Policy change for a water soft path in Canada

The soft path incorporates the technological advances in safe water supply and sanitation that have dominated the model for delivering water services in this country for the last century. [...] Knowing who the actors are and how they and the institutions in which they function can shift direction is also important if water management is to move toward a soft path and its goal of sustainability. [...] THE GOAL IS KEY The single most important characteristic of a water soft path approach is that it is about sustainability as a new, additional, and explicit goal for water management. [...] Unlike a water soft path, however, neither business-as-usual nor demand management foregrounds actual limits – on the resource, on human uses of it, or on new water infrastructure – as critical to water planning POLICY THAT LIMITS USE The water soft path is based on a vision of sustainable water management that explicitly takes such limits into account. [...] All these sectors of water users, along with the public at large, bureaucrats, and elected officials, must understand and support the general thrust of water soft path policies and the social, political, and economic changes their implementation will require.