Canadian Water Politics

Canadian Water Politics explores the nature of water use conflicts and the need for institutional designs and reforms to meet the governance challenges now and in the future. The editors present an overview of the properties of water, the nature of water uses, and the institutions that underpin water politics. Contributors highlight specific water policy concerns and conflicts in various parts of Canada and cover issues ranging from the Walkerton drinking water tragedy, water export policy, Great Lakes pollution, St Lawrence River shipping, Alberta irrigation and oil production, and fisheries management on the Atlantic and Pacific coasts.

This book provides an insightful and critical assessment of the state of Canadian water governance and policy. It adopts a multidisciplinary variety of perspectives and considers local, basin, provincial and national scales. Canada’s leading authorities from the social sciences, life and natural sciences address pressing water issues in a non-technical language, making them accessible to a wide audience. Even though Canada is seen as a water-rich country, with 7% of the world’s reliable flow of freshwater and many of the world’s largest rivers, the country nevertheless faces a number of significant water-related challenges, stemming in part from supply-demand imbalances but also a range of water quality issues. Against the backdrop of a water policy landscape that has changed significantly in recent years, this book therefore seeks to examine water-related issues that are not only important for the future of Canadian water management but also provide insights into transboundary management, non-market valuation of water, decentralized governance methods, the growing importance of the role of First Nations peoples, and other topics in water management that are vital to many jurisdictions globally. The book also presents forward-looking approaches such as resilience theory and geomatics to shed light on emerging water issues. Researchers, students and those directly involved in the management of Canadian waters will find this book a valuable source of insight. In addition, this book will appeal to policy analysts, people concerned about Canadian water resources specifically as well as global water issues.

As the sustainability of our natural resources is increasingly questioned, Canadians remain stubbornly convinced of the unassailability of our water. Mounting evidence suggests, however, that Canadian water is under threat. Eau Canada assembles the country's top water experts to discuss our most pressing water issues. Perspectives from a broad range of thinkers � geographers, environmental lawyers, former government officials, aquatic and political scientists, and economists � reflect the diversity of concerns in water management. Arguing that weak governance is at the heart of Canada's water problems, this timely book identifies our key failings, explores debates over jurisdiction, transboundary waters, exports, and privatization, and maps out solutions for protecting our most important resource.

The Canadian Environment in Political Context uses a non-technical approach to introduce environmental politics to undergraduate readers. The second edition features expanded chapters on wildlife, water, pollution, land, and energy. Beginning with a brief synopsis of environmental quality across Canada, the text moves on to examine political institutions and policymaking, the history of environmentalism in Canada, and other crucial issues including Indigenous peoples and the environment, as well as Canada’s North. Enhanced with case studies, key words, and a comprehensive glossary, Olive's book addresses the major environmental concerns and challenges that Canada faces in the twenty-first century.

Freshwater is in great supply across much of Canada. However, competing and changing demands on its use are leading to ever more complex political arrangements. This volume offers an integrated survey of that complexity, combining historical and contemporary cases in a conceptually-informed exploration of water politics. It offers a set of tools, frameworks, and applications that enable readers to recognize and explore the political dimensions of freshwater. The opening chapters introduce core concepts such as power, organized interests, knowledge systems, and the state. They are followed by chapters discussing freshwater subsectors including fisheries, irrigation, flood control, hydropower, and groundwater. A series of topical themes is addressed, including salmon conservation, Aboriginal water interests, hydraulic fracturing, regulatory revisions, and interjurisdictional management. A final section explores emerging trends in freshwater governance. While river catchments are not always the principal denominator in discussions of water politics, they do provide a primary frame of reference for this book. A watershed case study accompanies each chapter. This watershed grounding is intended to encourage readers to turn their attention to local and regional conditions.

Passionate and cogent, this could be the most important book of the year for Canadians We are complacent. We bask in the idea that Canada holds 20% of the worldÍs fresh water „ water crises face other countries, but not ours. We could not be more wrong. In Boiling Point, bestselling author and activist Maude Barlow lays bare the issues facing CanadaÍs water reserves, including long-outdated water laws, unmapped and unprotected groundwater reserves, agricultural pollution, industrial-waste dumping, boil-water advisories, and the effects of deforestation and climate change. This will be the defining issue of the coming decade, and most of us have no idea that it is on our very own doorstep. Barlow is one of the worldÍs foremost water activists and she has been on the front lines of the worldÍs water crises for the past 20 years. She has seen first-hand the scale of the water problems facing much of the world, but also many of the solutions that are being applied. In Boiling Point, she brings this wealth of experience and expertise home to craft a compelling blueprint for CanadaÍs water security.

Winner of the Political Geography Specialty Group's 2015 Julian Minghi Distinguished Book Award! With almost the entire world’s water basins crossing political borders of some kind, understanding how to cooperate with one’s neighbor is of global relevance. For Indigenous communities, whose traditional homelands may predate and challenge the current borders, and whose relationship to water sources are linked to the protection of traditional lifeways (or ‘ways of life’), transboundary water governance is deeply political. This book explores the nuances of transboundary water governance through an in-depth examination of the Canada-US border, with an emphasis on the leadership of Indigenous actors (First Nations and Native Americans). The inclusion of this "third sovereign" in the discussion of Canada-U.S. relations provides an important avenue to challenge borders as fixed, both in terms of natural resource governance and citizenship, and highlights the role of non-state actors in charting new territory in water governance. The volume widens the conversation to provide a rich analysis of the cultural politics of transboundary water governance. In this context, the book explores the issue of what makes a good up-stream neighbor and analyzes the rescaling of transboundary water governance. Through narrative, the book explores how these governance mechanisms are linked to wider issues of environmental justice, decolonization, and self-determination. To highlight the changing patterns of water governance, it focuses on six case studies that grapple with transboundary water issues at different scales and with different constructions of border politics, from the Pacific coastline to the Great Lakes.