This is just another dressed up tax grab.

Have a well? Be prepared to have to have it 'licensed'. That's the first step. Then you'll be forced to put a meter on it, and pay for every drop of water you draw out of it, and in all probability a minimum standby charge as well.

This kind of stuff, just like the HST, is being imposed on people worldwide. It has absolutely nothing to do with the 'sustainability' of water resources, and everything to do with providing government with another means to pick your pocket.

But don't suppose that electing another Party will change it. They ALL march to the tune of the same drummer.

Today water, tomorrow air. Let these kinds of exactions stand, and we'll all be paying all we have just for the continued right to live and breathe.

George missed out on water and air but he got almost everything else.
http://www.sing365.com/music/lyric.nsf/Taxman-lyrics-The-Beatles/5CDCCB0FEE68ED6E48256BC20013CFDA

This is a political story, but I will comment anyway.

Why ask us about these kind of things? Show us that it matters what we have to say.

Why did you not aks us about the HST?

We hired you to do our work for us. If we feel you don't do it right, we will fire you during the next election.

Globull warming, we will soon have no water. Up the carbon tax to save us.

The Colorado River( It's in the states for those who don't know) is a good example of why we need to consider conservation. If the lower mainland keeps growing there definitely will be shortages. Like everything else, we as a society won't do anything until we're forced to.

That's exactly the kind of "thinking' that leads to these "save-the-Earth" tax grabs, boomer. Heaven forbid that we'd ever do the sensible thing, and just STOP areas like the Lower Mainland, (and those that have already dried up the Colorado River well short of its former outlet to the sea) from completely unsustainable further growth. We won't do that, though. We'll grow them further, and make everyone else pay for it.

Some of you might remember Barry Goldwater. Former longtime US Senator from Arizona, very 'conservative' Republican, and candidate for the US presidency way back in 1964. He was considered to be an 'extremist' by many. The kind of guy whose finger you wouldn't want on the nuclear trigger, back in those days when most were hoping the Cold War would stay cold.

Barry made a speech during that campaign where he said, "Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice..." , and that all but sealed his fate. He lost by a landslide. It wasn't as his campaign slogan said, "In your heart, you know he's right," but rather a case of "in your guts, you know he's nuts."

He went back to his old job in the Senate, Arizonans still liked him, and stayed there til he retired a number of terms later.

Barry, then, was like our politicians today. He was a 'growth' advocate. He saw his role as helping develop those "wide open spaces" that once formed the old Arizona, with its salubrious climate. The one that the Dristan commercials of yore used to suggest you should "send your sinuses to", if you opted not to shoot their product up your cold-congested schnoz.

Clean air, clean water, and though never in abundance in a desert, perfectly adequate for those already there, and moderate further increases in their number.

But they didn't get "moderate further increases". They got accelerated urbanisation. Not just in Arizona, but across the whole US southwest. They dragged in people, by the subdivision after subdivision load. Growth, development, jobs. With Barry's able political skills in the Senate to speed it along.

Well, Barry eventually retired from the Senate. Older and wiser. And he reflected back on his career, after he'd had a chance to live full time back in his home State for awhile, not long before he died. And he said he felt "ashamed". Not of losing the presidency. But of what he'd helped do, that which he thought would be so right, and how it had turned out to be so wrong.

Why were all these people there? There was no clean air, no cool, clean water; it was chlorinated to the nth degree to keep you from catching something you wouldn't want. Something that might kill you quicker than just drinking it.

All of the natural amenities had been paved over, and ruined. And what did all the people who lived there actually DO for a living?

Well, most of them nothing that could be said to be in anyways necessary to increasing the overall wealth of the world. More like they existed by taking in each others laundry. When they could afford the water to do it, that is.

You can't cure those kinds of problems by taxing water. You cure them by recognising that the policy that ALL our politicos, everywhere, ALL subscribe to ~ that of "full employment" , of endless 'growth' ~ is completely incompatible with conservation and wise use of natural resources.

It's akin to hiring half the population to continually bugger the world up, and the other half to try to clean up the mess. Not necessary in any way imaginable in any actual 'economic' sense. And certainly not ever 'sustainable'. But vital to provide an excuse to pay them an income. A complete perversion of reality by a flawed and failing 'financial' system.

Gus:-"We hired you to do our work for us. If we feel you don't do it right, we will fire you during the next election."
----------------------------------------Yes, we will. But, unfortunately, a change of personnel won't necessarily change the 'policy'. The replacement will give us exactly the same thing, whether WE want it or not. The 'methods' of implementing it might change, but not the 'policy' itself. We will soon be conditioned into believing there is no alternative. And that, I believe, is why there is such a growing dis-interest in the whole electoral process.

Mr. Meisner, we utter words you don`t like, "Thou shall not criticize BC Liberals".

Thou shall not remember the sins of government unless they were made by the ndp.

Thou shall be just like the monkeys..

Hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil.

And finally Adolph Meisner..

GET STUFFED YOU LIBERAL HACK!

For a perfect example of why commenting was shut off for political stories, see previous comment.

The $$$green$$$ movement claims another victim - this time its your water. Hang your heads in shame, filthy humans. Your thirst takes valuable water from fish - our environmental betters.

There is a shortage of water, just like there is a shortage of money for Governments. In both cases there is actually no shortage, there is just a huge waste.

The BC Government is rolling in dough. It has money coming in from all over the place including of course taxes. There doesnt appear to be any control over the spending, and therefore we never have enough money to cover expenditures.

If one assumes that the expenditures were necessary and good for the Province that would be one thing, however we know that half the expenditures in this Province are nothing more than waste, or at best ploys by the Government to get re-elected.

So lets quit kidding ourselves. The answer to the money shortage is not increased taxation, or metering water, it is in electing a fiscally responsible Government.

There is no shortage of water in the Greater Vancouver area,. It rains in that bloody City most all of the time.

If we set up good drainage systems for all this rain, so that it could be sent to Cisterns and used for agriculture etc; we would never have to worry about water. These bloody fools who are presenlty running the Government should take a trip to the Middle East and Isreal to see how they utilize their water, before they start whining about a shortage in BC.

Leadership, leadership at any level. Where art thou? None to be had, sad to say. Besides. It's a thankless job because you can't please everyone. Which IMO is the point of the exercise.

Socredible. I agree with your comments. My thinking is that a shortage of water is what will force people to change. Not further taxation. I do realize we won't run out of water in the North anytime soon. Most who can afford it will consume until there is nothing left.

Palopu:-"So lets quit kidding ourselves. The answer to the money shortage is not increased taxation, or metering water, it is in electing a fiscally responsible Government."
------------------------------------------

A "fiscally responsible" government would institute proper bookkeeping along the same lines that EVERY private company keeps its accounts.

With a proper Provincial or National Balance Sheet showing Assets, Liabilities and Capital. All we ever see right now are the Liabilities, never the other two components.

The Liabilities being the Provincial or National Debts, of course.

The ONLY politician who has openly suggested this be done, to my knowledge, is the NDP's Corky Evans.

I do not know if he realises the full importance of such a change, but regardless, it is the first instance of truly original 'thinking' I've seen from ANY politician of ANY Party of our era.

Whether Corky Evans, who is currently retired from elected office intends to stay that way or not, I do not know.

From some of his other written musings on the way Party politics work, ones readily available online by googling his name and reading what comes up, he seems to be somewhat disgusted with it all.

So perhaps he has no further personal desire to re-involve himself in running for the leadership of his Party, or even elected office. A pity, I think, but I can't say I hardly blame him.

Regardless of that, the idea is a very vital necessary first step towards genuine "fiscal responsibility". One which could be picked up and further developed by ANY Leadership candidate of ANY Party.

It would be a great relief to hear a proposal like that emanate from the mouths of those Liberal hopefuls, who continue to portray their Party as being "fiscally responsible" in words, when it's been demonstrated to be anything but in practice.

Instead, we're still being treated to a bunch of meaningless mush, and the obvious continuance of a failing status quo in our government's fiscal affairs.

And where do the other would-be successors to the failings of BC Liberal-dom stand? The BC Conservatives? BC Re-federation? Even BC First? So far, nary a peep from any of their people.

Oh, they all mention "fiscal responsibility" alright ~ it's a part of ALL of their platforms.

But will they give themselves the necessary fiscal "tools" to even START the "job", let alone ever finish it? Or are their positions all going to be merely further pretences for the now supposed necessity for "Austerity", the new 'global' prescription for economic salvation? The next pending social and economic disaster, which it's certain to be, wherever implemented. Surely we deserve better.