Foreign Affairs Committee on Oct. 25th, 2012

[Bob Dechert, Conservative, Mississauga—Erindale, ON]

Many places in Canada have a vibrant tourism industry that's based on our beautiful Great Lakes and our rivers and other waterways. I know that your riding famously borders two very large international bodies of water.

Can you give us a little flavour of how bulk removal from those bodies of water that neighbour your riding would have an impact on the tourism industry in your area?

[Larry Miller, Conservative, Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound, ON]

That's a very good point, Mr. Dechert. Yes, my riding is technically surrounded on three sides by water. Georgian Bay and Lake Huron are separated by the Bruce Peninsula. I live right at the base of the Bruce Peninsula. I actually live on part of Georgian Bay. Tourism is our second biggest industry, after agriculture, and it's growing. It's huge. This protects our quantity or volume of water. At the same time, as you know, there have been lots of changes made, as well, to help protect the quality of our water.

Water is of huge importance in my riding, but it's of huge importance to the population of Canada in general. While it's important to me, I think it's important, as Mr. Julian mentioned, to almost every Canadian.

[Bob Dechert, Conservative, Mississauga—Erindale, ON]

Would you say that this is a bill that would benefit people living in urban areas, such as my city of Mississauga, as well as those living in a rural constituency, like yours?

[Larry Miller, Conservative, Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound, ON]

Yes, absolutely. Mississauga, Toronto, and the GTA in general, we're all affected by the Great Lakes.

Again, this is something that I think benefits almost every Canadian, if not every Canadian.

[Bob Dechert, Conservative, Mississauga—Erindale, ON]

I note that the bill allows for some temporary exceptions to the prohibition against bulk water removal. Could you explain what those exceptions are and why you think they're necessary?

[Larry Miller, Conservative, Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound, ON]

I think I touched on some of them. Obviously, it's water for municipal systems, for expansion. It allows for expansion, whether it's in the city of Mississauga, in the city of Windsor, or in Sarnia or Owen Sound.

In my riding, in fact, there are some improvements being made to that facility, but all across the Great Lakes and of course in other areas, a lot of these international waters serve as the base for water for these communities. That's certainly one. Firefighting was another one that I touched on. Another one was humanitarian efforts. I think there are probably more in there, but those are some that come to mind.

[Bob Dechert, Conservative, Mississauga—Erindale, ON]

That's very good.

Do I have more time?

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

You have one minute.

[Bob Dechert, Conservative, Mississauga—Erindale, ON]

Can you give us some information on what you think the support for this bill is among Canadians generally? Have you done any surveys? Have you spoken to people in various parts of the country about support for this kind of legislation?

[Larry Miller, Conservative, Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound, ON]

It has been phenomenal to say the least, Mr. Dechert. I think the vote on October 3 here in Parliament is a good representation of that support.

As you know, no bill is ever perfect, and I'm not going to pretend that this one is, but I think it goes a long way toward what we're all trying to do, which is to protect our water. I'm very comfortable with it, with the intent. I will say that when I first started looking into this, I was going to include all waters in Canada, but once I looked further into it and realized that I would be crossing provincial jurisdictions, I stayed away from there. I want it to be clean and non-confrontational.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Thank you very much.

I will let you know who I have on the list. I have Mr. Scarpaleggia and Mr. Tilson, and then we go back to Mr. Julian.

Mr. Scarpaleggia, welcome. You have seven minutes, sir.

[Francis Scarpaleggia, Liberal, Lac-Saint-Louis, QC]

Thank you.

I'd like to preface my questions with a comment.

The government, in two throne speeches, essentially committed to blocking the export of water by blocking interbasin transfers. In those throne speeches, the government was reacting to the bill that I introduced, which is the one, Mr. Miller, that you mentioned you couldn't support because you thought it invaded provincial jurisdiction. That bill was based on the work of the Munk School.

Here's what I find curious. This is just a comment. I'm not really asking you this question because you're not the minister, but what I find curious is that in two throne speeches we talked about essentially adopting the model in my bill prohibiting interbasin transfers, and then, when Bill C-26 came out, which is your bill, really—your bill is Bill C-26—it had a big loophole. It wasn't going to even address interbasin transfers into boundary waters. It just leads me to question the government's real intentions all along in its two throne speech commitments. That's just a comment.

Is this not a trade bill, really? As you said, the goal is to ban bulk water exports through transboundary rivers. Would that not make it a trade bill?

[Larry Miller, Conservative, Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound, ON]

Certainly not, in my opinion, and I'm not sure why you're even referring to that.

[Francis Scarpaleggia, Liberal, Lac-Saint-Louis, QC]

You say that it's about blocking the export of water to the United States. That, to me, is the language of trade.

[Larry Miller, Conservative, Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound, ON]

This isn't just to the United States. Under NAFTA, it's quite clear, Mr. Scarpaleggia, that water is not to be treated as a product, or a commodity—commodity is a better word.

It's pretty clear, but I want to point out that this isn't just about exports, if you would, to the United States, or about diversion. Obviously—

[Francis Scarpaleggia, Liberal, Lac-Saint-Louis, QC]

We're talking about transboundary rivers, and the only transboundary rivers I know flow into the United States. Anyway we'll leave that point.

I guess what I'm getting at is this. What does this really add to the treaty between Canada and the United States, the International Boundary Waters Treaty? That treaty already prohibits one country from changing the water levels in another country. The treaty already essentially makes it “illegal” for Canada to change the water flow or water levels of a transboundary river in such a way that water levels and flows would be affected in the United States. I'm not sure what we're doing here is a great leap forward.

My second question has to do with environmental assessment. When we're talking about major projects like your bill is aiming to address, we're talking essentially about diversions of mass quantities of water. This would have environmental impacts. One would think that any such project would be stopped at the stage of the environmental assessment process, unless the federal government has withdrawn from the environmental assessment process and leaves it up to the province, which then arranges things so that the process would allow a diversion.

If the environmental assessment process were working properly, maybe you wouldn't even need this bill.

[Larry Miller, Conservative, Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound, ON]

Could I respond to some of the points you've made?

[Francis Scarpaleggia, Liberal, Lac-Saint-Louis, QC]

Sure. Go ahead, please.

[Larry Miller, Conservative, Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound, ON]

First of all, going back to your earlier comments, the Munk School fully supports this bill.

You referred to it being similar to another bill. I made that quite clear. Yes, this is basically Bill C-26, but with some clauses that actually strengthen it. I believe that the amendment that has been added in here was something the Munk School addressed.

Regarding your comment about the intent of this bill, are you implying this bill is not good? I'm not sure.

[Francis Scarpaleggia, Liberal, Lac-Saint-Louis, QC]

No, no. I didn't say that. I'm on the record as supporting the bill.

[Larry Miller, Conservative, Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound, ON]

Okay. But you question why I—

[Francis Scarpaleggia, Liberal, Lac-Saint-Louis, QC]

It's not enough. It's not enough.

[Larry Miller, Conservative, Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound, ON]

—or the government would bring this forth.

My response to that would be that if everything was okay, why were you trying to change it?

[Francis Scarpaleggia, Liberal, Lac-Saint-Louis, QC]

My bill was not aimed specifically at blocking exports. It was aimed at becoming a backstop.

In case, for example, the federal government pulls out of environmental assessment, which it seems to be doing, I wanted to make sure that if a province wanted to weaken its environmental assessment or wanted to lift its prohibitions on the transfer of water outside its borders, there would be a backstop. The federal government would step in and say that this is for Canada, this is for the good of Canadians, and we don't want mass quantities of water being diverted across provincial boundaries or into the United States.

[Larry Miller, Conservative, Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound, ON]

I think this bill is saying that.

As far as environmental assessments are concerned, Mr. Scarpaleggia, in my opinion environmental assessments are actually being strengthened because there are now timelines put on them. Instead of it simply being a delay process, now there are some actual hard timelines.