The debate over fracking continues to be lively, and there's a lot of misinformation out there. Fracking, or 'hydraulic fracturing', is the injection of water, sand and chemicals at high pressure into underground rock formations, to release trapped natural gas....
Water
Public Private Partnerships – A Primer For Regina Voters
The Frontier Centre for Public Policy has today released a new report on Public Private Partnerships [P3s] in anticipation of the City of Regina’s referendum this week. Entitled Public Private Partnerships: A Primer For Regina Voters, it is designed to provide an...
Public Private Partnerships
Introduction On 25th of September, the citizens of Regina will vote in a referendum for the first time in 20 years. The question? Whether the city should use a traditional contract to construct a new wastewater treatment plant or to proceed with the council’s...
Slow the Flow… Save the Lake: Throwing money at Lake Winnipeg won’t help much, but some ditch-digging might
On Thursday, the province announced a new “Lake Friendly Accord” intended to leverage $1 billion worth of investment into ways to improve the ecological state of the vast Lake Winnipeg watershed, which stretches from the Rocky Mountains in the west down to the edge of South Dakota and then east into Canadian Shield between Atikokan and Thunder Bay.
Featured News
There’s Nothing Fair About Canadian Health Care
For the past 14 years, Vancouver surgeon Dr. Brian Day has led the charge for health-care reform, pushing for the right of patients to pay for private care if their health and well-being are threatened as a result of waiting in a stagnant and overburdened public...
Transformers: More than Meets the Eye
The path to net zero, based on the much disputed belief that carbon dioxide is a pollution, is more steep and impractical than most people realize. Replacing fossil fuels with clean electricity will require much more power generation and a greatly upgraded grid to...
Plans to Export Water, Though Unpopular, Keep Springing Up
Today, as federal politicians fan out across the country to wage an election campaign, there is little appetite to reignite a debate on water exports, as was suggested by former prime minister Jean Chrétien last week. Mr. White, though, maintains it’s only a matter of time before Canada begins trading water.
The Case for Water Markets
An 8 minute TED Video on water markets.
Water Markets Can Help Semi-Arid Prairies: Environmentalists short-circuiting debate
Alarmism and anti-market biases by environmental groups are short circuiting an important debate about how water markets can help the semi-arid southwestern Prairies.
Water Retention
Upstream water retention is an idea worth thinking about.
There Is No Water Shortage
“There is no shortage of water. Amounts available vary regionally and change over time as precipitation amounts vary. Demand also changes with increases in population and economic development. Crude estimates indicate water use per person is 15 liters in undeveloped countries and approximately 900 liters in developed countries. Throughout history humans have developed remarkable techniques and technologies to deal with these issues. Few of these attempted to reduce demand, most worked to increase supply.”
Scare Campaigns to the Contrary, Canada Won’t Run Out of Water: Rational argument not emotional appeals should shape policy discourse on water
Scare campaigns to the contrary, Canada is not going to run out of water.
Throw Cold Water on Bulk-Water Export Opposition
“A recent special report on water in The Economist offered a provocative comment: “The trouble with water is that it’s all politics, no economics.” How else to explain why a pro-free-trade government in one of the world’s most water-endowed countries would seek to ban bulk water exports?”
Understanding Profits
“Water services should meet the cost of the capital they employ (that is to say, make normal profits), just like other utilities such as electricity and gas. If they don’t, capital will be misallocated because it could produce more social value in other uses.”
On Water and Sewers, Park the Ideology: Winnipeg city council should move forward on a new public-private partnership
Winnipeg should adopt a new stand-alone model for managing public utilities; that will enable it to escape political interference and solve the problem of ignored infrastructure.