"Everyone should pay", says Nestle Waters.
We residents do pay.
But they don't.
Because of a 104 year old Water Act in this province, Nestle Waters doesn't have to pay to extract water from a British Columbia aquifer in Hope, B.C.
Yet other corporations--multinational forestry companies--pay for timber they harvest from our province.
Imagine getting their timber for free!
Nestle Waters' annual water extraction in Hope is reported to be 230 million litres, which is 230 thousand cubic metres.
So Nestle Waters is basically saying they're above the requirements of the forest industry which also extracts a resource from the province...the timber that is owned by the citizens and taxpayers of British Columbia.
British Columbia is the only province in Canada that doesn't charge corporations for water extraction!
Good corporate citizen or greed-driven corporation run by bean-counters?
Nestle Waters is also being accused of wanting to drain water out of a town in Ontario.
And for Nestle Waters -- a multinational corporation -- to say that if they have to pay to extract water--for resale--from the aquifer at Hope BC, then "everyone should pay."
Really!
How magnanimous of Nestle.
Since 2008, Nestle Waters is the largest bottled water company in the World.
But they don't want to pay tax on the resource.
Nestle says they have a partnership with public authorities.
Yeah, we see how they'd come to that conclusion with our lax laws.
Partnership indeed!
But now British Columbia's Water Act is finally undergoing review after more than a century.
Yet--as is typical of anything that government bureaucrats do--there's such monumental crap that occurs for years that nothing gets accomplished for a long, long time. Government conducts focus groups and stakeholder meetings, and steering committees...yabba yabba yabba ad infinitum.
While our government has created a huge website on the modernization of the water act--notice that the illustration on this page shows Vernon in the Okanagan Valley, where we pay plenty for water--there's nary a mention of actually charging corporations, especially a non-Canadian corporation like Nestle Waters (though their registered name is Nestle Waters Canada) who extract water from British Columbia's aquifer for resale as bottled water, by the cubic meter or U.S. gallon.
A comparison would be that our forested lands are harvested, without log scaling (measurements) and stumpage payments (tax) to government for the raw cost of the resource! Outrageous!
The B.C. Government says it will regulate groundwater use in priority areas and large groundwater withdrawals. You'd think that government would get on that immediately!
Especially since the B.C. government is so desperate for tax dollars.
Nope.
Akin to the Wild Wild West, British Columbia's government has been dragging their heels for nearly 20 years!
Daily thousands litres of water are being extracted by multinational Nestle Waters while our bureaucrat-heavy government sits on its hands and conducts meetings year after year after year.
Doesn't government realize they're giving our water away to commercial corporations--who then resell it to us? Apparently that's not high on the list, despite the government webside stating "B.C. uses more groundwater than any other province except Ontario. Much of it is actually used for sustaining the province’s economy (e.g., commercial, industrial irrigation and aquaculture uses)."
Duh! Ya think?
Annually, Nestle Waters Canada extracts 230 million litres of fresh water from the aquifer in Hope, B.C., the same aquifer used by residents.
Nestle appears to believe that 75 full-time jobs at the plant are sufficient payback for getting our water for free. The food and beverage giant is not required to pay for the water because of B.C.’s lack of regulations on its use.
And while the Water Act undergoes its years-long tweak, there's no indication from our government that there'll be a retroactive tax payment for extraction when the updated Water Act is finally approved by the legislature.
So it's a free-to-Nestle water resource.
Our government blathers on about our getting involved in our own communities.
Typical smoke-n-mirrors from our B.C. government.
Residents in Hope have been contacting Nestle Waters and having meetings with their council for years, all without any change as the Nestle plant continues to grow and increase their extraction of our resource...for free. The government is saying they will come out with a water sustainability act next year but they’ve not indicated whether the act will charge companies like Nestlé.
So what should Nestle Waters pay to the British Columbia government?
How about the same as residents!
We pay 51 cents for a cubic meter of water (a cubic meter of water equals 1,000 litres).
Nestle Waters' annual extraction in Hope BC is reported to be 230 million litres, which is 230 thousand cubic metres.
At 51 cents a cubic meter, Nestle's "stumpage" (water tax) would be $117,300 annually.
A drop in the bucket.
"How about boycotting Nestle Water until they understand that they SHOULD pay water extraction stumpage," suggests Kia.
Join THAT hydration movement.
Turns out that elite families all over the world are buying up water sources. Jenna Bush, the daughter of former U.S. President, George W. Bush, bought land in Paraguay...conveniently above an aquifer.
So did Billionaire T. Boone Pickens, among others.
"Water is the oil of the 21st Century," stated the CEO of DOW Chemical Company.
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