Are They Kidding?

I ran across an article on the Western Premier's Conference (Western Canada) which headlined:  Western Leaders Draw Water Charter to Protect Resource.  The article opened with:   Immediate action must be taken to conserve Canada's fresh water supplies, a group of western premiers and territorial leaders agreed Tuesday...The leaders agreed to a Water Charter...that makes protecting the resource a priority.  All well and good - the formality of a "water charter" sounds to me like a fairly serious affair in which the premier's steadfastly agreed to get aggressive over the water resource conditions they currently are worried enough about to have a conference on.

I read on with baited breath, asking myself rhetorically:  What novel and/or forward thinking approaches did they include in the Charter?  The report continues:  The western leaders agreed to support a federal public awareness campaign called WaterSense, which will label products to help Canadians choose low water-use appliances such as dishwashers and washing machines.  Yikes!  Is that it, I ask as I continue to read.  No! There's more:  Campbell said the Western leaders will also work with public and private sectors to make the next World Water Day on March 22, 2011 a national event to promote water conservation.  Now this decision comforts me in ways that I can barely express.  Yep, that's all that is reported as having been done in the water resource arena.  Check it out yourself.

http://www.stumbleupon.com/su/6dgRnU/www.vancouversun.com/business/Western%20leaders%20draw%20water%20charter%20protect%20resource/3159224/story.html

The report did mention that:  Tuesday's meeting builds on a 2008 agreement created by the premiers called the Western Water Stewardship Council, which was created to work toward lowering national and provincial consumption rates. I sincerely hope the 2008 effort was where the lion's share of the water conservation decisions were made, because these two efforts alone probably fall far short of an effective water conservation program.  It's also possible the reporter simply missed all the salient decisions and agreements made during the session.  There must be more to it than this.