Foreign Affairs Committee on Oct. 25th, 2012

[Libby Davies, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Thank you very much. We're going to finish up with a quick round from Ms. Brown.

[Lois Brown, Conservative, Newmarket—Aurora, ON]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. I apologize that I wasn't prepared when Ms. Grewal turned over her time.

Dr. Renzetti, I was contemplating your shifts in your supply and demand curves when you made your earlier comment.

I find it interesting that you referenced South Africa. I was in Ghana a year ago and had the opportunity to meet a hydrologist there. The Government of Ghana has undertaken to map all of its underground resources for water. The Volta River is enormous. I had no idea of the size of that water basin they have there. Just to the north there is the Sahel, which is having significant difficulties with drought.

My question is for all of the panel. Is there an opportunity for a document like this piece of legislation to be a model that could be used in other jurisdictions?

Because of Canada's vast resources, are we going to be looked at perhaps as a leader in putting these kinds of agreements in place?

I leave that open.

[J. Owen Saunders]

Unfortunately, I think the short answer is no, for two reasons. One reason is that so much of our transboundary water relationship is governed by the International Boundary Waters Treaty, which is unique. It is unique to Canada and the United States. It reflects a long history of cooperation. It reflects certain unique legal principles that work for us, but probably wouldn't work in a different geopolitical context.

The other reason is that there are lots of other states that have gone further in terms of interjurisdictional management, which tend to follow more in terms of customary international law in terms of how you share water basins. For example, I would think they'd be more inclined to look at something like the Murray-Darling, which is not an international compact in Australia, but it's an interstate arrangement, with the Commonwealth taking the lead.

That seems to me to have gone further than anything I can think of in Canada. We do have some interprovincial compacts in Canada as well, but not as sophisticated as the Murray-Darling. Where that may change is actually on the Mackenzie, where there is a series of bilateral negotiations going on among the jurisdictions in the Mackenzie basin. Perhaps there we'll get some leadership, but I think our circumstances in Canada are so unique that it's unlikely we would get that.

[Lois Brown, Conservative, Newmarket—Aurora, ON]

Interesting.

Do you have any comments, Dr. Renzetti?

[Prof. Steven Renzetti]

I'll return to a point that Professor Saunders made earlier in his presentation. In their program's earlier work, one of the issues they were concerned about was the broadening of the approach of the legislation to cover interbasin transfers, whether they're within Canada or across boundaries.

I would think if you look internationally, where the action is occurring is in interbasin transfers within a country, whether it be Spain, China, or India. Those are the areas where I think we need to consider moving forward. I would indicate that Professor Saunders' previous point, and the strengthening of those pieces of legislation, perhaps would be more beneficial than the concern over transboundary issues.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Thank you very much to all of our witnesses. Ms. Hurley, Mr. Saunders, and Mr. Renzetti, thank you very much for taking the time today, and on such short notice.

To my colleagues, just before we adjourn, I understand Mr. Miller will be making a couple of amendments. I don't know if the opposition does, but may I suggest we have them in by the end of the day on Friday so that the clerk can get those sorted out and sent around to the respective parties.

Would the end of the day on Friday be okay, given that we'd like to look at this on Tuesday?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

All right. Thank you very much everyone.

With that, the meeting is adjourned.