Simply charging bottling companies like Nestlé more — it currently pays just $3.71 for every one million litres taken — won’t protect the water, she said. Ontario’s opposition parties want the public to have a say as the Liberal government overhauls the province’s water-taking permit program this fall. “We need increased transparency and accountability in the permit to take water process,” Schreiner wrote in an open letter to Premier Kathleen Wynne. “Many high-risk uses of water receive little or no public scrutiny.”Green Party of Ontario Leader Mike Schreiner said public input will help ensure community drinking water and farming needs come ahead of water-bottling and aggregate mining operations. The government has heard the community’s concerns about “how Ontario’s precious water resources are managed” so it made the permit taking review a priority, said Murray’s spokesman, David Mullock.

Source: thestar October 02, 2016 15:18 UTC