The conversation is with Jay White, a professional biologist in Alberta, who recounts his long involvement with the Alberta Water Council and its origins in the early 2000s under the province’s Water for Life strategy. He explains how the Council was conceived as part of a “nested” governance model: the Alberta Water Council at the provincial policy level, watershed planning and advisory councils (WPACs) at the basin level, and local watershed stewardship groups doing on‑the‑ground work. White describes the Council’s multi‑stakeholder composition—environmental NGOs, industry sectors, governments at all levels, and First Nations—emphasizing that participants left sectoral identities at the door to work collaboratively on water issues in a non‑adversarial, confidential setting. Over 22–23 years, he moved from representing the Alberta Lake Management Society to chairing the NGO caucus and serving as vice president, and he still meets with former NGO colleagues despite the Council’s dissolution.
White outlines the “Water for Life” strategy’s three pillars:
safe, secure drinking water,
healthy aquatic ecosystems, and
reliable water supplies for a sustainable economy.
In its early years, the Council quickly tackled drinking water by reviewing 525 major facilities to ensure licensed operators and compliance. Subsequent work focused on water supply for the economy and attempted, with difficulty, to define and operationalize “healthy aquatic ecosystems,” including a failed attempt to define riparian areas that was rejected by government lawyers. Major outputs included a draft provincial wetland policy delivered in 2008, which the government only translated into the current policy in 2013, and a voluntary initiative where all water‑using sectors reduced water use by 30% within two years, a target the chair had chosen somewhat arbitrarily. White notes the Council also produced numerous documents on drought, floods, drinking water, and source water protection, largely through volunteer project teams supported by a small staff, arguing the province received exceptional value for minimal funding.
The turning point of the conversation is the Alberta government’s abrupt decision to terminate the Alberta Water Council. White recounts receiving a January 26 letter giving the Council 90 days to wind down, despite a grant that was supposed to run until late 2026, and being asked to chair the final full board meeting. He reads his “Jerry Maguire moment” statement, in which he condemns the decision as deeply disappointing and the process as a three‑month “erasure” of 23 years of collaborative governance, trust, and capacity. He stresses that the Council was not ineffective or obsolete but “patient” and “inconvenient to haste,” and warns that the loss of its advisory role will be felt later as policy gaps and fractured relationships. Afterward, colleagues reacted with stunned silence and later messages of support; White and others believe the 90‑day cutoff was designed to prevent the Council from securing new operational funding, which typically takes years to obtain. The host connects this to a broader pattern of “erasure,” including reports of documents being removed from government offices after the 2019 election and the rapid dismantling or absorption of major entities in the oil and gas sector.
Board Colleagues, There are moments when the decisions of those in power do more than alter budgets or reorganize priorities. They reveal what we value—and, more troublingly, what we are willing to abandon. For twenty‑three years, the Alberta Water Council served as a place of careful listening. A forum where industry, communities, municipalities, and government itself met not as adversaries, but as stewards of a shared responsibility. Water, after all, is not ideological. It is not partisan. Water is life. And yet, with little warning and less regard, this work has been consigned to a three‑month farewell. Decades of trust, expertise, and collaboration reduced to a winding‑down period scarcely long enough to say goodbye—let alone account for what is being lost. This Council has spent twenty‑three years doing work that rarely makes headlines—and that is precisely why it mattered. As a Water for Life partner, the Alberta Water Council proved that shared governance and collaboration was not a weakness, but a strength. Industry, municipalities, NGOs, and government came to the same table—not to win, but to understand. We did not chase certainty. We built trust. And now, with three months’ notice, that trust is being asked to quietly disperse. I want to be clear about my reaction. I am deeply disappointed by this decision. And I am profoundly disturbed by the manner in which it was made. This was not an organization that failed. It was not ineffective. It was not obsolete. It was patient. It was careful. It was inconvenient to haste. Collaborative water policy is slow by design. It asks people who disagree to keep speaking. It insists that water—shared, finite, and unforgiving—deserves more than short timelines and abrupt conclusions. Three months is not a transition. It is an erasure. Long after this Council closes its doors, the consequences of this decision will remain—felt in policy gaps, fractured relationships, and lost capacity that cannot be reassembled on demand. History rarely marks the moment when stewardship ends. It only records when its absence is finally noticed. We did the work. We honored the responsibility. And that record will stand—whether it is acknowledged or not. Water policy advice is not dramatic. But its absence is. And one day, when foresight is urgently needed and quietly missing, we will recall that it did not vanish on its own. It was cancelled.
We then examine the broader dismantling of Alberta’s water governance architecture. Jay explains that WPACs are mandated to produce regular state‑of‑the‑watershed reports and integrated watershed management plans, but these plans are explicitly voluntary and lack regulatory hooks, leading some industry representatives to disengage once they realize there is no binding requirement. He notes that watershed stewardship groups, which implement on‑the‑ground projects like riparian fencing and off‑site watering, have lost a key funding conduit with the disappearance of the Land Stewardship Centre, creating competition for “paltry” remaining funds. With the Alberta Water Council gone at the top and stewardship funding cut at the bottom, only the WPACs remain, and their own funding agreements expire at the end of 2026, making 2027 a critical and uncertain year. I underscore that these structures were about ensuring clean, sufficient drinking water and functioning ecosystems that underpin the entire economy, and expresses alarm that advisory capacity is being casually removed.
In the latter part of the conversation, we connect Alberta’s situation to national and global biodiversity and climate commitments. White describes the federal “Force of Nature” policy, tied to Kunming biodiversity commitments and the goal of protecting 30% of land and waters by 2030, backed by $2.8 billion in funding. As a biologist working on wetland restoration projects, Jay was eager to see this funding support restoration and reclamation, especially given severe biodiversity losses—about 70% of aquatic species in North America and 40–50% of global biodiversity in the last 50 years—and the current “sixth major extinction” driven by humans. However, Alberta was skipped in the first funding round; White notes the provincial government claimed it did not need the money because 64% of Alberta (the green area) is Crown‑managed and supposedly “essentially undisturbed,” a claim he disputes by pointing to Alberta Biodiversity Monitoring Institute data showing extensive human footprint and fragmentation.
Take Action: Write the ECCC and Alberta Environment Ministers
Subject: Enforce the “Force of Nature” Strategy in Alberta
To: julie.dabrusin@parl.gc.ca
Cc: epa.outreach-services@gov.ab.ca (Grant Hunter); your MLA, the Premier
Dear Hon. Julie Dabrusin,
It has come to my attention that Alberta did not receive any Federal grant money related to the Federal Nature Strategy. As a province with the largest ongoing environmental catastrophe underway—where interbasin transfers are being contemplated to sustain an outrageous level of steam injection and extraction, with growing groundwater contamination concerns, coupled with more than 275,000 conventional oil and gas sites to be restored—I am shocked our province did not seek or receive funding in this program.
Restoring nature is required for Alberta and Canada to regain ecological stability. Each province should receive funds and measure success through biodiversity and water monitoring and mitigation efforts.
Considering the energy and ecological cliff this province and country is facing (due to the war on Iran and the unchecked climate crisis), it is time to ensure this work aligns with Species at Risk and Land Stewardship Laws before it is too late. There is no question we face water bankruptcy if we do not take nature restoration work seriously.
Please advise how Environment and Climate Change Canada and Alberta Environment are working together to ensure the province takes its role seriously in these efforts. The federal government needs to cease oil and gas development, pipelines, tolls, or carbon capture and storage subsidies but rather co-invest in nature and water restoration with industries.
Sincerely,
Jenny Yeremiy, P. Geoph
