highest bidder to lower our govt debt. Then that private company can set water rates as it sees fit, and of course export as much as they want too, since export restrictions are also a commie plot.

Well, in fairness, he;s talking about globally, not just in Canada. Who knows, maybe if Canadians were charged a higher price for water they wouldn't waste it.

Watch this video for more info on water;



I'm not saying I agree with commoditizing it, but water will be an issue for Canada in the coming decades, whether it's pressure to export it or we face shortages due to glacier's melting (most of Western Canada gets its water from glacier fed rivers).

We should look at the issue now, not when it's already critical.

Depends where you live. In Vancouver we get all bent out of shape about not wasting water, but we have plenty. All we'd need to do is up our storage capacity to take us thru the dry months. Water that's used isn't wasted - it flows back in the ocean and then returns to us as precip.

Otoh, watering golf courses in Arizona while farmers can't get enough for their crops, or LA sucking all up while farmland sits idle because it can't get water is just insane. Somebody has their priorities seriously out of whack.

And that's the danger to Canada. If we ever start bulk exports to the US, under NAFTA we can never stop, nor can we reduce them to supply our own population first. And with idiots like Gordon Campbell and Steven Harper running things, I have not doubt they'd love to sell us out on that resource as well.

Depends where you live. In Vancouver we get all bent out of shape about not wasting water, but we have plenty. All we'd need to do is up our storage capacity to take us thru the dry months. Water that's used isn't wasted - it flows back in the ocean and then returns to us as precip.

Otoh, watering golf courses in Arizona while farmers can't get enough for their crops, or LA sucking all up while farmland sits idle because it can't get water is just insane. Somebody has their priorities seriously out of whack.

And that's the danger to Canada. If we ever start bulk exports to the US, under NAFTA we can never stop, nor can we reduce them to supply our own population first. And with idiots like Gordon Campbell and Steven Harper running things, I have not doubt they'd love to sell us out on that resource as well.

Agreed, but as I said, the guy in this article is speaking from a global perspective, not a Canadian or even BC one.

The majority of the world's drinking water is in the Northern hemisphere, and North Americans/Europeans use far more water per capita than Africans, South Americans, Australians, etc. We do because for a long time it's been cheap and widely available. Anyone who's been to the Rockies and seen the shrinking glaciers (Athabasca for example in Jasper National Park) realizes that the glaciers are melting and someday we're either going to have shortages, or we're going to need massive investment in getting water from the North (where most of Canada's water lies).

Even Vancouver will have eventually issues, as the Fraser is also fed by glaciers in the Rockies. and what happens to cities downstream of Edmonton and Calgary (like Saskatoon and Regina)? If they take out too much water, then those cities will have to suffer (or pass on the suffering to others downstream from them).

My point is that we need to think of the problems (and solutions) now, not 20, 30, or 40 years from now when it becomes a crisis.