Water Strategy Renewal

Early in 2007, the Council accepted Environment Minister Rob Renner’s proposal to lead the renewal of the Water for Life strategy. The intent was to build on the experience gained to date and to highlight strategic areas of focus for the next phase of the strategy’s implementation, as described in the team’s Terms of Reference.

The team undertook an extensive stakeholder engagement through a workbook and online survey format. The summary of this input, the What We Heard Report informs the report’s final recommendations. While the document captures and consolidates survey participants’ points-of-view into a single document, no attempt was made to evaluate the factual accuracy of any viewpoint expressed or to reconcile opposing points-of-view. 

Recommendations for Renewal

On January 30, 2008 the Alberta Water Council released its report, Water for Life: Recommendations for Renewal, containing advice for the renewal of Alberta’s Water for Life strategy. In the report, the Council confirms that the Water for Life strategy goals and key directions remain valid and calls for the Government of Alberta to accelerate action and investment, and take stronger, bolder steps to safeguard Alberta’s water sources. This work was important in ensuring that implementation of Water for Life is energized and effective.

In November 2008, the Government of Alberta released Water for Life: a renewal, which incorporated the Council’s recommendations. The renewed strategy recognizes "the need to continuously improve and strengthen water policy to ensure sustainability for the future" and added a new principle:

"Water for Life will be integrated into other policies and plans, such as the Land-use Framework Planning, ensuring better resource management integration"

Action Plan

To achieve the goals and key directions in the renewed Water for Life strategy, the Government of Alberta released the Water for Life action plan in November 2009, which contains new actions that have been added to actions from the original strategy. The action plan will be aligned with other Government of Alberta strategic policies to support better consistency and certainty towards the environment, economy and quality of life for Albertans.