Water, Human Rights and the 'Deep Integration of North America'
An Interview with Maude Barlow
London, UK - February 23, 2007
Internationally celebrated Canadian author and activist Maude Barlow talks about the looming planetary water shortage and corporate efforts to privatize the world's remaining water supplies. She alerts us also to a well-advanced, corporate-driven stealth program aimed at 'doing an end run around the democratic institutions of Mexico, the U.S. and Canada' to establish a deceptively-titled 'Security and Prosperity Partnership of America (SPP).' If the SPP is allowed to go into effect, Barlow warns, trade agreements negotiated behind closed doors by anonymous technocrats will supercede the labor, food safety, transportation and environmental laws of all three countries. Barlow calls SPP 'NAFTA [the North American Free Trade Agreement] on steroids,' and tells how North American activists must unite across borders and rise to the challenge.'
Interviewed by Mary Beth Brangan & James Heddle
Co-Directors of EON - The Ecological Options Network
[option/alt click to download]
EON: Why does the world's water need saving, Maude?
MB: There are two crises with the world's water. One of them is ecological and the other is human rights. As a species, we are polluting, diverting, and really destroying the surface waters of the world so much that we're now over-mining the ground water and are beginning to move, in pretty massive quantities, water from one place to another, creating massive deserts. It's a very important part of the global warming/climate change story.
And there are now close to 2 billion people - and this is the human rights part of it - living in water-stressed regions of the world that have absolutely no access to clean water. And since the demand is going to grow dramatically as we are exponentially using too much more water as we industrialize, the demand is going to be about 80% over what we actually have. Nobody knows where this water is going to come from.
A World Gone Dry
So it's a story that's just beginning to percolate in the global north. It's a very big issue in the global south. But in the United States, people are just beginning to understand that this isn't something far away, but that, in fact, in the next decade, 36 States in the United States are going to be in some level of water stress, some right out of water. We're not talking drought; we're talking absolutely out of water! And this issue is going to come home to Americans really, really strongly in a very short time, in my opinion.
EON: How does a State run out of water?
MB: Well, it's just that you don't have any surface water, or enough surface water, and you over use the ground water. The ground water's the water source supplied under the ground. The Ogallala Aquifer which is one of the biggest, perhaps the biggest in the world, about the size of Lake Huron and a bit, is a huge aquifer that goes all the way down under the American mid-west and is used to grow oases in the deserts and makes cities and swimming pools and golf courses and so on. And it is being pumped at about 10 times faster than can be replaced by nature, so it will deplete. Different studies say different times, but there is no question that it will deplete.
What happens is, you take water from where you can get at it like an aquifer, like through wells through sustainable use, or through an eco-system, a watershed, and you massively move it as if you're mining it. Think of it as gold - these companies come in and they take it all out. When they're finished with it, they walk away. That's the new concept of water. So they take this water and use it to water a desert. We end up with two deserts.
It's not that there isn't the same amount of water on the Earth as there always was because that's the hydrologic cycle; it's just that you've either polluted it - and we've polluted massive, massive amounts of the world surface water so we can't use it -- or we've moved it from where we could get at it to where it can't be useful to us anymore, including as we create larger cities and we urbanize and we pave over meadows and wetlands and streams and so on, we also don't give water a place to come back to. So the rain comes back and it's like falling on a cement umbrella, and it's taken out by the rivers to the oceans.
World Water Crisis
So one of the reasons that we have rising oceans is that water isn't able to come back to the landmass in the same way that it was when we weren't so urbanized. So there are many, many behaviors that we have just not been tracking that suddenly some of us are putting together and seeing this is a global water crisis. It is, in my opinion, as much of a crisis as climate change. Or, a better way to put it is it's the other half of the climate change equation; one half is the fossil fuel emissions from above warming us up, and the other is the desertification of the Earth. And we really have to put those analyses together in a very powerful campaign to save the world's water.
The Blue Planet Project
EON: What is the Council of Canadians and its Blue Planet Project doing to save it?
MB: Well, right now our biggest fight is around preserving the democratic right of local peoples to their water sources because we believe the best carers of water are those who have to live by it and on it and depend on it for food and so on. And we're trying to stop corporate theft of the world's water. There are corporations, big service companies that are coming in with the aid of the World Bank and just going into Third World countries and delivering water on a for-profit basis. And, of course, millions and millions and millions of people who can't afford it don't have access or they get linked up and then they get their water cut by a meter or whatever.
Another way in which water is being privatized is bottling. And you know everybody walks around with their little bottle of water. Last year in the world we put about 150 billion American gallons of water in plastic which is just phenomenal if you try to imagine how much we're talking about here. And that's growing exponentially at about 20% a year which means that we're creating mountains of plastic garbage from this which leach back into the water which becomes part of the problem.
But it also allows us to think about water as a commodity and, therefore, it doesn't matter if your public water system deteriorates because you can always buy water. It's that notion that we have, particularly in the richer parts of the world, that whatever you destroy you can buy from somewhere else. And it ain't true for a lot of things and it ain't true for water, right?
Another way in which water is being privatized is through massive clean-up technology and I see governments giving enormous subsidies to companies like desalination companies. I think we're going to see a lot more money going into this whole nano-technology for water, all deregulated - or unregulated is better - never was regulated in the first place. And also into water purification - there is just billions and billions and billions of dollars of profit now from cleaning up dirty water.
Well, in whose corporate interest is it to conserve water and to stop the original pollution if you set up a whole industry based on its clean up, right? So now I see this vicious cycle where we are allowing the world's water to deteriorate because it's become part of the economic system.
Wall Street's 'Water Portfolios' - Capitalizing on H2O
It's only in the last, I'd say, two years that water has been on the stock exchange and there are now water indexes, and now you can you have a water portfolio and you can put your money directly into a water portfolio. Those water portfolios are going faster than any other portfolio anywhere. I mean, these are the stocks to watch; and if you read the red hot stock investor tip kind of analyses, they'll tell you water, water, water because people desperately need it. Nothing is going to change that, not political changes, not climate change. Climate change is going to make it worse. There's money in them there hills, right?
The Right To Water
And so we're working for the right to water. We believe that water is a human right. We believe that water does not belong to anybody. It belongs to the Earth. It belongs to all species. It's a public trust. It's part of our collective heritage. We don't believe anyone has the right to appropriate it for personal gain and so we are working with groups around the world to help them take their water rights back both in terms of the access to clean waters so that they're not drinking polluted water but also that they have local control over their water. And it's an uphill fight because we've got a huge industry and they're backed by big governments. They're backed by the World Back. They're backed by the International Monetary Fund. They're backed by trade rules in the World Trade Organization but I'm never one to shy away from a good fight.
Canada's Alberta Tar Sands Project
EON: We know that the Alberta Tar Sands Project uses enormous amounts of energy and also enormous amounts of water. Can you talk about that?
MB: Well, as you know we've run out of conventional energy sources in the United States and are running out in Canada. And the United States wants to become independent of Saudi and Middle Eastern energy sources, so they are moving into the Tar Sands in the north of Alberta. It's a huge vast area of well deposits about the size of New Brunswick, a big province in Canada, that holds enough heavy oil - it's called heavy oil - to pave a four-lane highway to the moon with off ramps. It's huge, right, a huge, huge deposit.
However, it's mixed with something called bitumen, which basically means it's in a deep sand mixture and that's why they call it tar sands. It looks like big thick tar. And they have to have a mining operation to remove the oil from the sand so it's not like the typical pumping oil out of the ground. It's not that easy. And it takes an enormous amount of energy so it's using up almost as much energy as it produces.
And, of course, the added issue in our country is it all goes to the United States. But it also is destroying a great deal of water because they use heavy steam pressure to separate the oil from the sand particles. And we know now that for every unit of oil they extract from the Tar Sands, we are using and basically destroying three equal units of water, so three for one. But one of those units is actually lost to the hydrologic cycle altogether. They're not terribly sure why that's happening but the scientists are telling us that we're actually not going to get this water replaced as rain because we actually have interfered with the hydrologic cycle. When you take on an engineering project of this size, you play god with the entire environment.
An additional concern of ours is they want to bring gas from the very Northwest territories with a huge 1200 mile pipeline through the permafrost which is going to destroy the migrating patterns of the caribou and the polar bears and all sorts of bird species and use that gas for the energy to mine these tar sands - again, just to send the stuff south so that the United States can continue its wars as far as I can see. I mean we're buying into a terrible system, and just depleting our own system at the same time.
The Security Prosperity Partnership For North America
EON: Well, there are some people that say that the solution would be for Canada to just become part of the United States. Let's talk about that scenario.
MB: Well now, it's very interesting that energy and resource harmonization is a very, very key part of a new project that very few North Americans know about. It's called the Security Prosperity Partnership for North America. It was a result of 9/11.
The Canadian big business lobby decided that they got nervous that the border was going to start to get more tough to get across with all the trade because so much of our trade goes to the United States. And so they basically said to the Bush Administration, what can Canada offer up that you'll keep that border open because it was, you know, the concerns that maybe all the terrorists came from Canada, which they did not. I want your listeners and readers to know that this is not true. But that was the subtext there, that that border's not safe and Canada harbors terrorists, so what can we do? And so they convinced our government at the time to basically offer up a whole bunch of areas of 'harmonization.' And they started negotiations to create a North American common market to have one security regime so your war on terror in the United States becomes North American war on terror so we'd have one security perimeter - one Premier in Canada called it zip-locking North America into one security perimeter - harmonized immigration, harmonized refuge processes, harmonized entry point standards.
The idea is that if somebody's coming to North America and has no intention of traveling to the other countries, they have to convince the block they can get in, so it's like the European Union, only without the environmental and human rights safeguards that they built into Europe. And resources is a huge part of it. Basically, they're moving towards a system where the resources of the block belong to the block. And, of course, for Canadians that means Canadian resources, Canadian water, Canadian energy, and so on. And it also means - and it's not that we don't want to share our energy - it also means that we don't collectively bring in a much more rational, sensible policy around our resource use because there's this notion that it's just unlimited - which, of course, is not true.
There's also, I think for Mexicans, the big issue that business wants that access to cheap labor to move it up to the United States and to Canada when needed, but workers can't stay as refugees so they can't claim status. They're basically sent back home. So it's based on a business model for North America.
It's called Security and Prosperity Partnership of America. It was signed in March 2005 in Waco, Texas, with then Prime Minister Paul Martin, George Bush, and Vincente Fox of Mexico. They met again a year later in March 2006 in Cancun. But then we had a new Prime Minister, Steven Harper (who is a Bush clone. “Little Bush” we call him) and George Bush and Vincente Fox. This time they set up the North American Competitiveness Council with 30 major CEO's of big corporations like Wal-Mart, Lockheed Martin. All these big companies are now co-governing this new project for North America and we call it “fortress North America”. We think that it's based entirely, exclusively, on a big business model.
'Harmonization' = U.S. Annexation of Mexico and Canada
They have pushed, pushed, pushed and they're going to get it - a whole series of cross-border negotiations to harmonize standards in everything from food, food safety, health, seeds. Every form of environmental regulation is all being harmonized to the lowest common standard and then set in a tri-national framework, so that if you don't agree and you don't like that in your own country, you don't just have to convince Congress, you have to convince the block that these standards are too low. They're moving to a race-to-the-bottom, survival of the fittest, pro- big business agenda on this continent that is really awful.
And I think if most Americans and Canadians and Mexicans - just ordinary people - knew about what the Security and Prosperity Partnership was they would be very upset. It's the worst of NAFTA on steroids but it does not come back to the legislatures of our three countries to be ratified or not ratified. It has been done with no debate. There's only one sector that they're negotiating with and listening to and that's the big business sector. Nobody seems to be concerned about environment or health or human rights, nothing. None of those issues matter.
EON: How far developed is it?
MB: Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America is 2 _ years old so it's there. It's really established, although it's not established in the minds of people. It just doesn't exist yet in the public mind, but it's in my country it's getting well known and suddenly it's become quite contentious.
They're going to be meeting again in August of 2007, this time in Canada, probably Kananaskis that is an area in Alberta, which is remote and cut off from public access. They'll be able to have police prevent any of us from getting anywhere near this big resort area. And I expect there'll be a big protest. I expect that's when you're going to start hearing about it.
Why are Canadians upset about this? I think we're going to have some Americans coming up to join us and it's going to get put it on the radar screen then. But meanwhile there are dozens and dozens and dozens of cross-border working groups working already on every sector of this fortress North America scheme - from harmonizing our defense and operational defense operational capacities, to the security systems and border systems, to harmonizing our food systems, trade in food, to harmonizing it all into what they call a tested-once policy. So that if one of the countries has given something the okay like a new chemical, the other countries have to abide by it. And they're shifting from what's called 'the precautionary principle,' where you're not supposed let something to the market until you're sure it's safe, to something called 'risk assessment,' which is basically, well, you let it out. You want to make sure it's not going to kill a whole bunch of people right away, but you're not waiting until you know it's safe; you're taking a certain risk because there's money to be made and you don't want to hurt the economy. That's all being negotiated.
Not Just Another Right Wing Paranoid Fantasy
This is all part of this whole new process, 'cross-border harmonization.' I can show you the documents. I'm not making this up. They're harmonizing every sector of the environment from chemicals to forestry to mining to automobiles to energy along a business model because they're only talking to the big business community on all three sides of the border. That's the only group that is negotiating, co-governing this thing.
So based on that model, they're harmonizing all of the standards right across the board. And they're basically following the model that George Bush brought in when he was governor of Texas and he basically allowed a voluntary code for energy and automobiles. He basically said we won't have laws anymore. We'll exempt you from those laws and you set up your own regulatory code and report on yourselves or don't. And as you know, George Bush has gutted something like 400 environmental regulations either fully or at least partially, so we are moving towards that model of deregulation on a continental basis. And it's going to be much harder to get some of those rules rescinded or get them back if you've lost the democratic right within your own country to do this, no matter which of the three countries you live in because you'd now have to convince the whole bloc of three countries.
The Need for Cross-Border Grassroots Alliances
EON: How would you convince the bloc?
MB: Well, to do it you'd have to move to a North American civil society movement, I guess. It complicates everything. I don't vote for the United States President. I think the whole world should get to vote for him or her, by the way. Because you guys are so powerful, we should all have a vote here, but the reality is that a lot of the rules are going be set in Washington. For those of us living in Canada and Mexico, we're going to feel helpless to make any change. So we're going to have to make deeper alliances with American groups who feel this way, but we don't have the direct vote.
And for Americans who want a different vision for North America, (because this notion that some people have, that Americans are like George Bush - I keep saying no way, you don't know Americans if this is what you think) - for Americans who would have a very different vision of what North America could look like, this is a very bad agreement because it really cuts down the democratic space in which we can create a different vision to really directly deal with the environmental catastrophe of climate change and the water crisis, deforestation that's coming on, to deal with the growing inequities between people. I mean, the top 10% in the United States now own two-thirds of the wealth. You know, how do you challenge that? Well, you challenge it with others. But if you've set in place a different model that makes it far harder to change.
So that the reality becomes for all of us that it makes it harder to make a better world, to make that difference, to make the difference on our continent because I don't know any Canadians who are anti-American or anti-North American in the sense that we don't understand that we share a space and that pollution travels across political borders and water and, you know, air travels back and forth; and if we could have good common standards and share culture and diversity and share our knowledge, that's all good. Nobody's against that.
What's Good For Corporate North America
This so-called 'Security and Prosperity Partnership of America' is a model based on what's good for corporate North America, and they have got the governments of the three countries just saying how far do you want to go? What would you like? How can we serve you? It's quite stunning. And I think if the people of North America had the ability to vote on this, they would vote against it.
The Corporate 'End Run' Around National Sovereignty and Democratic Choice
EON: So this 'North American Union' is essentially an end run against the democratic governments of all three countries.
MB: Absolutely. It's an end run around the democratic processes in all three countries and this is what people need to know. Instead of negotiating something and then coming back to the three bodies - the Mexican Legislature, our Parliament and your Congress - to have a debate and to have people pick it apart the way you do with trade agreement (this is like a trade agreement) and say this piece is okay, this piece I can't stand, this piece I'd go to the wall on, right? There's none of that. It's been a total end run around democracy.
And they say, well, it was all in the newspapers. Well, in my country it was stuck in the business section of one newspaper and I saw no media coverage in the United States when the original Waco signing happened, none. And we monitored it.
Now it is beginning to get a little bit of debate, but, unfortunately in the United States a bit of the criticisms are coming from the far right worried about immigration. And it's the wrong critique, because this is about controlling immigration, bringing in day laborer for weeks or months or farm laborers, whatever, up to the oil patch from Mexico and sending them back when they're finished with them. I mean it really isn't a pro-people project at all. But, unfortunately, that's been the only critique in the United States and it's really important we get people concerned with human rights and the environment and social rights involved in this debate.
EON: And how about the people of Mexico? Have you been in touch with any groups there?
MB: Just beginning. We've got wonderful colleagues in Mexico and the United States in all of our different movements, from free trade and through the NAFTA [the North American Free Trade Agreement] fight, to food issues, to diversity issues, to human rights and so on, this has been really positive. Now we're saying to those groups, hey guys, sorry but there's a whole new problem, a whole new project that we have to work together on.
But because it hasn't had much media in either the United States or Mexico, it's harder to get people's attention. They say the SPP, what the heck's an SPP? And it's like, well, it's NAFTA on steroids; it's the next step of this project. If you loved NAFTA, you're going to love the SPP. If you love George Bush, you're going to love the SPP. If that's not where you are, if you have a different vision for our continent, then we need to work together to defeat this thing called 'the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America.' Go right on to your government's website and just Google in SPP, Security and Prosperity Partnership, it's right there. http://www.spp.gov/
Visit the Council of Canadians website: http://www.canadians.org/
General information: inquiries@canadians.org
Tel: (613) 233-2773 or 1-800-387-7177
Media: meera@canadians.org
Inquiries from journalists
Tel: (613) 233-4487, ext. 234
The Council of Canadians recently held a Teach-In on the SPP. Entitled “Integrate This! Challenging the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America.” March 31 to April 1, 2007, sponsored by the Council of Canadians, the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives and the Canadian Labour Congress.
Integrate This! brought together activists, academics, workers, politicians and journalists from Canada, Mexico and the United States to challenge the big-business vision of North American integration contained in the Security and Prosperity Partnership - a vision that has yet to be debated anywhere but which will have major impacts on citizens across the continent. For more information: http://www.canadians.org/integratethis/
Maude Barlow is the National Chairperson of The Council of Canadians, Canada's largest citizens' advocacy organization with members and chapters across Canada. She is also the co-founder of the Blue Planet Project, which works to stop commodification of the world's water, and an Executive Board Member of the International Forum on Globalization, a San Francisco based research and education institution opposed to economic globalization. Maude is also a fellow with the Washington-based Institute for Policy Studies; a board member of Food and Water Watch, the national US organization fighting for public control of water; and a founding member of the European-based World Future Council.
She is the recipient of numerous educational awards and has received honorary doctorates from six Canadian universities for her social justice work as well as the recipient of the 2005/2006 Lannan Cultural Freedom Fellowship. Most recently, Barlow received the prestigious 2005 Right Livelihood Award (widely referred to as the alternative Nobel Prize).
She is the best-selling author or co-author of fifteen books. Her most recent publications are Too Close For Comfort: Canada's Future Within Fortress North America; and Blue Gold: The Fight to Stop Corporate Theft of the World's Water (with Tony Clarke), now available in 16 languages and 47 countries around the world. Currently, Maude is writing a new book on the global fight for the right to water - To be published fall 2007 in the U.S. by New Press, in Canada by McClelland & Stewart, as well as internationally.
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Mary Beth Brangan and James Heddle are Co-Directors of EON, the Ecological Options Network - www.EON3.net They can be reached at Info@EON3.net.