The Water of Life

I had the privilege last night of attending a fundraising dinner for the Nicola Watershed Community Roundtable.  I first heard of this organization 5 years ago in Vancouver from Evelyn Armstrong, who was a fellow student in Graduate Liberal Studies at Simon Fraser University.  I was delighted then to hear about the group, and even more pleased to spend time with Evelyn and her colleagues last night.

I have the great pleasure to know the Nicola River intimately. I have ridden all over its upper watershed, and along the river itself from its very beginning in Beak Creek, down the mountainside, out of the timber and through Bull Canyon, then to fill Douglas Lake, out again through the Spahomin reserve and my old cow camp at the Morton, then into Nicola Lake, then down again through Merritt and out to join the Thompson at Spences Bridge.   It is the main artery of this most beautiful valley in this most beautiful province in this most beautiful country. Whenever I drive or ride or sit by the Nicola River I feel profoundly at home.

Politicians spend a lot of time talking about things which are important to people's lives.  But I don't think we pay enough attention to our living environment in general, and we certainly don't think enough about water.

Here in Okanagan-Coquihalla lots of people spend a lot of time thinking about water.  This glorious dry country is completely dependent on water from our creeks and rivers - without them, there would be no human habitation here at all. And the creeks and rivers are completely dependent on snowpack and rainfall in the mountains, and on the grasses and trees and soil that capture it temporarily before it rushes on again to the sea.  We're getting better at managing the watersheds, the creeks and the rivers.

And outfits like the Nicola Valley Watershed Conversation Roundtable are part of the reason why.  Ranchers, farmers, fruit growers, winemakers, fishermen, loggers, kayakers and people of the first nations who have lived along these rivers for thousands of years, come together in a non-confrontational non-partisan way to examine the rivers, understand how they work, decode the signals they give about the environment, and recommend to users and residents and governments how to work more easily with the natural systems that drive everything we depend on.

Elsewhere in the riding, people are concerned about the effects of enormous hydro-electric projects like the Columbia River Treaty, and about BC Hydro's "run-of-river" private-public-partnerships.   We deal with these as if they were just about the electricity, not about the rivers and the farms and the fish - those just need to be dealt with, compensated, mollified - but they're rarely prime concerns.

I hear from a lot of people in these valleys a call for an environmental ethic, for an understanding of natural systems as the basis for all our lives, and for government to take notice of and act with care and respect for the earth.  I promise that if I am elected MP for this riding my voice will be clear and persistent, and my arguments gentle but persuasive.  I will examine every action of government through an environmental lens.  The Nicola and Okanagan valleys are in my heart and soul, and I will help all those who live here to take good care of our home.

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