Editor:
In an item in her Elphinstone newsletter titled “The Good News About Water,” Area E director Donna McMahon congratulated us for reducing our water usage by an unspecified percentage and saving “us all a big whack of money” as plans to expand the water treatment plant, build a reservoir, or expand Chapman Lake have been scrapped.
She also points out that a minority of users, nine per cent, are responsible for more than one-third of water usage. “Obviously we need to target those super thirsty property owners to either reduce their consumption or pay for their disproportionate water use,” she says.
The problem is that some people can pay, and will pay for whatever they want. In making water a commodity, the SCRD is choosing to discriminate against senior property owners on a fixed income who like to garden. We have just as much right to the water, but we won’t be able to afford to use it. Commodifying water is morally wrong.
Pay-per-use is an insidiously American idea. Just because other jurisdictions use it, doesn’t mean we have to. Property taxation is the fair way to pay for water infrastructure – a decidedly more Canadian way that helps to include seniors who want to live in their own homes and grow gardens for food and pleasure. That means seniors are outside, getting physical exercise and caring for their mental health, which lowers social and health-care costs. Bonnie Henry recognizes the value of gardens. For the second year in a row garden supply stores are considered COVID-19 essential services, and business is booming.
My question for Donna and her cohort at the SCRD is, if asking the electorate to reduce water consumption does the trick, why proceed with punitive metering? Why not be more like Bonnie Henry? Instead of blaming and pointing fingers, trust us to do the right thing since we’ve been doing it anyway.
Kathy Para, Gibsons
