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H2OPINION
But the rural voice in Saskatchewan, disproportionately represented by a few of the province’s largest farmers, seems to have
the ear of the current government. With land prices soaring,
a pro-drainage association of farmers, the Saskatchewan Farm
Stewardship Association, is now lobbying the Government to
reduce already limited regulations and pay for drainage projects.
This well-funded organization draping itself in the flag of environmental stewardship is spreading misinformation that ignores
the findings of water experts and misleads the industry and the
public by claiming that drainage is actually good for the environment. In their version of reality, farmers aren’t draining wetlands,
just removing “excess” water.
Rather than work to correct the misinformation, the provincial government launched its own media campaign called “Sustainable Saskatchewan,” boasting that Saskatchewan agriculture
is a beacon of environmental stewardship, leading the way with
cutting-edge solutions to safeguard the planet’s future. Meanwhile, Saskatchewan is failing to meet its 12 per cent protected
areas target, and has been selling crown lands, including native
grasslands, to private interests, and licensing the drainage of an
area 17 times the city of Regina in just the last few years with
no mitigation requirements. In recent summers algal blooms in
Regina’s water source, Buffalo Pound Lake, have given the city’s
drinking water a foul taste—all while the WSA was approving a
major drainage project into that lake without any requirement
for water quality protection.
However you don’t win elections unless you appeal to the
voters. Ahead of the election, the provincial government increased funding for drainage projects and launched pre-election
campaign ads in newspapers and on radio stating farmers are
good stewards of the land, and that 86 per cent of the wetlands
are intact. That ludicrous figure, critics soon realized, was based
on area (not numbers), and the data was not only out of date, it
included large lakes and rivers, and wetlands that were farmed
through and growing crops.
People concerned about the state of wetlands and water in
the province are left wondering how the provincial government
went from saying drainage needs to be mitigated to ignoring
all science and declaring that we have lots of wetlands we need
to drain more. This is a political shift that points directly at the
draining lobby and its political clout. Farmers who want to drain
thousands of acres of ancient wetlands are organized, well-funded and vocal.
Here’s where things stand today: despite promises from WSA
that we would have a mitigation policy by 2024, there still isn’t
one. In January, WSA announced that anyone flooded by illegal
drainage would now have to pay $1,000 just to complain. And
good luck to anyone searching for information on what the
government is doing because costs for Freedom of Information
(FOI) requests have been made unaffordable and slow. When
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they do come back, they have been highly redacted. The
opposition NDP say that FOI requests that used to cost them
$130,000 annually are now costing more than $2 million.
Even when directed internally to release information
the government won’t comply. In June 2024 the Provincial
Auditor repeated its criticism of the government citing that it
continues to approve drainage projects without considering
the impacts to water quality, water quantity, and habitat. The
auditor points out that Saskatchewan has failed to develop a
plan to move unapproved high-risk works into compliance,
and is not taking effective enforcement action against unapproved drainage.
WSA has told farmers and stakeholders (but not the public
who the wetlands belong to) that mitigation requirements
need to be relaxed in order to increase agricultural crop production for its Growth Plan. Under this plan, farmers will be
allowed to drain up to 79 per cent of the wetland area within
a drainage project, wetland restoration won’t be required, and
wetlands in Provincial Parks located hundreds of miles away
will suffice to offset impacts. Farmers will be able to claim
wetlands they cultivate and seed towards the required retention
requirement of 21 per cent area.
According to their own reports, such a policy would result
in the loss of up to 2 million acres of wetlands, and cost society
billions in lost ecological services. Never mind the cost to
repair washed out highways, restore flooded communities,
treat toxic algae blooms and drinking water, or the billions in
drought insurance claims.
A new coalition of volunteers and organizations is trying
to bring public attention to the crisis. Wetlands For Tomorrow launched a public awareness campaign this summer on
the importance of wetlands and the government policies that
affect them. We have taken out newspaper and radio ads, and
undertaken a letter writing campaign that sent 2,500 letters to
the Premier calling for wetland conservation policies. Sadly all
the letters went unanswered.
In a rural Province where farming is the dominant land use,
Saskatchewan remains the only province in Canada without a
policy to conserve wetlands. Large farmers grossing millions of
dollars each year growing canola and grain crops believe they
have a right to drain that supersedes the rights of the wider
public and anyone living downstream.
Drainage will keep pitting rural neighbours against each
other and dividing farmers from water defenders as long as
government-supported misinformation persists, impacts are
overlooked, and economic growth is prioritized over the environment and quality of life. Conserving wetlands is crucial to
responsible water management and can coexist with healthy
working farms, but only if we base policies and protection measures on independent research rather than misinformation.
WAT E R C A N A D A . N E T
