The Bottled Water
You grab a bottle of water at the store. $2.50. The company that bottled it paid less than a penny for a thousand litres.
The System
Corporations pump millions of litres from Canadian groundwater for almost nothing. They bottle it and sell it back to you at a 3,000 to 5,000 times markup. The permit fees are so low they're essentially a rounding error on the balance sheet.
BlueTriton extracted (ON, 2023)
Ontario permit fee
Retail markup vs extraction fee
638 million litres. That's how much BlueTriton (formerly Nestle) took from Ontario wells in 2023. The permit fee? $503.71 per million litres. Before 2017, it was $3.71.
$0. That's what BC charged for groundwater extraction until 2016. Then they raised it to $2.25 per million litres. Ontario charges $503.71. Both figures are negligible compared to retail price.
3,000 to 5,000 times. That's the retail markup on bottled water compared to the extraction fee. You pay dollars per litre. They pay fractions of a cent.
Let's hear the other side
...and see if it holds water
Bottled water serves a real need. In communities with boil water advisories, during natural disasters, and in areas with...
The Promise
Water is a public resource. Provinces issue permits to protect it. The permits are supposed to ensure sustainable extraction. In practice, the fees are so low that companies have no financial reason to limit what they take.
$503.71 per million litres. Ontario raised the fee from $3.71 in 2017 after public outcry. It sounds like a lot until you do the math. That's $0.00050 per litre. A bottle at the store costs $2.50.
The Reality
While Nestle pumped hundreds of millions of litres from the same watershed, 11,000 residents of Six Nations of the Grand River lacked clean tap water. Only 10% were served by a treatment plant. The water went to bottles, not to people.
11,000 residents. Six Nations of the Grand River lacked clean tap water while Nestle extracted from the same watershed. Only 10% of Six Nations was served by a water treatment plant.
What Works
Community pressure works. Wellington Water Watchers led a decade-long campaign against Nestle's extraction in Aberfoyle, Ontario. BlueTriton closed the facility in January 2025. It took ten years of showing up, but they won.
10 years. Wellington Water Watchers campaigned for a decade to stop Nestle/BlueTriton from extracting groundwater in Aberfoyle, Ontario. The facility closed in January 2025. Community organizing beat a multinational.
What You Can Do
Drink tap water. Support municipal water infrastructure. Ask your province why extraction fees are pennies while you pay dollars. Follow Wellington Water Watchers for a model of how communities can push back.
Ask your provincial government to raise water extraction fees to reflect the true value of groundwater. Support organizations like Wellington Water Watchers. Drink tap water — it's tested more rigorously than bottled water in most Canadian municipalities.