It's probably no different in western Canada. Out there, you buy into water rights so that you get a small share of a stream running through your property.
Around my place you pay to get rid of water into municipal drains or by tile in your fields. If a ditch needs to be cleaned or dug, every rate payer who has anything draining into that ditch pays a share of the costs. Even the township pays into it ( which seems odd to me ) because they have road side drainage.
As long as the drains are working properly then all you pay is property tax. Farm land is taxed at 25% of residential. In no way are you allowed to block a water course or a drain. You can dig ponds to store water and could probably collect rain water without any problem. But I could be wrong about this as I've never tried. There's no shortage of water here so it's not viewed in the same way as drier areas.