Want to know how many liters of water are taken in Quebec by companies to be resold in bottles? It’s secret.
Environmental organizations are going to court to lift the opaque veil over the millions of liters of water collected by nine companies, including Coca-Cola, Pepsi, Naya, Eska, etc.
The Canadian Press has learned that the case will be heard on March 1.
This confidential information could revive the debate on the royalties affected by the State, considered too low by the opposition. In the context of climate change and increasingly frequent shortages, this could also lead to an effort to reduce consumption.
The Commission d’accès à l’information had previously refused to divulge this information, in the name of commercial secrecy.
However, the Eau Secours organizations and the Quebec Center for Environmental Law (CQDE) are contesting the decision before the Court of Quebec.
There are “massive withdrawals” of water almost everywhere without our being able to know their effects on the watersheds in each region, said the director general of the organization Eau Secours, Rébecca Pétrin.
“We are facing increasingly frequent water shortages. We would like to tackle the problems, reduce consumption, but in reality, we don’t really know who is consuming the water. […] Massive removals therefore jeopardize the responsible management of our resource. »
Transparency
“When the population makes a request for access to information to obtain the quantities of water abstracted by the large abstractors, access is refused to them, but for us, however, it is common sense, it is that’s why we are in court,” summed up lawyer Marc Bishai, partner of the CQDE.
The plaintiffs believe that the Water Act takes precedence, with its principles of participation and transparency.
Consequently, the organizations consider that citizens have the right to know the use made of this resource, a “vital, exhaustible and vulnerable” resource, as the preamble to the law states.
Precise data is needed before a debate can be launched on the viability of withdrawals or the pricing of these volumes of water.
“We will certainly be able to have debates on this question,” he acknowledged.
“Once we have this information (on the quantities of water withdrawn), we can have several intelligent discussions concerning the impacts on the water, the possible conflicts of use, the appropriate royalties, etc. »
“When we talk about responsible management, it’s because we have to curb our water consumption,” added Ms. Pétrin. It is certain that it will go through a debate, so who will have priority on the use of water and who will have to restrict the most. »
A previous
If the Court of Quebec agrees with Eau Secours and the CQDE, the decision would create a precedent. This is the first time that the court would interpret the article of the law on water invoked in this case.
The decision could “then apply to all major samplers, not just bottling companies,” said Bishai.
Would the data be automatically made public afterwards by the Ministry of the Environment? No, an access to information request would always have to be made, unless the department made a voluntary disclosure.
Pricing
Last week, the Liberal Party and the Parti Québécois demanded an upward revision of the tariff for the use of water, unchanged since 2010.
The Coalition avenir Québec had undertaken to review the pricing, but Minister Benoit Charette refused to initiate this process as part of the study of Bill 102 currently underway.
The current grid is recognized as notoriously lower even than Ontario.
In 2018, it was reported that 2 billion liters of bottled water in Quebec had generated less than $150,000 in revenue for the Quebec Treasury. The same year, Ontario received $23 million for the water withdrawn, noted Liberal MP Isabelle Melançon.
The royalty rate is $2.50 per million liters of water, but $70 per million liters of water for, for example, bottled water, the manufacture of beverages, certain mineral products and chemicals, pesticides, or the extraction of oil and gas.
In comparison, Italy requires $2,000 per million liters and Denmark, $10,000 per million liters, denounced Isabelle Melançon.
The Quebec Regulation respecting the dues payable for the use of water applies to all industries that withdraw or use 75,000 liters of water or more per day.