Ottawa

Let’s get ready to rumble… about bulk water exports

Paul Dewar says he would ban bulk water exports and he challenges Thomas Mulcair to say likewise.

“I’ll be frank with you, I haven’t heard Tom speak on this issue since he’s been elected as a member of Parliament. I hope that the position he had before with the Liberal government, which was in the past, is in the past, and that his position will be the party position,” added Dewar.

Back in 2004, Mulcair called for a debate on the bulk export of fresh water in Quebec to the United States despite a five-year ban imposed by the Parti Quebecois in 2001. He argued it was already happening with respect to bottled water and that water exports could keep people in remote parts of the province which are bleeding jobs in forestry, fishing and mining.

The Liberal campaign in 2008 seems to have uploaded video of Mr. Mulcair discussing bulk water exports when he was a member of the Quebec assembly.

I can find no reference to bulk water exports in the NDP’s 2011 platform, but the party’s 2008 platform included a promise to “ban bulk fresh water exports from Canada by federal law.”

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