My discourse is structured less on what we should do, but rather on how water is both a commodity and a public good.
Moderator: Excellent, but please make sure you don't get into a fight with Paul's rigorous political approach!
Karen Bakker: Right, will do. We can all understand why water is a public good: because the public drinks it, washes with it and uses it for water balloons. On the other hand, there are companies who see that water can also be a commodity and, as such, they stock the water in water balloons and them sell them, either to the state, in public-private partnerships, or directly to the population. France is a good example in this sense, but then, it was also them who had the Revolution in 1789, wasn't it?
Taking the discussion further on this line (I will actually stop with the funny line though), treating water as a commodity is also likely to increase competitiveness on the market and ensure the appropriate and efficient distribution of water to the final recipients or, at least, that is the hope. There markets where this type of approach works and other markets where it does not and "privatization has worked well in other sectors" (Bakker, 2003).
On the other hand, discussing water as a public utility will tend to increase the involvement of the government in the management process. To what degree is that a positive thing? Well, Pink Floyd would tell the teachers to leave the kids alone, but we know that the teachers are sometimes needed there to intervene when the kids are pulling their hair out.
Maude Barlow: I do understand Karen's point-of-view, although I have made serious efforts not to tackle her straight off her chair, and I have honestly tried to understand Paul's, but I can honestly not see and perceive water as an economic commodity....
Water can simply only be "a human right and a public trust" (Barlow, 2007). In my opinion, if we start promoting the idea that water is a commodity, we risk arriving at a dangerous conclusion: as any commodity, it does not have to be available for all clients. Some clients can simply not afford it. I don't believe that we can afford such an approach and I think that the governments need to develop the appropriate policies to ensure that this does not occur. In this, I actually concur with Paul's view about the need of a centralized government approach to ensure that water remains a public good to which everybody has access.
J. Withgott: it looks like our time is almost over, so, before I actually give our moderator the chance to cut me off, I want to add that water should not only be seen as a part of every individual's life, but also as a fundamental part of the environment. Many of our interventions in governmental and private policies will also need to ensure that the contributions we make do not affect the environment and do not limit the actual resource we are talking about here.
Moderator: With this environmentalist approach, we conclude today's discussion on the importance of water and on the policies we should be implementing to our own benefit.
Bibliography
1. Muldoon, Paul, and Theresa McClenaghan. 2007. "A tangled web: Reworking Canada's water laws." In Eau Canada: The future of Canada's water, ed. Karen Bakker, 245-261. Vancouver: UBC Press
2. Barlow, Maude. 2007. Blue Covenant: The Global Water Crisis and the Coming Battle for the Right Water.
3. Boyd, David. 2003. Unnatural Law: Rethinking Canadian Environmental Law and Policy. Vancouver UBC Press.
4. Bakker, Karen. 2003. Liquid Assets. Alternatives Journal. 29 (2). P. 17-21
