Canadians are among some of the most water-rich people globally, with access to about 20 per cent of the world’s freshwater supply and seven per cent of the world’s renewable freshwater supply.
As a result, Canadians are among the most water-greedy nations in the world, with per-capita water use in the average Canadian household coming in at more than 220 litres a day.
Canadians consume double the United Nations’ recommended consumption limit. Canada was the second largest consumer of water in 2017, dropping only to the eighth largest consumer per capita in the world in 2022.
Canada has been largely immune to the issues of water scarcity, quality and accessibility affecting billions around the globe — issues that are only growing in severity, as the Los Angeles wildfires are so vividly illustrating.
But Canada’s privileged position will not last forever. Unless properly managed, even Canada’s water supplies will eventually run out.
It’s time to challenge our wasteful ways and accept that even in Canada, water must be managed effectively to sustain economic development and societal growth under increasing climate pressures.
Draining the well
Water in Canada is managed primarily at the provincial and territorial level. What this means is that the exploitation of water from rivers, lakes and groundwater reservoirs is largely a provincial and territorial responsibility. In some cases, this governance is subject to agreements with other provinces or other countries.
There is no federal authority over water decision-making in Canada. This lack of oversight complicates data collection, data access and overall water management — though the soon-to-launch Canada Water Agency does aim to address some of these issues.
The Canadian water cycle is highly complex. Water supply in Canada is dependent upon seasonal changes and weather patterns, permafrost, glaciers, snow and snowmelt, wetlands and a range of other factors. What’s more, water flows in most of Canada are under-monitored relative to the World Meteorological Organization standards
Compounding these issues is the regulation and fragmentation of Canadian rivers primarily for energy and resource extraction. These uses, coupled with a lack of transparency around reporting changes in river flows, have left flow rates in most of Canada’s rivers largely unknown and difficult to predict.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jeff McIntosh
The impact of global warming
Climate change further complicates this picture.
The warming already being experienced has resulted in unusually extreme events ranging from catastrophic wildfires — such as the ones that recently destroyed much of Jasper, similar to those currently decimating Los Angeles — to drought across the Prairies.
Most of Canada will have to adapt to longer dry periods and increasing water stress with competing demands for the limited supply.
The 2024 Jasper Fire is a grim reminder of the urgency of adopting a Canadian national wildfire strategy
The Palliser’s Triangle covering southern Alberta and Saskatchewan is the driest region of Canada and was once thought uninhabitable. Modern engineering has turned this region into Canada’s bread basket, contributing $1.3 billion annually to the Canadian gross domestic product. This engineering, however, is heavily reliant on water supply.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jeff McIntosh
The agriculture industry in Alberta is responsible for around 45 per cent of Alberta’s overall water use. A staggering 70 per cent of the water in the Saskatchewan River basin is allocated to agriculture.
Despite growing water efficiencies, agricultural users still remove water from the system for longer periods of time than municipal or residential users, resulting in a greater impact on the environment. Indeed, factoring in per-capita use across all sectors shoots the litres of water used per day across Canada up from 220 to more than 400 litres.
These are unsustainable levels of water use and Alberta in particular is challenged by diminishing water supply and increasing drought.
Mismanagement
Complicating the water management landscape are transboundary water agreements designed to equitably share water across jurisdictional boundaries.
Alberta’s water is shared with Manitoba and Saskatchewan through the Master Agreement on Apportionment, and a further agreement governs the Mackenzie River that flows through Alberta and the Northwest Territories. At the same time, the 1909 Boundary Waters Treaty between the United States and Canada governs the transboundary St. Mary/Milk River system.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Todd Korol
These water agreements are designed to avoid inequalities and ensure that all those within the basin have equal access. However, the dual threat of climate change and increasing demand pressures may stretch many to the breaking point.
Looking back to nature for how best to effectively and sustainably manage water resources for all Canadians and the ecosystem is perhaps our best option. Canada’s current political and water governance system is, however, not designed to effectively support this.
Water governance is fragmented across many jurisdictions with little care for overall basin health and the ubiquitous first-in-time, first-right water license system prioritizes agricultural and industrial users. Such management principles do not promote sustainability, nor do they provision for ecosystem services or unlicensed users (such as Indigenous communities).
Wider repercussions
Access to water is intrinsically linked to human health. Meanwhile access to water is itself dependent upon healthy and stable ecosystems. Our current system of fragmented oversight and privileged licences is not an effective means to ensure Canada’s long-term water security.
The Alberta government has made it clear it’s more concerned with the rights of individual licence holders than the rights of citizens, the ecosystem and Canada’s Indigenous Peoples.
Transformative adaptation of water policy is required to secure Canada’s water future. Canada urgently needs a federally enacted co-operative governance model to oversee water information, protection, licensing and allocation.
Addressing these grand water challenges requires an ambitious investment in environmental prediction at a scale never before undertaken in Canada, simulating whole-system pressures and ecosystem feedbacks to understand the socioeconomic impacts imposed by climate change.
In every challenge, however, there lies great opportunity.
The choices we make today will impact our children and their children and will literally mean the difference between them thriving or surviving as a society. Ultimately, it is us and our way of being that must adapt to new extremes — not the other way around.
