Mr. Chair, members of the committee, thank you for inviting me to testify today.
My name is Alexandre Lillo and I am a professor in the law department of the Université du Québec à Montréal. My specific expertise is in legal and water governance issues, which I have been working on for 10 years now. I actually did my doctorate and my postdoctoral studies at the University of Ottawa, so it is a pleasure to be back in the region. I do not know whether there are any Pokémon fans here, but I feel like a Squirtl who has come back to Kanto.
Members of the committee, joking aside, we are at a crossroads. Water-related problems have never been as frequent, intense and complex. This is a fact. While water governance tools have not yet been adapted to grasp the implications of these problems, we are living in a time of political and legal transformation that has not been seen in Canada for almost 50 years. The creation of the Canada Water Agency, the implementation of the freshwater action plan, and the modernization of the Canada Water Act are all initiatives that may make it possible to remodel the legal and political water governance landscape.
There is no guarantee that we will win this battle, however, and it will be crucial that we leave the beaten path. Today, I want to draw your attention not only to the importance of a coordinated approach as between the orders of government, but also to the role of the federal government within that approach.
From the beginning of your freshwater study, you have observed the full range of the issues and actors involved with water. The difficulty, you will agree, is that we are dealing with a situation with thoroughgoing transboundary, intersectoral and interagency aspects. For those reasons, coordinated intergovernment action is unavoidable if we want to fully understand these mounting challenges. On that point, a Canada-wide effort would be particularly desirable if we want to be equipped, collectively, to manage water everywhere in the country in a spirit of cooperative federalism.
In addition, I believe that intergovernment cooperation in respect of water should be a reflection of several transformative considerations. First, it should allow for decisions made by non-governmental actors present on the ground to be implemented. This cooperation should also enable us to imagine the possibility of a representation of water as an autonomous entity, as a fully-fledged actor in itself: water influences our ways of life and our ways of doing things, just as we influence its nature and composition. And this cooperation should enable us to seize the opportunity to take a step forward in the process of reconciliation with the first nations, both by incorporating an indigenous representation and by applying their governance modes.
It is from this perspective that the federal government plays an essential role. Of course, the federal government does not have exclusive jurisdiction over a subject matter as vast as water, although water does have a significant intergovernmental dimension. On the other hand, the federal government is the only order of government capable of catalyzing a dynamic of intergovernment cooperation everywhere in Canada, an undertaking that the provinces alone could not accomplish. Its role is therefore to initiate action in this area, but also to facilitate the adoption of a common approach and coordinate the implementation of that approach.
It must be noted that there are legal strategies to support Canada-wide management of water. Examples are administrative interdelegation or bilateral agreements. However, their existence is not sufficient in itself. They must be accompanied by human, financial and material resources and by strong political will, which is an essential element. This will not be an easy task, but Canadian federalism allows us to imagine a cooperation model that is both harmonized and capable of preserving regional diversity and richness. In fact, it is somewhat ironic to say that these considerations are not new in themselves. There were structuring reports on water law and governance in Canada that were already calling for this over 50 years ago. What is new, however, is the context: a context of urgency in the face of problems that are increasingly acute, but also a context of opportunity in which the profile of the law and governance of water are undergoing rapid change.
Thank you.