Evidence of meeting #98 for Environment and Sustainable Development in the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was global.
A recording is available from Parliament.
4:35 p.m.
Liberal
February 15th, 2024 / 4:35 p.m.
Liberal
Sophie Chatel Liberal Pontiac, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I welcome our witnesses.
I'm going to start with Mr. Madramootoo.
Earlier, the representative of the IJC, an organization created by the UN, and you talked about climate change, which is having a huge impact. While more developed countries are responsible for most greenhouse gas emissions, the least developed nations are responsible for only 1.1% of global CO 2 emissions. Yet it is those most vulnerable populations that are suffering the extremely serious consequences of climate change. We are hearing more and more about drought in those countries. They are also very vulnerable to climate disasters. I'm thinking of major floods, tsunamis and extreme storms, such as hurricanes.
Canadians expect their government to act responsibly, to act like a responsible global citizen, as was said earlier. I am a little concerned when I hear that some members of the Conservative caucus want to withdraw from their civic responsibilities.
Mr. Madramootoo, one of the things you talked about was the importance of Canada being a leader and showing technical leadership globally in addressing water shortages in the agricultural sector. Among other things, you say that Canada should be proactive in promoting innovative and responsible practices internationally.
Can you give us more details on that?
4:35 p.m.
Distinguished James McGill Professor, McGill University, As an Individual
Canada, in my view, should be a world leader in addressing the issues around climate change in agriculture. You're quite correct that the people in the developing world, in the arid and semi-arid regions where some of the poorest of the poor live, carry a very high burden of the impacts of climate change on their livelihoods when they produce less greenhouse gas than we do.
We are in a very good position to bring new technologies and climate-smart agriculture, regenerative agriculture—making use of some of the traditional practices that are being conducted by agriculture producers with more things like green manure and the use of cover crops, for example—to help them buffer the impacts of droughts on people's livelihoods.
I would like to suggest that Canada, as I said in my presentation, play a much stronger leadership role in the United Nations agencies to help address your points.
4:35 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Francis Scarpaleggia
Thank you.
That's very good. That brings us to the end of our first panel.
Dr. Madramootoo, if you have any examples of the kinds of projects the government could fund internationally to achieve the goals that you've enunciated, please do not hesitate to send them to the clerk, even if they're short synopses. They will be fodder for the report.
We'll stop there. I want to thank the witnesses and the members for this round of questions and answers.
We'll pause for a couple of minutes to onboard our second panel.
Thank you again.
4:45 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Francis Scarpaleggia
We'll start with our second panel. We're up against the clock here.
We start with Mr. Kaveh Madani, from the UN University Institute for Water, for five minutes, please.
4:45 p.m.
Kaveh Madani Director, United Nations University Institute for Water, Environment and Health
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Honourable committee members, allow me at the outset to express my profound gratitude, as the director of the United Nations University Institute for Water, Environment and Health, to the people and Government of Canada for nearly three decades of supporting us. The 1996 decision to host what is known today as the “UN water think tank” is reflective of Canada's progressive and visionary thinking, yet when it comes to water, Canada has much more to offer on the world stage.
Building on its firm commitment to multilateralism and proven record of peacebuilding, Canada has an unprecedented opportunity to turn water into a pillar of its foreign policy, with significant global and national security benefits, so I encourage your committee to take these three recommendations into consideration.
Recommendation one is to make water a foreign policy priority, to use water for peacebuilding and to establish Canada as a leader in the water space. Despite its fundamental importance, water is still an orphaned child in international politics, with no UN agency that is entirely dedicated to it. This gap creates a great political and also a wonderful business opportunity for Canada, a nation that has all that is required to serve as the world's water leader. Besides being a solution provider, thanks to its solid talent pool, Canada's geography puts it in a highly unique position from the water standpoint. With access to 7% of the world's renewable water supply, Canada's identity is tied to water. The experience of dealing with the most diverse range of water management problems has equipped Canada with the expertise and reputation needed to guide and set an effective solution path for the world.
One immediate opportunity for Canada is to influence the global water action agenda, which, in addition to promoting its scientists and businesses, is hosting the next UN water conference in 2026, soon after the establishment of the Canada water agency. I also encourage Canada to consider taking the issue of water to the UN Security Council, given its peace and security implications. Canada must also consider making water an integral component of its peacekeeping missions and international development projects.
Recommendation two is to put farmers at the centre of the water agenda. No water agenda can succeed without a true appreciation of the role of farmers in managing water. Unfortunately, many national and international sustainability and climate agendas marginalize farmers and overlook their significant role in managing 70% of the global water use. These reductionist and often energy-centric policies, which ignore how investment in the water and agricultural sector benefit our fight against climate change, hunger, poor health, poverty and injustice, are doomed to fail and must be immediately revised. Robust water policies that put farmers at the centre are not vulnerable to the changes of political appetite in Ottawa or any other capital in the world. Accordingly, Canada's domestic water policies and international water leadership must promote the role of farmers and their potential to help the world mitigate its water, climate and security problems.
Recommendation three is to take advantage of the water-related UN entity that Canada hosts. The United Nations University Institute for Water, Environment and Health would not have existed without Canada's thoughtful and generous support. This institute is one of the few UN entities in the world with a water-focused mandate and can serve as the gateway that connects Canada to the UN agencies and those in need of Canada's water knowledge and technology. Canada is currently underutilizing this UN entity to promote its talents, solutions and resources.
Through systematic co-operation with the Government of Canada, based on a clear and “water wise” foreign policy, the United Nations University can do much more to ensure that Canada, its researchers, innovators, businesses, farmers, politicians and water activists get the recognition they collectively deserve, as we are cognizant of what Canada has to offer and how the world can benefit from its water leadership.
4:50 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Francis Scarpaleggia
Thank you very much, Mr. Madani.
We'll go now to Ms. Ito, who is in Scotland, I believe.
4:50 p.m.
Mumta Ito Founder and President, Nature's Rights
Hi there. I understand that you probably have a handout that was circulated amongst you, which I'm going to walk you through.
To give you a little bit of background, I've been advocating for the recognition of the rights of nature as the foundation of all the other rights.
If we are to solve our issues to do with fresh water, we cannot look at it in isolation from all of the other systems. Fresh water can't be isolated from our ocean systems or from the rest of the water cycle. If we want to have clean water, we also need to look at agriculture and at the entire economic system because everything is interconnected. If we think of our human society as an iceberg, all of the crises that we see—the economic crises, the six mass extinctions, climate change, pandemics and ill health—are just above the water mark.
If we look beneath the surface of the water, we have the structures and the systems—the silo systems—that come from a mechanistic world view and from a separation of consciousness that separates the human being from nature, which has been encoded in law. In law, nature is objects, property and resources, separate from the human being. This leads to a degenerative cycle that produces all of these crises on autopilot. Most of our societal solutions are all about acting on crisis management and trying to see how we can avert climate change or the various crises that are happening. That's the lowest point of leverage we act at.
If we want to really resolve our problems, move toward a thriving future long term and really be leaders on the world stage, we have to look at bottom-of-the-iceberg solutions. We have to look at how we can rebuild that relationship with nature, which is our most fundamental relationship, and drive that change into law. This is what we advocate for with Nature's Rights.
If you think of the current sustainability model, you have people, economy and nature. You have three interlocking circles, like you'll see on the diagram that I circulated.
In this model, there are a couple of flaws. One is that people have rights, the economy has rights—corporate rights and property rights—and nature has no rights. There's also an assumption that these three circles can operate independently of each other, but this isn't reflective of reality. In reality, the only one that can operate independently of the others is nature, because the other systems are derived from nature. Without nature, there's no human society. Without nature and human societies, there is no economy.
We're advocating that what we move to in our governance system is a nested hierarchy of rights that follows the natural order. The rights are not adversarial; they're collaborative and synergistic.
The model on the right is what we proposed to the European Economic and Social Committee in looking at a European fundamental charter for the rights of nature that would encompass the other rights. We've built a framework where, if you take the three circles and map out the UN sustainable development goals on each layer—nature, people and economy—and add a fourth circle at the bottom, which is the planetary boundaries, you end up with a system where you can map out the rights corresponding to that, where you have economic rights embedded within human rights, which are all embedded within the rights of nature. This gets rid of inherent conflicts between the rights.
At the moment, sustainable development goals haven't been reached. A lot of the criticism around this is that there isn't a legal framework to achieve it. With this model, we're bringing in the nested hierarchy of rights, or the integrated model of rights, as a way of driving forward those sustainable development goals, all within the planetary boundaries.
We've heard about climate change in this meeting, but climate change is only one of the nine planetary boundaries. Seven of those planetary boundaries have already been exceeded—
4:55 p.m.
Founder and President, Nature's Rights
—with biodiversity and the nitrogen and phosphorus cycle being the ones that are most highly in the danger zone.
I would urge you to—
4:55 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Francis Scarpaleggia
We have to stop you there, Ms. Ito. There will be questions. You can use those opportunities to add some information.
4:55 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Francis Scarpaleggia
Next is Ms. Kavanagh with Water Rangers.
I believe you were with us last week, no?
4:55 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Francis Scarpaleggia
It was a different Kat. I'm sorry about that. I'm a little mixed up.
Go ahead, please.
4:55 p.m.
Executive Director, Water Rangers
Thank you.
Thanks for having me. I'm Kat Kavanagh, the executive director of Water Rangers. I co-founded Water Rangers in 2015 as part of the “AquaHacking” competition by AquaAction, another witness you had in the past week, I believe. It came from seeing my own father, who had been collecting water quality data for about 20 years at our local lake. He didn't have the tools to share and understand his data. This is quite a common picture that we see across community groups who care deeply about their local waterways.
Water Rangers set about to respond to community needs for those tools that lower barriers and help them participate in specifically community-based water monitoring. We've designed test kits and built an open data platform curated for the public, which is being used by 300 groups across Canada, the U.S., the U.K. and even Mexico. In Canada those groups can automatically share their dataset with DataStream, whom you heard from on Tuesday, a national database for water quality data.
We know that water quality data is desperately needed. According to the 2020 watershed reports, published by WWF Canada, over 60% of subwatersheds are considered data-deficient. That means we don't even have enough data to give them a score. This is better than it was in 2017, when over 70% were data-deficient. It's through efforts of environmental non-profits like DataStream and those community-based water monitoring groups across the country that we're starting to make some progress in filling those gaps. There's a long way to go, but we're starting to see a path forward. This year Water Rangers, supported by AquaAction, will be publishing the next watershed reports. Stay tuned for those results later this year.
Since the theme today is speaking to international relationships, I want to give two brief examples of where we're working with organizations in the U.S. to coordinate and standardize on both sides of Lake Erie through the Lake Erie volunteer science network. Canadians need to play a bigger role here, but there is a willingness and desire to simplify sharing across borders.
In the U.K., I'm part of a collaborative of over 80 leaders of NGOs, industry, government and researchers in a program called CaSTCo. They're investing in my participation and our tools to help create pathways for community-based water monitoring to be integrated into achieving healthier rivers here. Their investment at a national scale is substantial. It's based on collaboration amongst all those stakeholders at a watershed scale. There is an example of something we can learn from in Canada.
The Brits, though, were impressed about how Canadian non-profit collaboration is equipping communities to openly share data and share results. I gave them the example of how community groups are using Water Rangers to collect their data, share their data openly, embed it on their own websites, share with their local communities, share that data with DataStream to sit alongside government and research data, and then be part of national assessments like the watershed reports.
Coordinating, building meaningful relationships and sharing learnings takes time and effort. Canadian non-profit organizations are doing amazing work with a fraction of the resources of other countries. We should be proud of what we've been able to accomplish there. An example is the community-based water monitoring collaborative, which we are also helping lead.
We're building resources like the business case for the investment in community-based water monitoring tool kit, so that groups on the ground level in those communities who care deeply about their local waterways can express their value to funders to support in local projects. Research by the International Institute for Sustainable Development has shown in a report that community-based water monitoring groups multiply investments three to 14 times. We've heard from other witnesses about the endowment fund in B.C. that is starting to strengthen water resilience there. It's a model I'd love to see replicated across the country for supporting and strengthening water stewardship.
I will leave you with two brief recommendations. One, invest in leadership and innovation in community-based water monitoring data collection and sharing. Two, build communities' long-term capacity to participate in evidence-informed decision-making for their local waterways. Communities care deeply about water.
Thank you.
5 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Francis Scarpaleggia
Thank you very much.
I will go now to Mr. McClinchey from the Great Lakes Fishery Commission.
You didn't bring a lamprey with you today.
5 p.m.
Gregory McClinchey Director, Policy and Legislative Affairs, Great Lakes Fishery Commission
No, not today, Mr. Chair.
5 p.m.
Director, Policy and Legislative Affairs, Great Lakes Fishery Commission
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
After two failed Great Lakes treaty attempts, crisis drove the U.S. and Canada to ratify our treaty-based binational mandate to establish and maintain cross-border relationships, to build a body of freshwater science on which to base management decisions and, of course, to control sea lamprey.
These tasks were given to us, as political leadership understood that combatting invasive species, coordinating harvest policies and leveraging shared resources could only happen if we tackled challenges together. In other words, where water flows over borders, border-blind management must follow.
Our treaty drafters saw water as foreign policy, and the commission's binational engagement strategy proves it. That's not to suggest that strong domestic freshwater policies aren't needed. History underscores the importance of respecting subnational jurisdictions and rights holders. Our commission considers partnerships, the application of traditional knowledge and dialogue with first nations to be success elements.
Our convention drafters made establishing and maintaining working relationships a primary goal. That's because they understood that waterborne threats and opportunities never stay in one jurisdictional silo.
Canada has impressive freshwater resources that contribute to our triple bottom line. That's our social, economic and ecological well-being. Despite this, when it comes to Canada's fourth coast, bilateralism is the only way to protect the resource and respect jurisdictional confines, including first nations' rights, while ensuring good governance and sustainability.
The U.S. and state governments have demonstrated an understanding of this good governance potential via infrastructure renewal, habitat restoration, research and coordinated management. That coordinated management occurs under the commission-facilitated joint strategic plan for management of Great Lakes fisheries, a plan that's been signed by the subnational units.
For our commission and our partners, the joint strategic plan, which I have provided for distribution, has proven its worth. Ontario, the Great Lakes states and indigenous partners work together to make shared decisions. This non-binding, consensus-based strategy ensures that the management of Great Lakes resources by each of the jurisdictions benefits all the jurisdictions. Water, in this context, is not a cause for division. Rather, water unites. Our joint strategic plan is an example of that.
Fisheries managers have prioritized habitat protections and improvement despite the daunting task. Five lake committees, which are joint strategic plan elements, provide managers from provincial, state, indigenous and federal agencies a forum for discussion. They work through a common framework to identify impediments to fish production and then pinpoint management actions, termed “environmental priorities”.
These environmental priorities provide structure, continuity and value here and in the U.S. Coordinated partnerships then find resources to implement habitat protections. These projects, which vary in complexity from large-scale deepwater reef restoration to small culvert replacements, are advancing after decades of inaction.
This process of identifying impediments and actions, funding streams and project accomplishment goals is the vision for sustainable Great Lakes, but the process is only possible due to the joint strategic plan, which helps managers find shared priorities. Prior to the commission's establishment, this exchange would have been impossible. Success only became possible when we started acting beyond our one border.
With the benefit of hindsight, it's clear that viewing water as a foreign policy matter is neither novel nor optional. We can't afford to view boundary waters as just domestic resources because our trading partners see them through a foreign policy lens. This divergent view is why the interface our commission uses in the U.S. flows through the Department of State but through DFO here in Canada. It's a matter of priority.
In closing, water can separate or unite us. After years of divided governance and strife, Great Lakes water has become a uniting force, but that state has taken effort. Establishing and maintaining binational working relationships on this scale has taken decades of trust-building, but the investment of energy positively impacts on the triple bottom line for the communities and governments of the basin.
We hope this study will yield positive results, so that all Canadians can enjoy the benefits of well-managed and sustainable freshwater resources. We stand ready to help in any way we can.
5:05 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Francis Scarpaleggia
Thank you, Mr. McClinchey.
Mr. Leslie, you have six minutes. Go ahead.
5:05 p.m.
Conservative
Branden Leslie Conservative Portage—Lisgar, MB
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I'll start with Mr. McClinchey.
I understand that the fisheries are worth about $7 billion a year. What would you say at this point in time is the biggest threat to commercial fish stocks?
5:05 p.m.
Director, Policy and Legislative Affairs, Great Lakes Fishery Commission
I was actually asked this question not that long ago when crossing the border one time. A border guard asked me what the greatest threat was to the ongoing sustainability of the Great Lakes. There are lots of answers I could give to that. The biggest threat to it is complacency.
In many of the meetings we've had with members across the table here over the last couple of years, we've talked about how governments and people like to respond to a crisis. Fortunately, in the case of the fishery itself, there's not a crisis per se, but we need constant vigilance. With regard to the lamprey control that we look after, if we stop doing it, then it immediately becomes a problem. With respect to cross-border collaboration, the minute we take any of that partnership for granted, it begins to fall apart.
There are lots of external threats. There are lots of environmental challenges, like climate change and lots of other things, but certainly complacency is top of the list.
5:05 p.m.
Conservative
Branden Leslie Conservative Portage—Lisgar, MB
What would your biggest ask of the federal government be? Obviously, you mentioned complacency.
Secondary to that, how would you describe your relationship with recreational fisheries groups in terms of some of the projects you mentioned, in terms of water quality and the enhancement of our fisheries?
5:05 p.m.
Director, Policy and Legislative Affairs, Great Lakes Fishery Commission
Our organization is premised largely on partnerships. Most of what we do is based on working with industry, state and provincial partners, federal governments and so on. Those are the kinds of things we do. Certainly our relationships are strong.
We have identified—as I mentioned in my opening comments—an issue where we have a governance interface problem here in Canada that's been a bit of a barrier to those things. We have an ask to remedy that. In the context of this study, the notion of looking at water as a foreign policy priority would certainly fit.
With regard to the things we do to set up those partnerships, I might ask my colleague, Ms. Walter, to talk to that. That's her area of expertise. That joint strategic plan of management really is the flagship mechanism. Before it, there was no opportunity or no real conversations across borders. That's something that's been successful.
Perhaps Ms. Walter can add something to that.