{"id":267012,"date":"2019-03-07T11:31:04","date_gmt":"2019-03-07T16:31:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/policyoptions.irpp.org\/issues\/bc-must-deliver-water-security-promises\/"},"modified":"2025-10-07T22:26:15","modified_gmt":"2025-10-08T02:26:15","slug":"bc-must-deliver-water-security-promises","status":"publish","type":"issues","link":"https:\/\/policyoptions.irpp.org\/fr\/2019\/03\/bc-must-deliver-water-security-promises\/","title":{"rendered":"BC must deliver on water security promises"},"content":{"rendered":"

The year 2018 will be remembered as a wild roller-coaster of climate and water extremes in communities from coast to coast to coast. Floods, droughts and fires of historic proportions left devastation in their wake. British Columbia was hit particularly hard. At the peak of flooding in May, more than 2,800 people<\/a> evacuated their homes in the Kootenay Boundary region<\/a>. Twenty-three communities in the province were under water, and under a local state of emergency. Then hot, dry weather arrived with a vengeance: smoky skies choked vast swathes of the province in the summer, and level-four drought<\/a> (the highest in the provincial system<\/a>, indicating extremely dry conditions and a critical lack of water) persisted into late October<\/a> in the Skeena-Nass region in the northwest of the province. This was an unprecedented situation with worrying implications for watersheds, salmon and the communities they sustain.<\/p>\n

With minimal fanfare, 2018 also marked the 10-year anniversary of BC\u2019s provincial water strategy: Living Water Smart<\/em><\/a>.<\/em> With it, the province established 45 policy and legislative commitments to prepare communities for a water-uncertain future and build a more sustainable freshwater regime. This plan was supposed to gird against exactly the kinds of extremes we now face almost every spring and summer.<\/p>\n

Although it\u2019s a decade old, Living Water Smart\u2019s<\/em> commitments and objectives are still highly relevant to today\u2019s water challenges<\/a>. A handful of specific or fringe actions \u2013 such as promoting \u201csmart water choices\u201d during the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Games \u2013 are now obsolete, but its overall vision for freshwater sustainability in BC is comprehensive and gets a lot right.<\/p>\n

Against the backdrop of a province (and indeed a planet) mired in a rapidly emerging water crisis<\/a>, and inspired by this 10-year milestone, our team of researchers and experts in water law and watershed governance at the University of Victoria (UVic) completed a comprehensive review of the BC government\u2019s promises for sustaining fresh water from the past decade.<\/p>\n

We were not surprised to see mixed results; that is often the nature of government promises.<\/p>\n

There has been real progress worth celebrating alongside missed opportunities and major gaps in implementation. These are described in our detailed analysis report card, Taking the Pulse \u2013 BC Freshwater Policy Monitor<\/em><\/a>,<\/em> where we also outline actions that can achieve the vision and potential of water sustainability that Living Water Smart <\/em>catalyzed.<\/p>\n

BC has made strides forward since 2008, when its water strategy came into effect. Eight of its 45 specific commitments were achieved (almost 20 percent). Most notably, BC\u2019s water law \u2013 which is more than 100 years old \u2013 has been modernized, reaching an important milestone in 2016 with the passing of the Water Sustainability Act<\/em><\/a>. The act provides a host of new opportunities<\/a> \u2013 and useful tools \u2013 to better protect waterways and involve communities in watershed planning and governance. But implementation is plodding along at a painfully slow pace<\/a>, burdened by the challenge of integrating an expected 20,000 existing groundwater users into the water licensing regime. (Before the act came into force, BC did not regulate groundwater use at all.)<\/p>\n

Timelines have certainly been stretched, but almost one-quarter (11 of 45) of Living Water Smart<\/em> commitments can be considered to be in progress:<\/p>\n