Water flows downhill from here
Why is it that our current government tends to raise the “I don’t trust their motives” hairs on the back of my neck? Oh, right; because I don’t trust their motives. The CBC points out that there is an intention to renegotiate the treaty that set rules for water use from the Great Lakes. Big lakes, shared resource. The treaty has been in place for about a century. What suddenly stung some high-level bureaucrat into action?
Could it be that the southern United States would like access to some nice, cool water? Not to drink, per se. There is a need to keep those golf courses green and assure that a quickly growing population never has to think about mind-numbing things like conservation. And those Great Lakes, with that water just sitting there. So tempting.
I’m not sure that Harper is the man to get us a better deal. After all, the last century has gone reasonably well. What would he offer the thirsty Washington lobby that would be to our advantage? For those who are interested by the “nice nice” of an International Joint Commission, here is their web site. The treaty names, (from the CBC story) are the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement and the Boundary Waters Treaty.
Pardon my mild paranoia, but we haven’t “won” a negotiation with the elephant to the south in recent years. We have generated a lot of mouse turd. I’m not sure that once we start the water flowing southward, we’re going to find it easy to get it back. It’s mainly downhill from here to there.
