CORY'S RANT： Anti-enterprise ideology is killing essential projects
Episode Stats
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194.9453
Summary
In the late 1980s, the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) became a rallying cry for hard-left activists fighting free trade. They focused on the myth that the "Big Bad Americans" would come up and take Canada's water if we allowed free trade, and we wouldn't be able to stop them.
Transcript
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Way back in the late 1980s, the North American issue cause celeb for the hard left protectionist
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was the North American Free Trade Agreement. NAFTA, in other words. I mean, in lacking a solid
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economic case for opposing deregulated trade, activists moved on to their usual tactic of
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playing on fear and emotion. They created the myth, this is what they did in Canada, created
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the myth that corporations were going to buy all the world's water and they were going to drain us
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dry. The Council of Canadians was formed and managed by noteworthy leftists such as David Suzuki and
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Maude Barlow. Yes, those names have been coming up for 30 some years now. The whole point of that
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organization really was to try and halt free trade and they focused on the message that the big bad
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Americans would come up and take Canada's water if we allowed free trade and we wouldn't be able to
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do anything to stop. Their message was simplistic. They always began by pointing out how desperately
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dry California is and how abundant Canada's fresh water supplies were. They made the case that the
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Americans would move water from Canada's western lakes and rivers into California for irrigation and
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drinking while paying pennies, if anything, for it. These myths were often accompanied by pictures of dry
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farm fields and depleted water reservoirs. It was a real frightening scenario indeed. Free trade was
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implemented despite the hysteric opposition from Canada's left. People who believe the mythology of the
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Council of Canadians must have lived in terror with the knowledge that desertification of Canada was
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impending. So 30 years later, what's happened to Canada's water? Well, nothing, not a thing. What the
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Council of Canadians and other advocates always glossed over in their fear-mongering was the rather
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important question of how this grand theft of water would actually happen. Water is actually notoriously
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difficult to move over long distances. It's heavy, it doesn't compress, and it needs to be moved in
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very large volumes to have any real impact anywhere. In BC, water would have to be moved over mountain
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ranges in order to get it down to California and through a few river valleys. From the prairies, it
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would have to go through multiple large river valleys, including even the Grand Canyon, you know, which are
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already ironically carrying American water to coastal outlets. It would take a project thousands of times
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larger than the Panama Canal in order to move the equivalent of a small river from Canadian provinces to
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California. It just isn't in the cards. But that didn't stop them from claiming they would, and people
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from falling for it. Years of lobbying against any form of private water sales still has an impact on
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people. In BC, Nestle experienced fierce opposition for a bottled water facility in the Fraser Valley.
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Never mind that the Fraser River dumps more fresh water into the ocean in an hour than a hundred bottled
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water plants could consume in a week. The principle of selling water has been entrenched into the minds
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of many as being evil. A bottled water makes up a tiny fraction of human water consumption. It
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garners the most criticism because it's our most visible form of consumption. To be fair, using
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bottled water is a bit wasteful due to the packaging involved and the presence of safely drinkable water
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from the tap in at least most communities. It really isn't a big deal though in the environmental or
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economic scheme of things. Most of the human use of water comes in the forms of irrigation and
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industrial uses. It should be remembered water used by humans will eventually go back into the
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system one way or another. Contaminated water, it's a real issue. Let's not pretend that the
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water simply vanishes from the world ecosystem the moment it is sprayed on a field or used in a
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factory. It goes back in the system, guys. Now, California still faces a crisis in water supply,
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and this is getting to where the stupidity really is getting big. They're draining lakes and rivers dry
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as the population grows and an ongoing drought continues. I mean, California is a dry state for the most
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part. The Mojave Desert isn't a result of global warming. It's thousands of years old. And as long
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as that state holds a large population, it's going to have challenges with water supply.
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In most of the world, desalination has been developed in nations with coastal access in order to
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tap the oceans for supply. Israel, Australia, and North Africa, they're all benefiting from these
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projects. Desalination is expensive and energy intensive, but it's getting cheaper and it beats the
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hell out of dying of thirst or associated hunger when crops fail due to drought. California has
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a massive coastline along the largest ocean on earth. The state's a natural candidate for
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large-scale desalination projects. Some plants are already in operation and they're providing
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water to urban areas. In light of recent developments, though, it looks unlikely that
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desalination facilities will be developed further in California. Boy, there's a lot of tongue twisters in
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that one, though. A large project in Orange County, California called Poseidon would have provided 50
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million gallons a day to the parched Huntington Beach area. Due to environmental and anti-capitalist
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lobbying, the project application was rejected. Millions of dehydrated citizens just turned their
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backs on an abundant supply of water in an act of pure idiocy. The environmental case against the plant
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was weak. The impact of such a plant on a massive water body like the Pacific Ocean is negligible. A
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literal drop in the bucket. Modern facilities dispose of brine effectively and the ocean level
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certainly won't be dropping due to the minuscule removal of water in desalination plants. The reason
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opposition to the project was successful was due to the demonization of private involvement in utility
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provision. Much like the Council of Canadians did in the 80s, American leftists created a myth that
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corporations would gain control of water and would bleed consumers dry. Indeed, it was projected that
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water bills might raise in California as much as six dollars a month for some consumers due to this
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plant. Oh, unthinkable. They shout, water's a need. We should never allow it to be sold for profit.
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Well, food and shelter are needs as well. So who provides either of those better? How good is state
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funding housing, state funded housing, guys? How well did the state control of agriculture work for the
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Soviet Union? Just because it's a need doesn't mean the government should run it. In fact, they should be
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less likely to run it. If people want treated water provided efficiently and affordably, they need to
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let the private market provide it. Apparently, in California, they'd rather die of thirst.
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Populations are growing and we need to embrace new technologies in order to sustain them. Nobody can
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pivot to suit the changing of needs for consumers better than private businesses, yet we continue to
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shun them. We're in a battle of ideologies and we're losing. The politics of fear and envy are winning
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and we're all paying that price. And don't think that we're immune from this idiotic ideology here
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in Canada. Far from it. People in Canada would apparently rather die on a waiting list than let
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private involvement in health care expand. Turning away private medical investment while our system
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crumbles is no more idiotic than turning away a glass of water while you're dying of thirst.
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We're not any better and we got to start thinking harder.