OTTAWA, Ontario - November 24 - The Council of Canadians is sounding the alarm over recommendations the government received today to formalize and extend a water market system throughout the province of Alberta. The Alberta government released reports today containing recommendations from a few select sources, including an advisory group appointed by the Minister of Environment.

“The implementation of these recommendations would open the door to full private water markets, which have wreaked havoc on the environment in countries like Australia and Chile,” warns Maude Barlow, national chairperson of the Council of Canadians. “Letting the market decide who will have access to water violates the public trust doctrine, a principle of common law which regards water as belonging equally to all peoples and managed by governments on their behalf.”

“The Alberta government has clearly decided that it is not interested in other potential solutions to the province’s looming water crisis besides turning Alberta’s water over to the market system,” says Scott Harris, Prairies Regional Organizer for the Council of Canadians. “This is an obvious attempt to frame the discussion in forthcoming public consultations to focus exclusively on market-based solutions.”

The Minister’s Advisory Group report recommends further entrenching the water transfer system which now exists in the South Saskatchewan River Basin and extending it to entire province. The Council of Canadians warns that this plan would give water resources up to the highest bidder forcing cash-strapped municipalities to compete with big oil and other large industries for increasingly scarce water resources.

While expanding the market for water allocation transfers to the entire province and compelling all users to participate in the market, the minister’s advisory group also recommends removing much of the government oversight in approving transfer applications.

The Council of Canadians is calling instead for the Alberta government to adopt a public trust doctrine that makes governments responsible for distributing water according to the public interest. The group is demanding that such a policy also establish a hierarchy of use that places environmental needs, the right to water, local food production and cultural use above the commercial use of water.

“This highlights the lack of federal legislative safeguards in Canada allowing provinces to sell off water resources,” says Meera Karunananthan, national water campaigner for the Council of Canadians. “A water market in Alberta sets a dangerous trend with regards to the management of water resources in Canada.”

The organization is calling for a national water policy that recognizes water as a human right and a public trust.