What I would suggest is very similar to what we're suggesting with the Mackenzie River Basin transboundary agreement, that as the government of the land, it has a leadership role to play. And if you look over the whole Canadian landscape, there are overlapping issues of water tied in with climate change, tied in with resource development. The water crosses all jurisdictions. It doesn't stop because there's a political line there.
At the very least, environment ministers are now talking about the need to look at how we coordinate our efforts. We've done some things, wastewater management. We're working toward national standards.
But in terms of linking and bringing the parties together, like the Mackenzie River Basin, to get everybody around the table to talk about how the world has changed since that agreement was done and how we move forward to manage the very complex issues, often with very little information, commitments to doing the work with jurisdictions to have a national data bank that allows us to make the right decisions, we have to deal with some of the issues as they relate to other agreements we have with other countries, like the United States.
Mapping all the stuff that's happening across the land, in terms of the flows and the headwaters and the diminishing snowpack, glaciers, all the things that feed our water systems--there are enormous challenges. Sixty per cent of the water in the country flows north. Eighty per cent of the population is below the 60th parallel. There are huge national issues. If you don't have a national round table, then everybody is going to be going to their own corners, trying to look after themselves. No jurisdiction is an island entirely unto itself when it comes to water.