“As the writing started to unfold, water appeared to be a wedge that broke something open… now the film is more an argument about the future of the country than about whether we should or shouldn’t sell water. That’s part and parcel of a much larger question of ‘where are we going?'"

Gross’ Prime Minister is a man of action, and ends up in water "stepped in so far that, should I wade no more,
Returning were as tedious as go o'er".

“The water stuff is underway and in effect; it’s going faster than I thought it would… water tables are dropping in the American southwest faster than anybody predicted they would. The consortion of municipalities in Illinois is declaring rights to the Great Lakes.” Gross looks into his latte. He thinks about taking a sip, but simply swishes the liquid around.

“That four dimensional government interaction I was talking about (see democracy 1) seems incapable of coming to grips with those longer-range issues. The Northwest Passage is going to open up – probably within the next five years. We will have tankers going through there. There will be some kind of ocean-going disaster in the world’s most fragile ecosphere. Do we have any sort of policy about this?”

“It’s a big deal and it’s going to be a huge issue for Canada soon. We fall back on a historical policy that we don’t treat water as something that’s for sale – but we do sell it. As we say in the show – the plea is ‘if your neighbour is thirsty, would you deny him a glass of water?’”

H2O is a powerful, political thriller. The material lends itself to a wide variety of treatments, each of which has its own pitfalls.

“If you think of what went on with Halliburton, it’s not even a conspiracy. It makes conspiracy theory scripts very complicated now because the conspiracies are out in the open. ‘These guys will tell us what the standards for outsourcing at the Pentagon are – and then we’re going to look around for who to hire and… well these are the only people who meet the standards so, hire the very people who put the standards in place’. Nobody’s lied. Technically it’s legal. I’m not really a conspiracy theorist – largely because I don’t think anyone can keep their mouths shut.”

He continues, indicating that while conspiracy theories or the illuminati behind closed doors are a stretch for him, there’s more to power than meets the eye.

“A lot of the plot in H2O was lifted straight out of a presentation at one of the gatherings of the Bilderburg group. This is a legitimate group of wealthy and powerful people from different kinds of business from all around the world and it was named after the first time they had a meeting at the Bilderburg Hotel in Oosterbeek, Holland. They get together and discuss, in an unofficial way, the trends of the world and how they might be able to affect those policies. It’s not all mean - some of it might be – but it is cash oriented and they are secret meetings. It’s not open to the public. It’s not the UN. A presentation there outlined a scenario for the dissolution of Canada. That’s a great plot, so we pulled elements from that.”

The climax of the film somewhat revolves around Canada’s relationship with the US. On this topic, Gross is cautious.

“We can’t talk about that. I’m not trying to say anything with it. To a certain extent, it makes sense to me. It’s that terrible push and pull in Canadian history from Pearson to Mulroney singing ‘Irish Eyes' to Trudeau basically telling the U.S. to fuck off. Canada is uniquely positioned in the world as being the closest partner to the U.S. If we can hang on and have our own independent voice, we can have a considerable influence.”

Gross warms up again.

“There was a lot of wailing and crying about Chrétien saying, ‘don’t go into Iraq’ – and I happen to agree with him on that. It was an unnecessary engagement. All these people were saying ‘oh, no the Americans are going to hate us!’ Of course they’re going to say that they’re pissed off at us’ but it doesn’t mean anything. It doesn’t mean they're going to tear up trade agreements. They DO stuff with us. We’re interconnected. And we have a right to have our own opinion. We’re always trying to find that dividing line – and what I was kind of trying to say with H2O was that we have to watch it, because we live in the shadow of a gigantic power unlike the world has ever known. I would argue maybe even to rival Rome.”

Gross sits back.

“My Prime Minster plays for keeps. He’s going flat-out in service of what he thinks would be the best thing for the country in the long run. But he overplays his hand.”

The afternoon has darkened. It’s gray and pours rain outside. Gross pensively looks on.

CBC.ca