Water Security in Canada

Founded in 1990, the de Gaspé Beaubien Foundation brings a long‑standing entrepreneurial legacy to its philanthropic work. Over the past decade, that legacy has increasingly been directed toward water security in Canada, an issue the Foundation has engaged with consistently, even when it struggled to gain sustained public or policy attention. 

For much of that period, water protection was widely assumed to be a solved problem. Canada’s apparent abundance of freshwater contributed to a sense that large‑scale investment or coordination was unnecessary. The Foundation’s experience challenged that assumption. 

As the Foundation’s Executive Director, Marie‑Paule Jeansonne, explains, Canada’s water challenge is not about absolute scarcity, but rather about misalignment. 

This mismatch creates recurring pressures, especially as climate impacts escalate: flooding in some places, shortages in others, and growing strain on aging infrastructure. 

Over time, the Foundation came to understand water not as a standalone environmental issue, but as a structural condition shaping outcomes across housing, energy, food systems, public health, and economic development. Housing cannot be built without water and wastewater capacity. Energy systems, from hydroelectricity to nuclear energy, depend on water. Food systems are increasingly stressed by drought and climate emergencies. Water quality directly affects community health, including concerns related to forever chemicals and plastics. 

Rather than shifting focus as attention rose and fell, the Foundation remained engaged, building knowledge, supporting practical solutions, and working alongside other actors to address gaps as they became visible. Recent federal developments, including the commitment to develop a national water security strategy and the creation of the Canada Water Agency in 2023, reflect growing alignment with concerns the Foundation has been working on for years. 

Coordinating Action Across Funders and Sectors 

As this systems‑level understanding deepened, it became clear that no single organization could address water security on its own. The scale and cross‑cutting nature of the issue required coordination, not duplication. 

In response, the Foundation now co‑chairs the Canada Water Security Funders Group alongside the Metcalf Foundation. The group brings together approximately a dozen foundations working across different dimensions of water‑related issues, with a shared aim of aligning funding strategies, identifying gaps, and increasing overall philanthropic support for water protection. 

A key focus is engaging foundations whose mandates intersect with water, such as housing, food, and energy, even if they do not identify primarily as environmental funders. Water becomes a point of connection across these domains, helping organizations see how their existing priorities are already shaped by water constraints. 

The group is still evolving, but it reflects the Foundation’s broader orientation: coordination over duplication, and long‑term engagement over short‑term wins. 

Aligning Innovation and Technology with Water Protection 

A core belief underpinning the Foundation’s work is that many solutions to water challenges already exist, but face barriers at the earliest and riskiest stages of development and adoption. 

Through AquaAction, a nonprofit created by the Foundation and now operating with independent governance, the Foundation supports projects across the innovation spectrum, from early‑stage idea generation to commercialization. This approach reflects both the Foundation’s entrepreneurial roots and its view that innovation is essential to restoring damaged environments and improving water efficiency. 

Two flagship initiatives anchor this work: 

• AquaHacking, which generates new water solutions through challenge‑based innovation; and 

• AquaEntrepreneur, which supports companies in Quebec as they test technologies, secure pilot projects, and obtain initial contracts with municipalities and industry. 

The Foundation’s experience has shown that the most persistent gap is not creativity, but early adoption. By de‑risking pilot projects and supporting early implementation, this work helps move promising technologies from concept to real‑world use, addressing a critical bottleneck in water protection. 

A Long Game, Not a Single Intervention 

Taken together, the Foundation’s work on water security reflects a consistent orientation: staying with a complex issue long enough to understand its dimensions, support practical solutions, and bring others into alignment. Rather than treating water as a niche environmental concern, the de Gaspé Beaubien Foundation’s approach shows how water underpins social, economic, and ecological outcomes and why sustained, coordinated action is required to protect it.