Premier Dalton McGuinty has failed to end the "reckless give-away" of Ontario's fresh water to profiteers, critics say.

According to Ontario's Ministry of the Environment, those who sell bottled water can take and sell 18 million litres of water per day for free.

Agricultural, industrial and commercial water users may drain 1.3 trillion litres of water per day for free, provided they pay for permits that cost $750 or $3,000, depending on the type.

Meanwhile, it has been almost three years since the Liberals promised to introduce fees for the commercial and industrial water users during the 2003 provincial election.

Ontario Environment Minister Laurel Broten said Tuesday that the government is working on the fees — which many say are needed to fund safe drinking-water supplies — but she would not say when they might be introduced.

NDP environment critic Peter Tabuns has criticized the government for not including the fees in the Clean Water Act introduced in December to protect surface and ground water sources. Public hearings about the act took place in August.

Outside the Ontario Legislature on Tuesday, Tabuns did not sound optimistic that the fees will come soon.

"My guess is they just don't have the political will and commitment to come forward with something that will cause some friction with some water takers," he said.

Wells dry as tanker trucks drove by

Ontario residents such as Peggy Hutchinson say they worry about who will pay to safeguard their water supply without funding the fees would bring in.

"We need some mechanism to pay for the process of providing for clean water," said Hutchinson, who lives on the Niagara Escarpment about two hours north of Toronto and has seen what happened when the local water supply wasn't managed carefully.

The well that supplied her drinking water dried up during a 1999 drought.

'They [farmers] had to pay $10,000, $20,000 to drill new wells. ... Meanwhile, they had tanker trucks going past their door of water being bottled and shipped out of the community.'
-Ontario resident Peggy Hutchinson, whose well dried up in 1999

Her neighbours were irate that a water-bottling company drained water nearby for free and profited from it, while local farmers paid tens of thousands of dollars to get their own water flowing again.

"They had to pay $10,000, $20,000 to drill new wells or truck in water for their livestock," Hutchinson said. "Meanwhile, they had tanker trucks going past their door of water being bottled and shipped out of the community, and no fee being paid for that water."

Municipalities and conservation authorities that maintain the province's drinking water think fees could provide significant funds for water protection, said Don Smith, head of water source protection at Saugeen Valley Conservation Authority. The province should introduce them, he said.

In the past, McGuinty's Ontario Liberals have spoken harshly against free water for commercial and industrial users.

In December, the government described a one-year moratorium on new and expanded permits to take water as "action to stop the reckless giveaway of Ontario's precious water resources."

At the time, then Environment Minister Leona Dombrowsky reiterated the McGuinty government's election promise to introduce fees.

"The days of taking water away for free are over," she said, noting that governments charge fees to companies that take oil out of the ground or trees from the forest.