At the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development, the United Nations General Assembly designated March 22nd of every year to be International World Water Day.
The annual event was created to take advantage of the opportunity to draw attention to the importance of fresh water, and advocate for the sustainable management of the world’s freshwater resources.
World-wide, water quality is getting worse due to a variety of factors, including population growth, rapid urbanization and climate change. In the next 20 years, worldwide demand for water is expected to be 40 percent greater than current supply – a potential crisis if something isn’t done.
It also means that a lot of places are going to need new ways to use less water and purify polluted water.
Fortunately for Ontario, for the past several years, we have been quietly growing one of the biggest clean water industries in all of North America.
Ontario companies are leading the way in fields such as water conservation and nanotechnology, employing 22,000 Ontarians in good, high-paying jobs, and selling water technology around the world.
We have an opportunity here. This is why, as part of the McGuinty government’s Open Ontario plan, we have placed special emphasis on the development of clean-water technologies.
We need to take this strength and build upon it.
To do this, our government plans to introduce legislation that will lay the foundation for new Ontario jobs with the goal of making Ontario the North American leader in the development and sale of new technologies and services for water conservation and treatment.
This investment in developing clean-water technology is in keeping with our similar success with the Green Energy Act, the sweeping legislation we introduced last spring to attract new investment, create new green economy jobs and better protect the climate.
The Green Energy Act is another important component of the Open Ontario plan, and it is already paying dividends. In January, Samsung announced the biggest investment of its kind in the world: $7 billion to create 2,500 megawatts of clean power and some 16,000 Ontario jobs.
And we will soon welcome hundreds of new, clean-energy investments in Ontario through our feed-in tariff program, which is attracting the interest of the world's investors and entrepreneurs.
Those projects will need solar panels and wind turbines, and it is going to be Ontarians who build them and sell them all over North America.
Our government knows that the new, clean-technology products and services we will develop and sell will not only create good, Ontario jobs for our families, but a cleaner and better planet for all.
For more information on the Open Ontario plan, contact my Constituency Office at 416-630-0080.