Ban Ki Moon is over the moon with Canada!

I live in the small town of Wakefield where one of our most famous, Nobel Prime Ministers, Lester Pearson resides in eternity. This man made Canadians proud by providing leadership during the Suez canal crisis, and by backing up the threat of war with peacekeeping. Those were heady glory days for Canada, where we really made a difference in the world.

Last night I watched as the UN Secretary General, Ban KI Moon spoke with CBC's Peter Mansbridge about Canada's poor record on climate change. Make no mistake, after "winning" many fossil awards and being regarded as a global laggard when it comes to climate change action, our current leadership still refuses to be part of the real global politic when it comes to consensus on the issue of climate change.

Gone are the days when the world needs more Canada. Relatively speaking, Canada is a rich nation that is giving the finger to most other nations trying to do the responsible thing when it comes to addressing one of the biggest threats to our way of life, climate change.

Now that the US and China are on board, our current government still refuses to lift a finger. Our government expects kudos for giving $300 million to the Green Climate Fund but this is thinly disguised hypocrisy after our Canadian International Development Agency has been gutted in its recent overhaul to ignore the plight of the extreme poor of the world by bending over backwards to support the corporate  extractive mining interests.

Nothing I see coming from our government surprises me anymore, I have become numb. I feel ashamed to be a Canadian these days but I have not given up on the good people who make up this great nation. Like many, I am counting the days when an election comes and the people speak in unison to correct this injustice and bring in a government that actually cares about this planet we call home. 

Man do I feel old!

Today I came across a BBC interactive that shows since the date of your birth, how your life has progressed. This is a cool website that allows anyone to investigate how the world around them has changed since they have been alive; from the amount the sea has risen, and the tectonic plates have moved, to the number of earthquakes and volcanoes that have erupted. It can help us to grasp the impact we've had on the planet in our lifetime; from how much fuel and food we've used to the species we've discovered and endangered. This is the story of your life on this beautiful blue planet.

For example, I was surprised by the following changes since my birth in 1960 (Man do I feel old!)

• My heart has beaten over 2 billion times
• I’ve travelled 432 trillion kms through the milky way (no wonder my head is spinning)
• There have been over 275 volcanic eruptions
• The North American tectonic plate has moved 2.7 m away from Europe
• Life expectancy has increased by 18.5 yrs
• Population has increased by 4.2 billion (was about 3 billion in 1960)
• Global sea level rise is 14 cm higher than 1960
• Global average temperature increased by 0.6 C
• How old I’ll be when we run out of oil (107), coal (109), and 167 yrs for gas

ALS Ice Bucket Challenge

No, I have not been nominated yet, to take the ice bucket challenge, but for sure, I would do this if anyone read this blog and decided to take me up on the challenge. Like many, I've been painfully touched by ALS (Lou Gherig's disease). My mom died in 1996 at 65 years old, within the standard 3 years of getting the disease. Make no mistake, ALS is one hell of a cruel disease and it was unbearably sad to watch our mother of 8 children, be stripped of her dignity from this disease. I say stripped of her dignity by way of her gradual loss of all motor function, when she could no longer speak she wrote notes to us, when she could no longer write, she just looked at us lovingly with her kind sky blue eyes. I don't claim to know a lot about dignity in life, but most of what I know, I learned from my mom during her fight to fight a lost cause which is ALS. I suppose Steven Hawking gives hope to any individual with ALS or their family for that matter, but the truth is, it's one of the worse death sentences anyone can imagine.

This week, I've been watching videos of famous and not so famous people taking the ALS ice bucket challenge. I don't know who or how this started but I welcome it with open arms and heart. Thankfully, ALS does not kill near as many people as cancer or Alzheimer's, but it is probably the worse disease that anyone can get and little is known about it. As such, little research and funding goes towards better understanding and maybe finding a cure for it. There is evidence of a genetic component for the disease which means that me or one of my siblings may contract this disease in our lifetime. If its me, I doubt I'll have the strength and dignity my mom had, and I would welcome a bullet to my brain. Perhaps a cowards way out, but unlike my mom, I don't have a partner or any children to teach this most valuable lesson in life. Shit happens and it's important for those around you, to never give up hope. So I salute all those tough and compassionate souls out there dumping ice cold water on their heads to draw attention to this horrid disease.  Even though President Obama felt that it wasn't dignified or proper for someone of his stature to engage in such an act, I still kind of like the guy. He would if he could. This reminds me of the barriers and obstacles that still and perhaps always will be around when it comes to taking action on such issues. Of course, there's no shortage of good causes that are worthy of showing support or disgust by way of dumping a bucket load of ice water over your head. A heart felt thank you to all those brave and hardy people who have helped show us the way.

Human powered river boaters beware!

Last Friday I was ensnared in an MRC boat inspection operation by the MRC police. This felt like a “Just for Laughs Gag” because I was going out to see the police to complain about a large and fast motor boat that had just swamped my canoe beside my dock. That boat breezed by the police boat without being stopped. Before I could get their attention, they nabbed me and held onto me for over an hour as I was grilled and pulled downstream for over a kilometer. When I asked them to tow me back to where they picked me up because I was worried about heat stroke, they just laughed and handed me a whopping ticket.

The MRC police website indicates that on Friday they intercepted 13 boaters. 12 warnings were issued and only two tickets were issued – apart from their bad math, I was one of two who received a maximum fine of $267 for failing to have all the safety equipment on board.  The same press release urges boaters to check out a Transport Canada website which I could not find the relevant laws for human powered water craft. Believe me I tried, the only people who seem to know are motor boaters who pass a test and are given a pamphlet that states this information. This is why a warning from police is reasonable and fair. I have since spoken with other canoeists and kayakers who were pulled over the police and they told me they were issued a warning, despite missing more equipment than I was. Currently being underemployed, I couldn’t afford to pay this fine even if I had the money.

After 25 years of living on the river, I have never had an encounter with the MRC boat police and never seen anything to suggest I was breaking the law. There is no test for human powered water craft, no information on the MRC website, how is one to know? All is required is to miss out on one of the five stickler requirements that does not differ much between a 40 foot monster motor boat and a flat board. For example I had my life jacket in the canoe, I have a tied on floatation device, I had rope on both ends of the canoe (they did not measure what I had but simply said it was not the minimum 50 feet), I even had an extra paddle. I had a waterproof Tilley hat to use as a baler and I demonstrated my loud whistle with my mouth, these were not allowable. Where is their sense of humor! The last thing really blew my mind was that I needed to have a flashlight in the middle of the day to alert people on the shore if I was in trouble. I was told by Mr. Fournel that the full list of mandatory safety equipment is available on the MRC FaceBook site (which I don’t subscribe to), so I would encourage all recreational river users to become familiar with this list to avoid the cash-grab situation I fell into last Friday with the MRC police.

I would appreciate any readers sharing their stories with me if they have had a similar experience. This might help me to beat this ticket in court. In the meantime, at the very least, I hope this message helps other soft recreational boaters to avoid this water trap.

Happy safe boating!

Happy Canada Day Wakefield!

I sometimes think that God or some relative version of this or my extraordinary fantasy illusion driven mind, is playing with me. This Canada day, here in Wakefield, the theme was “Tiguido” or “come out and play”, and the creator’s creative juices were playing big time with me.

On a last minute decision, I decided that Phil Cohen is absolutely right, and it was time for me to be in the parade instead of just watching it go by. I was determined to make this my best Canada Day ever. So I volunteered the day before and on a picture perfect hot afternoon, went over to our community centre to join a surprising large number of volunteers to do whatever needed to be done to make this event a memorable occasion. I ended up making balloons, hundreds if not thousands of em, and tying them to strings and attaching them to every post around the parade route through our wonderful village. I ended up doing this with Mel, who like me, had recently seen the light, and has decided to leave the boozing and smoking behind for a life of more here and now clean living. We went through the village and had a ball with others laying out tiny Canada flags, posting bouquets of balloons all over the place. Five hours passed before I ended the stint as it started, with a jump in the cool river off my dock.

Next day I decided to be in the parade and hunted down my red shirt, my red tambourine and completed it with a small Canada flag hooked to the end of my fishing rod (I was telling people I caught the flag that morning in the Gatineau river off my deck). Off to Vorlage I went, everything felt perfect when I got there and I knew this had been the right decision. I gravitated to Pirreotte’s amazing drummers huddled in a decorated wagon with Mailin pulling them with a red car. The parade was a hoot for me, shaking my tambourine as I danced along side the wagon of drummers, matching my rhythm with the drumming. The crowd and sea of red and white alongside the festive balloons we set up the night before, was intoxicating as the sky rumbled and threatened to rain on our parade, but it didn’t yield more than a few tantalizing drops for this warm up event. The crowds were incredible, I saw Wayne and Sue on George’s perch and pointed my tambourine at them with a big smile to let them know I had found my place for now in this parade of life. The drummers were not always playing in the key of tambourine, but I put on the best show I could.

The festivities began with children singing on Jamie Robertson’s improvised army tent stage that volunteers had lovingly put together until the rumbling sky saturated with energy and lightening, exploded with perfect timing into a torrential downpour which felt like the stuff of legendary happenings akin to Woodstock. Of course, I’m inspired by Phil Cohen who by now has a front seat to Armageddon, just like his poem, taking credit for this magnificent occasion under nature’s wonder. I decide to join the kids and the IGA mascot “Tiga” to get out there and “play” in the downpour in my bare feet. Along the way, I joined a few kids to jump in huge gathering puddles, only to hear one of them say that this is the best Canada day ever, and they wished it would rain like this every year! I couldn’t agree more. Soaked and having way too much fun for an older man, the rain finally stopped and the sun came out again with perfect timing to let the festivities continue without a hitch.

Finally warmed and dried up, I decided to head home for a siesta by walking back to Phil’s house via the nature trail behind the centre. As I watched the 5 partridges pop out of an old tree by the path, I could hear children on stage singing a beautiful song that made them sound like angels. The words touched and soothed me deeply as they seemed to be speaking directly to me, “you thought you were all alone, don’t you cry to your mother,  everything is going to be alright”. Yes, life can be beautiful and mysterious.

I got home and had a swim and cozied up on dozed off with my cat on the couch in my gazebo, watching the boats and puffy grey and white clouds gather until another spectacular storm erupted like a lullaby for me. My new neighbor Roberta comes over to ask if I want to go back to the festivities with her and friends for part two of the games. It’s a few hours later and now the music is in full swing and dinner being served up. I splurge with my friends to treat myself with a cold beer that tastes like the nectar of the Gods for me in its rarity and perfect timing. I’m sitting by a picnic table enjoying the presence of good friends and great music and I look over to see a man that looks like my now rather famous friend, Dr. James Orbinski from Trent University. I go to mention this to Roberta, who also knows James from Trent university as well, and we both said at the same time that it looks like him. I said there’s no way he could be here and it must be a look a like. She goes over later to talk with him and comes up to me later to confirm that it was indeed him. Me feeling a bit daunted and shy after all these years, and now he’s like a celebrity with his work with MSF and his rather significant achievement of winning the Nobel peace prize.

I wait for my moment and it finally comes, so I walk up to him, look him straight in the eyes with a smile and shake his hand. He recognizes me immediately and we hug each other like old friends should after 30 years not seeing or hearing from each other. We end up hanging out for the rest of the evening and talking about everything old and new, I meet his wife, his buddy Ian Small who he is visiting here,  and his kids and we more than pick up again as good friends should in such a perfect setting. I still can hardly believe how surreal this all is but I’m not too surprised because I know that synchronicity is heavy in the air and the Gods are simply playing with us. All the while the amazing music and good vibes continues to overflow the moment. James and I and his musical prodigy son are watching the last band in awe, the Juno winning local band Esmerine that is playing meditative, drone music to appropriately set the mood.In short, the day could not have been better.

Next morning I decide to honor my volunteer commitment and return to the community center to work with another friend and aid worker named Rink who by no coincidence, knows both James and Ian. The two of us get to know each other as we take down and store the tents. At first I stopped to ask another volunteer I admire for his work with children and environmental issues, Jamie Robertson, if I can help out but he’s been there since 5:30 and all is under control. I work up my courage and mention to Jamie that I’m looking for something worthwhile and interesting to do and am available to help him in future if he needs the help. Another seed of many planted recently in this seemingly new direction in my life, inspired by the spirit of volunteerism and sincere desire to turn my life around and join this wonderful community here and the human race out there.

This wondrous chain of events came to me at 2:30 AM the next night after a dream, and I decided to get up and record this story so that it is not ignored or taken for granted as synchronistic events like this have in the past. It feels like a healing change is in the wind for me and I hope I can ride this new direction and fulfill my dreams of finding happiness and meaning in my modest life. Perhaps like many others out there, I still feel lost, sad and confused sometimes, but old and new friends are appearing out of the blue to remind me that I’m loved and I belong as much as anyone. I feel very inspired and reassured that the path will continue to unfold as it should and the seeds I plant along the way will reach fruition and provide me with what I deserve and need in life. The Rolling Stones said it all, “you can’t always get what you want, but if you try, you sometimes get what you need”.

I am a survivor of environmental human warfare

Why can’t we deal with the environmental destruction we are causing to the planet? I'm beginning to think we are hardwired to find humor and belittle major life and death events in order to stay sane.

While we have the ability to grasp major threats to our own body and mind, we laugh at funerals. We act like insane people towards the obvious unsustainable and exponential paths to destruction – like smokers and addicts who know they are killing themselves but live with the knowledge – hey, we all gotta go sometime…

If we’re a unique species aware of our own death and bad choices along the way that hasten this inevitability, then this is magnified to an almost insane level by our awareness that our collective impact on a global scale threatens not just our species but thousands or millions more with extinction – it’s like entering a world war knowing that by the time its over, countless millions will be dead and cities and infrastructure ruined…all for the cost of freedom and dignity?

The Earth will recover and become green and healthy again, unless we pulverize her to death with all the nukes we have. The Earth has lots of time, we don’t. When our backs are against the wall of change and our existence is threatened, like it was in the second world war with the Nazi madmen of Hitler and his henchmen, we will dig deep and find a way to survive.

We have already started this most exciting and profound journey. I may live long enough to see the world turn the corner, but I won’t see the stabilization and eventual harmony that is still possible. Tipping points are a scary reality because they are only really evident in hindsight. This experiment of humanity and the massive short term change and impact we have inflicted on Earth may be too late to change but only if we give up on hope. Somehow we will muddle through all the shit we have created and inflicted on Earth and her ecosystems and find a way to survive, mentally and physically.

I have seen enough of the big picture to seriously disappoint and depress myself, I must now move away, take a rest and a back seat to the change that is now needed by young and fertile creative minds and bodies that can do the heavy lifting. All I can do is live frugally, enjoy what time I have left, take a rest from this heavy reality I have witnessed firsthand through my environmental work.

Like a wartime reporter, I don’t know how prominent environmentalists can endure a lifetime of working in the environmental trenches and remain positive. I will try to heal myself and learn to love what nature I am fortunate to have in my back yard, like I have done most of my life. I am lucky, I am wise to understand and act on this, and I guess I am a real deal environmentalist because I fully live it.

I have made some important transitions over the last few years of my life as I realize its not too late for me to embrace the change and optimism that I need to live and feel for others. Maybe with time, I will find my voice and courage, and find a way to communicate what I have learned and taken to heart from my own experience. I have been fortunate to have chosen this career, to have fallen into this lifestyle that has provided me a front seat on this monumental change confronting Earth and humanity. 

I guess I'm lucky that I have retained an open mind and gratefulness for the blessings I have been given. I may have reasons to be bitter and disappointed that my career in the trenches of environmental warfare never really went anywhere, that I never made much money or even made much difference in my ideals, but somehow I have retained a sense of hope and optimism for our shared future.Hard to talk about and even harder to explain when no one seems to care to listen, but I'll keep trying. In the meantime, I'll take canoe and let myself go.

When being a little frank is more than embarrassing!

(This is more methane laced cow dung being spouted by our sad excuse of a PM. How dare this poor excuse for a leader speak for all world leaders when he is clearly wrong? We are a little more frank about that? Does frank mean belligerent or embarrassed to admit our ignorance? Now that the US and Australia is finally coming around to tackle climate change (in the face of overwhelming evidence for a clear and present danger), Harper is feeling increasingly marginalized for his lone strategy of doing less than nothing. Harper knows that strategically Canada is a northern country and may 100 years from now, largely benefit from climate change just as the North West passage melts and opens up new transportation routes and resources (oil and gas mainly) to exploit. By then, there won't be much of a global economy left to tackle any environmental issue that threatens our collective security. But what about the mountains of cash that Harper has thrown away on the F-35 fighter jet and so many other pet projects that have gone bust? The economy is not there for itself, it is created to allow a country to function as the people see fit. Its getting to the point that our long term allies like Australia, the US, and EU will start to avoid our government officials as the rhetoric is simply false and more than a little embarrassing, or should I say frank?)

Ottawa Citizen article: June 10/14:

Harper says there’s not a country in the world that would take action on climate change at the expense of its own economy — no matter what it might say.
Canada wants to deal with climate change without crippling the economy, he said Monday at a news conference with Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott.
“And, frankly, every single country in the world, this is their position,” Harper said.
“No country is going to undertake actions on climate change, no matter what they say … that is going to deliberately destroy jobs and growth in their country.
“We are just a little more frank about that, but that is the approach that every country is seeking.”
Abbott, who is in Ottawa on an official visit, said every country should do what it thinks is best to deal with climate change.
“We think that climate change is a significant problem. It’s not the only or even the most important that the world faces, but it is a significant problem,” he said.
“It’s important that every country should take the action that it thinks is best to reduce emissions, because we should rest lightly on the planet.”
Abbott added he is “encouraged” by regulations introduced in the United States last week to chop carbon emissions from U.S. power plants by 30 per cent by 2030.
Harper says Canada has actually done more to lower carbon emissions in its electricity sector than the U.S.
“The measures outlined by President Obama, as important as they are, do not go nearly as far in the electricity sector as the actions Canada has already taken ahead of the United States in that particular sector,” he said.
American approval of the Keystone XL pipeline, designed to move Alberta crude to the Gulf Coast, has been stalled in the U.S. while the Obama administration drops hints that Canada must do

Climate change is a clear and present danger

After reading a US report that says Climate change is a clear and present danger, I hear that western Antarctica is melting faster than many scientists thought possible...

I find it interesting and even a bit exciting to ponder the early stages of what may well become the catastrophic event that leads to the ultimate downfall of humanity. A slow unfolding of a disaster story that will affect billions of people but many of them, like me, will probably be dead and gone by the time the real disaster arrives. Of course until that day arrives, many will doubt that this disaster is in the early stages of unfolding. 

How and when did this clear and present danger begin?

When I was born in 1960 to my 30 year old parents, they must have wondered what threats this little baby might face in his lifetime? Of course the big threat then was the Cold war going hot, and this nearly happened in Cuba before I could walk or speak. This was only 15 years after WWII, so the prospects for a WWIII in my lifetime were not only real, but likely. By then, humanity had become so deadly with their bigger and deadlier military technology, that war on a global scale was rendered unwinnable and inconceivable, so cooler and smarter heads prevailed and the superpowers turned to space and landing a man on the moon was the ultimate gold medal prize. Despite the Vietnam proxy war to stop the spread of communism, it was a time of optimism and unprecedented technological change and consumer growth. This was symbolized by the summer of love, the Beatles and Montreal’s Expo 67 “Man and his World”. But by then, the nuclear genie was out of the bottle and this doomsday know-how was shared with allies and rogue states as a new atmosphere of détente filled the global vacuum.

The super powers instead celebrated the peaceful uses of nuclear technology for clean energy, I find it strange that this one peace dividend has been squandered as a legitimate option to help fight climate change because we can't seem to get it right. The super powers also built more and bigger nukes than anyone could imagine and the concept of overkill was emphasized to the point that new concepts such as nuclear winter and MAD (mutual assured destruction) came into the vernacular. I think if humanity continues for centuries more, historians will agree that it was a miracle that we came to our senses and found a way to avert the use of nuclear weapons in a theater of war and terrorism.

I doubt many parents like mine were thinking that a natural catastrophe like climate change could threaten their children. Unlike the event of a nuclear war, it was thought that we would see an environmental collapse coming and have time to tippy toe out of it. The Club of Rome published the “Limits to Growth” and Rachel Carlson stunned the world with the relatively tame “Silent Spring” and the horrors of DDT use which sounds naïve by today’s standards.  By then we had a growing reliance on technological fixes that started the industrial revolution and allowed us to get incredibly big very fast. 

Of course the ancient world saw similar apocalyptic threats like influenza and bubonic plague etc. that must have seemed like the end of humanity at the time. This lesson was the end-game result of the same rich-poor divide that plagues humanity today; living in squalor and neglecting health or human rights standards. It was a war that was created by the wealthy and primarily felt by the poor, but like radiation poisoning, it spilled into the wider public domain. At least we had relatively strong immune systems back then which is now being eroded by the absence of disease and the over-use of antibiotics. We have found another way to create similar conditions for a pandemic to bring untold death and pain to the human race. If all else fails to instill a balance to counter our exponential growth that we erroneously like to call “sustainable development”, then there is always another "big gun" to scare us and bring us to our knees.

Now the Green economy has been born to show us the SANE (Survival Assisted Natural Economy?) way to tip toe out of our narco-oil dependence and the build up of greenhouse gases that is slowly cooking our planet and melting the massive reservoirs of ice in Antarctica and Greenland. We seem to forget that although our megalopolis’ have mushroomed in size in a single generation, undreamed of by our parents or grandparents, we are surrounded by oceans that make our continents seem puny in comparison. Unless we’re ready for a futuristic version of Water World or living on other planets or moons (Expo 2067 “Man outside his World?), the likelihood of the Earth’s landmasses being inundated by water will be an endgame akin to a nuclear winter and bubonic plague together. We need to find another way to save the day and humanity from ourselves. I think we’ve met our supreme challenge on this issue and it is probably too big and too late for us to tackle. Like a child playing on a beach, making little dikes and dams and trying to control water, our feeble attempts to control nature is overwhelmed like divine intervention by the big boss called Mother Nature.

I feel sorry for the future generations who will, through no direct fault of their own, have to deal with such daunting and devastating realities of oceans swelling and climate change to make all their attempts to survive a normal life, seem like children making sand castles on a beach. Like an individual complaining of the pains and foibles of growing old, consider the alternative… We didn’t blow ourselves and the planet up with WWIII and life is a gift right? It’s hard to imagine being born into a world where all we can expect is misery and a painful early death, but it wasn’t that long ago that most men could expect to fight and die in such regular bloody wars for reasons that seemed ridiculous and futile.

The madness is now part and parcel to humanity’s slippery grip on this blue planet yet somehow, we keep finding ways to stumble along. Maybe we’re delaying the inevitable or maybe we'll eventually stumble upon a SANE way of living and learning from the past that will secure our future? I don’t have children who will act as a genetic time machine for my existence to continue on and witness this interesting human mystery. Will we make it or will we stumble and fall on our sword? I guess this gives me a unique perspective and allows me to objectively sit in my armchair time machine and ponder such deep questions of the survival of humanity. As such, I must admit, I’ve become more concerned over the fate of the natural world, the biodiversity from which we are part of and divorced from. The natural world from which we share this blue planet have become my children and I deposit my worry and hopes there. I suppose I can sleep better knowing that life in some way or form (cockroaches?), will go on no matter how we manage to screw ourselves and the planet. This is not something to feel happy about, but we've made it this far and its better than the alternative….

Commercialization of Wakefield Spring you dare say?

Our beloved Wakefield Spring is back in the news. Yesterday the Ottawa Citizen picked up discussions concerning the monetization of the Wakefield Spring that has run freely down Valley Drive since farmers began using this spring over 100 years ago.

I've known for some time that our LaPeche Council was mulling over the idea of getting into the bottled water business when the issue came up with our past Councillor Louis Rompre. Seems Louis was for the idea of charging for the water as a way to pay for services, including the cost for water quality tests and maintenance.

My friendly advice at the time was the community and especially local users like me, would not be supportive of paying a fixed price since access to safe water is not an option, it is a right and responsibility that our taxes normally help pay for. I still think that installing a voluntary coin box would not be so bad, but something happens when money comes into the equation; mostly expectations are increased.

Now our fiscally prudent Mayor is "floating" the idea to charge outside users for this water and it's not very positive. Apart from the logistics of ushering in a "user pay" system, the idea is premature since the watershed "source protection strategy" as called for by SOS (Save Our Spring) community group has not been developed past the conception stage. It may turn out that the new highway and quarry has or will irreversibly alter the water quality and the whole idea may be a moot one.

I believe that the original idea of installing a coin box for good willed donations may act as a catalyst by off-setting the cost for:  i) continuing the water quality monitoring program (with posted results); and ii) starting and completing the source protection strategy. Any water bottling project would require both space and money to build and would defeat the purpose of keeping development in and around the Spring to a minimum.

I think everyone agrees that until Wakefield gets a water system, at least 3,000 people will rely on the Spring for their potable water needs. If and when this happens, the demand for Spring water will diminish and without some kind of informal funding process, the Spring will probably be neglected and/or discontinued.Until then, we must be vigilant to ensure the tragedy of this common resource does not occur.


Here are a few opinions worth mentioning...

FYI...Interesting statement about capitialization by our Mayor, but, the
idea was born from two local individuals that thought that we were sharing
our water to too many "Outsiders" ... One opinion, that water is a precious resource that sustains...and should be given freely to all..plus it allows us to show generosity to the
rest of the region... Keep it simple...keep it *free to flow*...Take care all and enjoy this
wonderful resource for all.

Although the yield of the spring is not that big it would be enough to supply also water to a number of houses/ businesses nearby that have insufficient water from their own wells.
That would require an investment in infrastructure, permits and operation of the system, but this would solve a local problem as opposed to creating an extra plastic bottle waste issue. As soon as people got educated about the quality of the water that comes almost for free out of their own taps and the environmental impact the transport and packaging of that bottled water has, the market for this environmentally unfriendly water will shrink. What happened to the the plans for a bottled water factory in Smith Falls? Oh, that is a grow up now. Could that be a new project for this municipality? I am sure we have plenty of local expertise.   

Our mayor wants the municipality to make money by selling the Wakefield spring water. Why don’t we ask Coca Cola or Nestle to install one of their plant right by the Spring? Huge corporations across the world are trying to make water just another commodity when access to water should remain a human right, free as such. It is one thing for citizens to have to pay for tap water in order to cover the cost of transporting the water to all the houses a water management system deserves. It is in my opinion immoral to tap a spring in order to sell its content. They are however such examples elsewhere: Evian in Evian-les-Bains, France is one. I recognize drinking water from a plastic bottle sometimes because it is readily available, because I sometimes was too lazy or forgot to fill my own bottle from the artesian well water we get at home before going on a trip or to an activity. But I would rather be forced to get my water from a free spring rather than have bottled water at my disposal in stores. Also, I would rather let all people have access to the Wakefield spring, including “outsiders”, rather than tap it for money. The next commodity to harvest could be air. When do we stop?