News Release: Nine in Ten British Columbians Say Fresh Water is a Matter of National Security

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Sovereignty starts upstream: nine in ten British Columbians say fresh water is a matter of national security
New McAllister poll: 90% agree protecting Canada’s fresh water is vital to national sovereignty and security — 86% of BC Conservative, 94% of BC NDP and 94% of BC Green supporters. 92% say the B.C. government is accountable for it. Coalition asks Province to act now.
VANCOUVER, B.C. — September 15, 2026 — A new province-wide survey, conducted in the same fortnight that the U.S. President signed an order renaming Lake Ontario “Lake America,” posted a map showing Canada under the American fl ag, and imposed 50 per cent tariffs on Canadian goods, fi nds that British Columbians already treat their fresh water as a matter of national security — and expect their provincial government to defend it.
Ninety per cent of British Columbians agree that “protecting and responsibly managing Canada’s freshwater systems is vital to our national sovereignty and security,” including 53 per cent who strongly agree. Two per cent disagree.
The agreement holds across every political line the survey measured: 86 per cent of BC Conservative supporters, 94 per cent of BC NDP supporters, 94 per cent of BC Green supporters and 93 per cent of undecided voters. It holds among households that work in mining, oil and gas, forestry and other resource industries (86 per cent), in every region of the province (89 to 97 per cent), and in every age group — 96 per cent of British Columbians over 65, and 86 per cent of those under 35.
“Sovereignty has been the story of 2026, but British Columbians are not thinking about it only in terms of tariffs and borders,” said Angus McAllister, principal of McAllister Opinion Research, which conducted the survey. “They have already connected the dots: you cannot defend a country whose rivers run dry every July. When a foreign president starts renaming our lakes, people don’t reach for abstractions. They reach for what is theirs — and in this province, that starts with water.”
The survey of 2,005 B.C. adults was conducted August 27 to September 1, 2026, by McAllister Opinion Research for the BC Watershed Security Coalition, a non-partisan alliance of more than 57 organisations representing 285,000 British Columbians. It is the sixth wave in a research program that has tracked B.C. opinion on fresh water since 2010.
The threat is no longer somewhere else
British Columbia is in its fourth consecutive summer of water insecurity. Vancouver Island’s snowpack measured zero per cent of normal in June. Rivers and lakes in the Okanagan and Vancouver Island experienced record low fl ows, wells have run dry, and the province ordered irrigators to stop water use in the Salmon and Bessette watersheds due to risks to endangered salmon runs. The public has noticed: