Water is essential to life. Yet, here locally, this precious resource has been making headlines for all the wrong reasons as our region faces a water shortage. It’s a sobering reminder of the need to be mindful of how we consume the Earth’s resources.
Water water everywhere
In the Great Lakes region where I live, we are literally surrounded by water. In fact, Canada is home to 20% of the earth’s precious freshwater resources. But less than half of Canada’s freshwater—or about 7% of the global supply—is renewable. The rest is fossil water in lakes, underground aquifers, and glaciers.
Most cities in southern Ontario get their water from the Great Lakes. Waterloo Region, where I live, has been one of the fastest growing regions in Canada in recent years. We get about 80% of our water from groundwater, with the rest coming from the Grand River.
In December, Waterloo Region officials dropped a bomb when they announced there isn’t enough water supply to meet the needs of the existing population, let alone the construction permits that have already been issued to meet the needs of a rapidly growing population.
These concerns about water capacity have led to a freeze on development in our region, with implications for existing and future residents. This issue is of grave concern to all of us.
Water should not be politicized
As with anything political, there’s a lot of finger pointing going on. Some self-interest groups call the water shortage a manufactured crisis.
Regional officials stand by their position. They are assessing infrastructure changes to increase capacity, but the reality is that we have been pumping unsustainable levels of water from the underground aquifers that support us. And while Lake Huron, Lake Erie and Lake Ontario are less than 100 kilometres away, building a water pipeline to the Great Lakes would be expensive and would take many years.
Art imitates life
Coincidentally, the news of our water shortage came after I recently read Louise Penny’s latest novel, The Black Wolf. The book illustrates how “a dry and parched land, where there is no water” leads people to do desperate things.
Penny wrote The Black Wolf in 2024 before the US President’s references to Canada’s “very large faucet” that could be turned on to solve water shortages in many regions of the United States.
Here’s a reality check on that “very large faucet”. The Government of Canada reports more than half of Canada’s renewable water drains northward into the Arctic Ocean and Hudson Bay. As a result, it is unavailable to the 85% of the Canadian population who live along the country’s southern border. That means it’s also unavailable to the United States. As our current water shortage illustrates, the remaining water supply, while still abundant, is heavily used and often overly stressed.
Although The Black Wolf is a work of fiction, it raises some chilling questions about how far people would go to secure access to this precious resource.
Water conservation tips
Our current situation is a stark reminder that water is not an unlimited resource. We must not take it for granted. No matter where we live, each of us must do what we can to conserve water and use it wisely.
For water conservation ideas, check out my post, 10 ways you can use less water.
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Absolutely agree that water should not be politicized and yet, we’re headed towards that direction. Already see it with Trump covering and feeling entitled to Canadian waters. We all have a role to play in conservation but it’s often a case of too little too late!
It’s a very real concern, one we’re quite familiar with here in Phoenix. Unfortunately, most people aren’t thinking about the long term.
The only good thing is it has put the brakes on some of the development which I hope will lead to more thought on the part of local politicians before approving additional development. Climate change has definitely had an impact as our summers are much hotter and drier and we don’t get as much snowfall in winter as we used to. Although it’s hard to believe that as I look out my front window at the moment. We’ve had the snowiest winter on record.
I am not surprised by this as in Belgium we are facing the same problem too, despite the fact that it rains a lot here. Experts say that human activities have been draining groundwater for too long and the rain goes mainly on the surface. We would need more snow. This winter snowed a bit more than the previous years, but not as much as it should.
Yes lack of snow is definitely a problem. We have had two very snowy winters but the demand for water because of development has outpaced the supply. And our summers are typically hot and very dry so we can’t count on rainfall. To make matters worse, there has been talk of a data centre in the rural townships in our region. It’s all a big mess.
As you say, it’s all a big mess 😔