Lazarus

Pissed, but that's what happens in all firms. Just because he is your assistant doesn't make him your flippin' slave. He gets assigned a task from a superiour, he has to do it, regardless on how you feel about it. You got a problem with the allocation of resources, take it up with upper management, just don't come whining to me about it, I've my own priorities to look after.

I've moved bottle water by the truckloads, enough to satisfy every Canadians thirst. And if you will pardon the pun, its but a drop in the ocean. The majority of fresh water is not used domestically, but for agriculture and industrial purposes. World wide, 69% of all fresh water use goes to agriculture, 23% goes to industrial uses leaving 8% for all domestic uses, including drinking, cooking, cleaning, bathing and flushing. The majority of domestic water use in North America does not go for drinking, but rather showering and flushing. While we are rich in water reserves and resources, we are also wasteful.

Actually, they own more then half of the Great Lake. If you look at this Map and its associated international boundaries, you will plainly see that they own all of Lake Michigan and a little more then half of the rest. However, since the Lakes are still somewhat polluted with heavy metals and other toxic elements from almost two centuries of unrestricted heavy industrial use, there is a question about how much safe potable water could be extracted from them. Also, since they are a share common resource between both Canada and the US, there must be treaties in place as to how they are to be exploited and used. As it is, water levels in the Great Lakes have been dropping for a while now and there is a real concern about their sustainability. No one expects them to dry up over night, but people on both sides of the border including agencies with both national governments and industrial concerns are worried. For export purposes, the Great Lakes really are a non-contender for fresh potable water, however Canada does currently have an abundance of untapped fresh water reserves, these are the ones that we need to protect and guard against over exploitation. While Canada is estimated to hold 20% of the worlds fresh water reserves, over 60% of those reserves are in the far north regions of the nation and drain into the Arctic Basin. To exploit these reserves in a cost effective manner to ensure profitability would demand a huge investment in capital for infrastructure and development costs. Also, most of these reserves are in highly sensitive ecological zones and could be adversely affected by wholesale industrial exportation of water. The other issue that needs to be addressed is ownership. Vast tracts of land that these reserves are in belong to various First Nations groups through Treaty with the Crown. Another real concern about Canada's fresh water reserves is sustainability. No matter which side of the Climate Warming debate you sit, you cannot deny that there has been a marked drop in our annual snow falls and packs. Apart from last year, in BC we have since a steady decrease in the mountain snow packs over the past twenty years and an increase in rainfall. Mountain snow packs are the primary storage of our fresh water, as they melt they replenish the streams, rives and lakes that supply us with our ready use fresh water. Smaller the the snow packs, the less the on hand reserves. Rain on the other hand drains straight into the water sheds and are either lost through evaporation or run off during the winter. Come the spring and summer when the rains move on, our ready use water shed reserves can become dangerously depleted. This also has a negative impact on all types of fisheries, including sport and commercial. In the Fraser River, a simple increase in temperature of 2 to 5 degrees C has the potential of wiping out our Salmon runs. Once active breeding streams are now drying up during the summer months and those Salmon that run during that period have fewer places to go and spawn. By adding whole-sale industrialized water exportation, either by tanker or pipeline into this mix could well spell ecological and economical disaster for the nation. Already in the Okanagan Valley region, here are calls for Ottawa to stand up against the US and its habit of opening the slues gates in order to feed their demand at the expense of the farms, orchards and ranches in BC. Personally I believe water to be an even greater resource then oil and one that is just as likely to trigger wars in the near future.

That's mighty white of you jeff.

Can he do his job? Does he have the qualifications? Is he a good manager apart from his poor English oral skills? Can he communicate clearly and effectively with his writing skills? Does he comply with the company's policies and procedures? Does he bring value added services to the company? If the answer is yes to most or all of the above, then I would have no problem at all having an ex-pat Iraqi as my boss or client. In the past, I have worked for as either a direct hire or as a consultant for: English whites, French-Canadians, Indo-Canadians, Greeks, Chinese, (including CBC's, Naturalized, and Foreign Nationals from Taiwan, Hong Kong and China), Americans, Poles, and others. I've worked with and for people who are Christian, Muslim, Hebrew, Buddhist, Hindu, Sikh and even a Wiccan. I've dealt with people who's English would make the Queens sound like that of a London Barrel-boy and those who had a hard time ordering fries from Micky-D's. In my experience, none of the above would tell me who was or would be a good or bad boss. I will work with anyone I judge to be a competent professional in my field, regardless of their ethnic or religious background, sexual orientation and gender. Those that I judge to wasting my time and energy, I walk away from. This I have done a number of times again both as a direct hire or as a consultant. Okay, now you are just sounding like one of those rabid angry white men that call into Rush Limbaugh. I maybe new here, but I tell a troll when I see one, and while you are not suppose to feed trolls, this time I'll bite. So did this happen to you personally? Doubt it was a religious based promotion considering the majority of East Indians in Canada are Sikh's or Hindu's and your boss being an ex-pat Iraqi would most likely be Muslim and the Sikh's, along with the Hindu's have been warring against the Muslims long before the British Rag in India. Personally I would ask myself why I was passed over for promotion. What did Sanghi bring to the table that I am lacking? Instead of looking for a reverse-discrimination excuse to soothe my battered ego, I'd be looking for ways to improve my knowledge base and skill sets in order to better my chances the next time a promotion is in the offering. That is how it pretty much works in the real world, sucks I know but there you go.

Coca-Cola also exports bottled water out their Bellevue WA. plant into Western Canada. Bottled water is pretty much an international two-way trade. There are already existing Water Treaties between Canada and the US, especially in the West for rivers and lakes that cross the border. Some of those deal, such as the Columbia River Treaty heavily favour the US. In the Okanagan, both Lake Okanagan and Skaha Lakes have seen their levels drastically lowered at times when the US as per treaty was able to demand the Canadian Authorities to open up the slues gates in order to slate US demands for more fresh water, much of which is diverted down to California in order to provide irrigation for it massive agricultural industry. About ten or so years ago, this caused the levels of the Thompson-Okanagan lakes to drop so much that the Kokonee Salmon population was threaten with extinction after their breeding gravel beds were left high and dry. Therein lays the threat from bulk sales and diversion of fresh water south or overseas. If we were to allow this to happen, what would both the ecological and economic repercussions be? Canada pretty much got hosed with the Oil Deal we cut with the Americans along with existing share fresh water treaties. It would be in our national best interest to be extremely careful when it comes to future water deals, especially bulk water deals.