Celebrating Canadian Utilities!
I am so excited to announce two new national awards specifically for water and wastewater utilities. CWWA is sponsoring two new awards as part of the nationally-recognized Water Canada Awards. The first award recognizes “Early Adopters” – showing national leadership to bravely implement new innovation and processes. The other award celebrates “Community Outreach and Engagement” – a critical part our job as utilities.
A few years ago we introduced the Order of the Toque to recognize our valuable volunteers that contribute so much to the success of CWWA. Discussion then continued to considering an awards program recognizing the achievements of our members. If you know me at all, you know I am big on collaboration and partnerships – I don’t ever want to reinvent the wheel or recreate and compete with a good thing. The Water Canada Awards are that good thing – a great thing actually – and I have been honoured to serve on their Awards Committee since their inception. We have tried to run our own CWWA Awards in the past, but it is a big job requiring staff time, volunteer judges’, and significant funding. So partnering with the very successful Water Canada Awards seemed like the most sensible approach. While the Water Canada Awards celebrate a wide range of organizations and individuals, these awards are specifically for our utilities sector – and no, you do not have to be a paid member of CWWA to win.
Winners of these awards will be doubly celebrated. The finalists will be announced by September and the winners will be revealed at the Water Canada Awards Ceremony in October. The winners, and finalists, will be celebrated again at our National Conference in November.
The full Press Release can be seen in this e-Bulletin or you can check it all out here:
Tariffs? Refunds? Don’t Hold Your Breath
As we’ve all been watching, the US Supreme Court overturned their President’s use of Emergency Powers to impose tariffs. This emergency excuse was particularly ridiculous when it came to Canada with wildly false claims that we were pouring fentanyl into the US. Nevertheless, Canada spent millions on border security to appease the US President, but to no avail.
Now, their own courts have found these tariffs to have been illegal. But what does this mean? The last few rounds of tariffs may have been removed, but the US Administration has immediately imposed new tariffs under special powers allowing the President to invoke up to 15% for up to 5 months before he needs support from Congress (that he likely won’t get). As of today, these new tariffs are set at 10%, but, as with everything related to this Administration, they are subject to change at any moment. As for implementation, apparently anything covered by the current CUSMA agreement is exempt. The targets are still steel, aluminum, wood and autos. Meanwhile, they are searching for any other way to apply tariffs.
So if those old tariffs were imposed illegally, does that mean refunds are coming? I wouldn’t hold my breath. This will be a long two-step process. First, the manufacturers and retailers will have to win a battle to get refunded, before they can pass the refunds onto the buyers. Many US companies have already filed suits for refunds, but the Administration has vowed to delay this in courts for years. Meanwhile, much of the increase in pricing can likely NOT be traced back to a specific tariff, but rather prices rose in speculation or anticipation of tariffs, or in sourcing alternate suppliers, or in simple supply and demand economics. The logistics are almost unfathomable.
Uncertainty will continue – which seems to be the ultimate goal in all of this anyway. The fear of tariffs and trade wars has created such a fear of global investing outside of the US. Even if this uncertainty doesn’t benefit the US as a whole, the market fluctuations have certainly benefited some individual market traders. (wink, wink)
No Water, No Winter Olympics
Gotta say I was loving the Winter Olympics. I don’t know why I don’t follow the biathlon or ski-cross or freestyle every year, instead of just at the Olympics. I appreciated the Closing Ceremonies “water” theme and the commentators discussing how you can’t have winter Olympics without water, or at least frozen water in the form of ice and snow.
Yes, I too was disappointed by the hockey losses for the women and men, but perhaps it is for the best…we would most likely have faced additional tariffs if we won.
NWWC 2026 Halifax
The dates are set for the next National Water & Wastewater Conference in Halifax, November 1-4. The Call for Papers ends March 31st…so get your ideas in now. We are also signing up exhibitors and sponsors now. Check out the Sponsor/Exhibitor Prospectus.
Everything about the NWWC is here: Home | 2026 National Water and Wastewater Conference