Quote:
Water is "liquid fuel for growth," says Robert Glennon, a professor of law at the University of Arizona, and one of the world's leading authorities on water policy. Just as human beings can't survive without moisture, economies can die of thirst. And if the U.S. economy continues to be plagued with shortages, the implications for Canada's No. 1 export market will be devastating. "Water is no longer perceived as a gift from God, but a commodity for which one has to pay," says Dr. Isabel Al-Assar, an international trade expert based at the University of Dundee, Scotland. "Water will become like oil one day, I have no doubt about it."
If Al-Assar is right, then Canada, through a miraculous stroke of lucky geography, is sitting on a liquid gold mine. Pinpointing exactly how much Canada could reap by selling fresh water depends heavily on a long list of questions: what price would buyers be willing to pay? How would it be transported? How much could be safely withdrawn without damaging sensitive ecosystems? But in 2001, the Frontier Centre for Public Policy, a Winnipeg-based think tank, constructed a theoretical business model showing that if Manitoba could sell 1.3 trillion gallons of water per year (roughly the amount that drains from provincial rivers into Hudson Bay in only 17 hours) at the same price charged for desalinated sea water in California, the province could reap annual profits of close to $4 billion. In 1992, the World Bank estimated that worldwide trade in water could be worth US$1 trillion within the next generation. Even the opponents of water trade acknowledge that much of that market could belong to Canada.
