Environment Committee on Jan. 30th, 2024

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Thank you, Ms. Vega Cardenas.

Next we have Mr. van Koeverden for two minutes, please.

[Adam van Koeverden, Liberal, Milton, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'm going to put my questions in English, but the witnesses may respond in the language of their choice.

I'm fascinated by the concept of legal rights and protections for rivers. I view rivers as animate objects that should exist on a food chain higher than us. We rely on them, and they don't really rely on us. It would be fine without humans around, actually. I spend a lot of time on rivers and lakes. When I think about all of the life and depth under me, I'm always fascinated with how much I'm physically on top of but spiritually underneath.

Can you expand on the concept of rights for these large bodies of animate objects, legal or otherwise? In the last session, we had a meeting with an oil executive who was polluting massive sections of the Athabasca River. It was having a devastating impact on the health of first nations people and others.

Thank you.

[Yenny Vega Cardenas]

Thank you for the question.

I brought a document that explains the rights of the river. One of those rights is to be free from pollution. I also have an article that talks about some areas of the St. Lawrence River that are completely polluted. Contamination doesn't just come from agriculture. It also comes from fecal coliforms, which make the water in certain parts of the river unsuitable for recreational activities such as kayaking. It is not even suitable for activities involving indirect contact with the water. A single drop of water can contaminate a person and make them ill enough to require a hospital visit.

It's urgent to act today. That's why we've adopted a vision of rights. It's easier that way to spot the big polluters. We're not going to dwell on minor cases of pollution caused by simple water use, or by people swimming in a stream, for example. This vision will guide politicians and facilitate the management, or governance, of entities with legal status, such as the great St. Lawrence River.

[Adam van Koeverden, Liberal, Milton, ON]

Were these documents sent to the committee?

[Yenny Vega Cardenas]

I will give them to you a bit later.

[Adam van Koeverden, Liberal, Milton, ON]

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Ms. Pauzé, you have the floor for about one minute.

[Monique Pauzé, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

In that case, I’d like an answer to the question I asked earlier.

As Mr. Behn and Ms. Delage said, the principles the Canada Water Agency relies on to make decisions were not democratically established ahead of time, meaning there were no debates or discussions on the matter.

Ms. Delage, what can we do to correct this oversight? We are currently under the impression that we put the cart before the horse.

[Amélie Delage]

This is a challenge for a federation like Canada, as the committee has seen today. Often, we don’t talk about water as anything but a resource. One of the opportunities for a Canada-wide agency is to propose a different vision. Several visions about water could be up for debate. It’s possible to find common ground in the face of these challenges.

I repeat, we really have to move from an anthropocentric vision, where water is considered only as a resource, to an ecocentric approach. Then we could look at many concepts about water, many visions. That way, we could also try to find a compromise to the advantage of all users. It has to be productive.

One of the Canada Water Agency’s functions is to collect scientific facts. There has to be a place where everyone can access data. In spite of what was said, this resource isn’t just local, water isn’t just local. We’re talking about watersheds. Don’t forget there are consequences for contaminating water, because it runs off and goes elsewhere. It’s important to change this way of seeing things. I think the Canada Water Agency’s work could lead to this vision, and the Agency must make sure that decisions…

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Thank you, Ms. Delage.

Ms. Collins, you now have the floor.

[Laurel Collins, NDP, Victoria, BC]

I have so many questions, and I'd love to follow up with all of you afterwards.

I have a question for Ms. Vega Cardenas.

Can you give your perspective on the Magpie River gaining personhood and any other examples you see paving a pathway forward for us?

[Yenny Vega Cardenas]

Thank you for the question.

The Magpie River has legal personhood status. In Canada, it’s the first river to get this kind of status. So, with legal personhood, the river has rights. The guardians of the river are people from the Ekuanitshit Innu community and the Minganie RMC.

Ultimately, recognizing the Magpie River’s status is what opened the way for the St. Lawrence River. It not only allowed the river to be protected, it also granted power to local communities, who were abandoned and forgotten. Today, the government of Quebec outlined its position by saying it would respect that decision and not conduct any development harmful to the river. The government of Quebec sent a good message. By the way, next Thursday, there will be a program on the CBC’s airwaves called I am the Magpie River.

I invite all of you to watch I am the Magpie River on CBC on February 1 at 9 p.m.. You are going to know more about the processes and how it's gaining more and more vision around the world.

I don't know if I have time to answer the other question.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Thank you. We'll be sure to tune in. I have CBC Gem.

We have Mr. Kram for two minutes.

[Michael Kram, Conservative, Regina—Wascana, SK]

Thanks, Chair, for squeaking me in at the last minute here.

Mr. Orb, could you elaborate on SARM's position on the Lake Diefenbaker irrigation project?

[Ray Orb]

Yes, definitely. We are in favour of the expansion of Lake Diefenbaker. Not many years ago, there was an announcement by the federal government and the Province of Saskatchewan that they would expand irrigation. That was to further food production in our province, keeping in mind that water is very important, especially to farmers who need to irrigate.

We have the opportunity quite often to lobby the federal government. We do meet with the province, of course. We were told by the federal government that the costs of expansion would have to be borne by the province totally. They would need to borrow the money from the Canada Infrastructure Bank to be able to expand the irrigation.

We're of the opinion that is unfair, because the federal government does contribute to other infrastructure programs. I can think of rural broadband, of course. There's a federal program to further that across rural Canada. Also, in ICIP, the investing in Canada infrastructure program, there's a share of federal funding. We don't understand why the federal government says to our province that we need to borrow the money for an infrastructure program as important as this. We think that the federal government should be funding their share. In the case of all the other agriculture programs and things like that, the federal government bears the costs of 60% of a project. We think the federal government should be paying attention to that.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

You have time for a very quick one, Mr. Kram.

[Michael Kram, Conservative, Regina—Wascana, SK]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Orb, can you quickly share your thoughts on the best way to get regulatory approval for major infrastructure projects such as the Lake Diefenbaker project?

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Be very brief, please, Mr. Orb.

[Ray Orb]

The best way, of course, is to have it approved by the province. In our case, it would be the Water Security Agency that approves the project. If there is federal funding that goes with it, then the federal government does have a role. If there isn't, it's entirely up to the province to assess it.

Outside of the Environmental Impact Assessment Act, that is how things are approved.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Thank you.

Ms. Taylor Roy, you have the floor.

[Leah Taylor Roy, Liberal, Aurora—Oak Ridges—Richmond Hill, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to the witnesses for being here today.

One question I have is regarding if water were given its own intrinsic rights. You've already said there's always a trade-off between the ability of another level of government like a province or a federal government to still pollute and do something. How would that right of water be ranked? How would it be enforced, especially when different governments have different views about the value and whether it's a resource, whether it's elemental or whether it's own person? How do you see that being enforced?

I'm thinking about Ontario, for example, where I live. Numerous different projects put forward by the provincial government are very much threatening water, but there is no way of challenging that or protecting the water.

Perhaps you could answer that for me.

[Yenny Vega Cardenas]

Thank you.

That’s not an easy question.

Changing a person’s vision about water is hard. For me, it took me several years. In the past, I talked about it a lot as a resource. A resource is defined as something we use for our own well-being, our own goals. The paper I’m using to communicate with you is a resource. We can think of water as a living environment. The first nations say it’s alive, whereas non-Indigenous people say it’s a living environment. In other words, it’s where life starts and where many species live.

That is what we are able to understand. Maybe we will never be able to understand that water can be alive and have a spirit, but we can agree on the fact that our species is not the only one in the world and it is part of an environment. We cannot separate it from the rest. We have a tendency to think that there’s water on one side, fish on the other, and plants elsewhere. However, it’s part of a whole. I think this somewhat neutral perspective can reconcile different visions. That way, we can see the river as a living entity or a living environment. For some people, the river is an ancestor, whereas for us, it’s a legal person.

[Leah Taylor Roy, Liberal, Aurora—Oak Ridges—Richmond Hill, ON]

I have one quick follow-up question. It's regarding the Canada water agency and the coordination it will hopefully have with different levels of government and indigenous people, whether it's first nations, Métis or Inuit.

Would you see that as the place that protects those rights of water if, in fact, it were established?

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Give a brief answer, please.

[Yenny Vega Cardenas]

We are presenting a tripartite model of governance, including a Guardian Committee and a Strategic Committee, where all the actors are around the table to ultimately consider the river’s higher interests.

Everyone will act in their own interest; however, the guardians must always have at heart the river’s interests and the lake’s interests. That is why we must have these two distinct committees. There will also be a third one, the Experts Committee, which will produce data. That could be the Canada Water Agency’s role, to collect data and make the best possible decisions.