The MRC de Vaudreuil-Soulanges is asking the Legault government to lift the secrecy on the volumes of water withdrawn in Quebec, in particular by the companies that bottle it for sale. The group of 23 municipalities believes that this information is essential to ensure the “sustainable management” of this resource, otherwise it risks being threatened.
The MRC located west of Montreal recently adopted a resolution which stresses that “water is a vulnerable and exhaustible resource”, but also that “without sustainable management of water resources, the future of this resource is threatens “. A risk confirmed Tuesday in a report commissioned by the federal government, which highlights the risks of water shortages in Quebec over the next few years.
However, the resolution recalls, “the data relating to water withdrawals in Quebec are currently kept secret”. Such a situation makes “sustainable management” of this resource impossible, says the MRC. In this context, elected officials are therefore demanding that the Government of Quebec grant a “public nature” to the data on water withdrawals declared to the Ministry of the Environment and the Fight against Climate Change (MELCC).
The MRC of Vaudreuil-Soulanges invites the Quebec Federation of Municipalities and the Union of Quebec Municipalities to adopt similar resolutions. The same appeal is launched to all the MRCs of the province.
The Quebec Center for Environmental Law (CQDE) welcomed the resolution adopted by the MRC. “Obviously, municipalities need this information on levies. Municipal stakeholders wish to exercise their leadership role in water management. Now, all that remains is the long-awaited provincial action,” argues Marc Bishai, CQDE partner lawyer, emphasizing the need for “greater transparency in water withdrawals.”
Trade secret
In 2018, the CQDE launched procedures to gain access to this information. But the MELCC, then the Commission for Access to Information (CAI) refused to transmit the data on the volumes sampled. In January 2021, the case was therefore appealed to the Court of Quebec.
In a decision handed down last spring, the Court of Quebec confirmed the CAI’s refusal to transmit the information to the CQDE and the organization Eau Secours.
The judgment recalls that the CAI concluded that the information “is of a commercial nature” and that it is “objectively confidential, since the entire industry treats this information as confidential and it is not part of of the public domain”. He also points out “the highly competitive nature of the bottler industry due to the very thin profit margin” and that companies “engage in tight competition”.
Amaro, Pepsi, Coca-Cola, Naya and Eska, in particular, therefore do not have to publicly disclose the volumes of water they pump in Quebec with a view to selling it.
Royalties
Earlier this year, the Liberal Party and the Parti Québécois demanded an upward revision of the tariff for the use of water, unchanged since 2010.
In 2018, it was reported that two billion liters of bottled water in Quebec had generated less than $150,000 in revenue for the Quebec Treasury. In the same year, Ontario received $23 million for water taken from its territory.
In Quebec, the base royalty rate is $2.50 per million liters of water. There is, however, a tariff of $70 per million liters of water for bottled water, the manufacture of beverages, certain mineral and chemical products, pesticides, or the extraction of oil and gas. In comparison, Italy requires $2,000 per million litres; Denmark, $10,000 per million litres.
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.
With its tens of thousands of rivers and more than three million bodies of water, Quebec has 3% of the planet’s renewable freshwater reserves, and nearly 40% of all this water is concentrated in the Quebec watershed. Saint Laurent.