Foreign Affairs Committee on Oct. 30th, 2012

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Good morning, everyone. Pursuant to the order of reference of Wednesday, October 3, 2012, the orders of the day are Bill C-383, An Act to amend the International Boundary Waters Treaty Act and the International River Improvements Act. We are going to look at clause-by-clause consideration. Also, pursuant to Standing Order 75.1, consideration of clause 1 is postponed. We are going to start with clause 2.

Do I have any opening remarks before we get going?

Yes, Mr. Dechert.

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

Thanks, Mr. Chair. I understand there are a number of amendments proposed by the government and by the opposition. I wonder if we might deal with those up front before we go through the bill clause by clause.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

What do you mean by dealing with them up front?

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

Before we go through the bill clause by clause. I think it makes more sense to do that because some of them have wide ranging implications for the whole bill.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Okay, hold on one second.

Paul.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

I think I need more explanation. Normally when we're doing clause-by-clause consideration, we do it in sequence for reasons that actually are related to Mr. Dechert's comments. Usually the bill is structured in a way that any amendment that you have in sequence would, by design, affect the bill, but if we jump to the end of the bill and bring forward an amendment, it disrupts that sequential arrangement that usually drafters consider.

It's up to you, Chair, but I think we should follow along those lines.

I'm not sure of the rationale here, Bob.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Hold on one second.

I don't have a problem discussing any of the amendments if we want to have a conversation, but in terms of going through the adoption of the bill, I think we're going to go clause by clause. I don't have a problem with the discussion if you want to get some things on the table. I think that would make more sense.

Mr. Dechert.

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

Certainly a couple of the amendments that the government is putting forward are amendments that pertain to the purpose of the bill, and therefore, I think it makes sense to discuss them at the opening of the conversation about the bill. I believe that at least one or two of the amendments proposed by the opposition fall into that category as well.

I think this way might lead to an easier understanding, but we can certainly do it clause by clause.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

I say once again that I'm happy to have that discussion if we want to raise them right now, but I think as we go through the amendments, we'll go through them clause by clause. If you want to have a quick discussion about some of the things that are being proposed, we can do that.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

I'm happy to have a conversation with anyone at any time and then we'll go back to clause by clause.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Okay, Mr. Dechert.

By the way, how rude. I do want to acknowledge our guests at the back of the table. Thank you very much for coming today to provide any clarification. You see we've got a discussion going on already and we haven't even started clause-by-clause consideration. Thank you for taking the time to be here this morning. We'll come back to you momentarily.

Mr. Dechert.

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

Mr. Chair, as the committee will know, there are two existing pieces of legislation being amended by this bill, the International Boundary Waters Treaty Act and the International River Improvements Act. There are two very significant amendments being proposed by the government to add a purpose for the amendments to each of those acts, and that is to prevent the risk of environmental harm.

I mentioned to Mr. Dewar and also to Mr. LeBlanc last week that there is a Supreme Court decision from, I believe, 2006, which suggests that if the purpose of legislation is not entirely clear, some criminal enforcement provisions of the bill may not be enforceable under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. To ensure that this bill would withstand that kind of a charter challenge in the courts, the government is putting forward amendments to each of the provisions pertaining to each of those two pieces of legislation that I mentioned to add the concept of risk of environmental harm from bulk removal of water. That would be stated as the purpose for the amendments to each of the acts, the International Boundary Waters Treaty Act and the International River Improvements Act.

I think it's also instructive to state that, given the purpose to prevent environmental harm, which I think we all agree with, this also puts it firmly in the nature of an environmental protection bill as opposed to a trade law bill. I know this is something that Mr. Scarpaleggia, for example, was concerned about last week, that some of the legislative amendments being made here might stray some way into trade law and therefore fall afoul of the North American Free Trade Agreement and other treaties. I think making these two amendments will make it very clear to anyone reading the legislation that it's about environmental harm.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

What we'll do now, as we go clause by clause, is this. I'll obviously give the NDP and the Conservatives a chance to explain their motions and we can have that further discussion at that point in time.

We're going to start. As I mentioned before, we're going to postpone clause 1 because that deals with the title. We'll come back to that. We're going to start on clause 2.

Shall clause 2 carry?

(Clause 2 agreed to)

(On clause 3)

We have a couple of amendments by the NDP. We have amendments NDP-1 and NDP-2. I'll ask Mr. Dewar to speak to both of those amendments. We'll have some conversation and go from there.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

First, I'll move them.

I move that line 14 on page 2 be replaced by the following—

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

In my copy, at least, we don't have the line numbers, so perhaps you could just refer to the actual wording of the clause.

Okay, there are some numbers.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

It's the fourth paragraph on page 2.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Does everyone have a copy of the actual amendments here?

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

I think we distributed them.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

There are some references to the line numbers in the amendments.

All right, proceed, Mr. Dewar.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Thank you.

Chair, this amendment would change the passage from “50 000 L of water are taken outside” to “9 000 L of water are taken outside”.

The amendment, Chair, would address the concern that many have had regarding any potential loopholes in the bill. We heard concerns around scope from witnesses. The 50,000 litres per day from our waters, without going further than just leaving it at 50,000, would be a potential concern around how much could be taken out. We estimate it could be 50,000 litres a day, 365 days a year. You could talk about 18-million litres of bulk water a year being exported simply by a tanker pulling up, as we heard could potentially happen, and taking it across boundary or transboundary waters.

What we thought would make sense is to take a look at what a normal carrier would have, a tanker truck. They're usually over 10,000 litres, and 9,000 litres would deal with that. That's just slightly below the threshold. By setting a limit of 9,000 litres, slightly below the common size of a tanker truck, this amendment would protect the Canadian water resources from people trying to circumvent the act.

It would also stop exports by tanker and tanker trucks and rail cars, which are not explicitly mentioned in this bill. Again, that was something we talked about. It maintains a relationship between the provinces to take primary responsibility for their regulation of smaller volumes of water, so it doesn't touch that. It doesn't interfere with manufactured goods such as beer or drinks, as we discussed, because the definition is already explicit in the bill about those products.

To sum up, this loophole that we believe exists with the 50,000 litres per day, and as I mentioned that would be 18-million litres of bulk water a year, could be dealt with by bringing in a cap of 9,000 litres. I think that's beyond the current expectations in the bill for humanitarian reasons, such as firefighting, or for products that fall under provincial jurisdiction. Those two things would not be affected by this because they're explicit in the bill, that is, the products, and the humanitarian concerns.

That's the rationale for the amendment. I think it's in keeping with the spirit and intent of the bill.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Mr. Dechert.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

We would urge the committee to vote against this amendment on the basis that it is inconsistent with the rest of the legislation. As Mr. Dewar will know, the regulations to the International Boundary Waters Treaty Act use the 50,000 litre figure in several places. That was established in 2002 when the International Boundary Waters Treaty Act was revised. My understanding as to where it came from is that this is the accepted norm for an average truckload of water. Fifty thousand litres is a standard truck size. Nine thousand litres would be a very small truck. As I stated at the outset, the purpose of the legislation—and if Mr. Miller were here, I think he'd agree—is to prevent environmental harm, not to get into the field of commercial and trade hearings with manufacturing.

To also put it in a context that people can understand, my understanding is that 50,000 litres is roughly equivalent to what it takes to fill a backyard swimming pool. It sounds like a lot of water, but we've all been preparing our emergency kits because of hurricane Sandy over the last couple of days and we're supposed to have available two to three litres of water per person per day. We know what that looks like. I know 50,000 litres sounds like a lot, but it's really only the amount contained in the average backyard swimming pool. If this number were to be amended in this provision, it would make the rest of the bill and the regulations inconsistent with other similar environmental legislation that uses the number 50,000. That was established in 2002 to ensure that these kinds of environmental protections are fully within the realm of environmental matters and don't stray into the area of trade law.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Okay.

In fact, the average tanker can, as I mentioned in my comments, take 10,000 to 30,000 litres and easily circumvent this regulation that has been established in the bill. By putting a limit of 9,000...this is legislation, so nothing Mr. Dechert said means we couldn't do it. He's saying that this is somehow not in keeping in terms of referencing other agreements.

This is about the whole issue of ensuring protection of our waters. Simply put, it would be a matter of making it economically unfeasible by doing it this way. As I mentioned, if you have tanker trucks that are in the range of 10,000 to 30,000 litres, there is nothing that would stop anyone from taking water and crossing...for whatever reason, reasons we can't even fathom right now.

If we're talking about real protection, we want to make sure there are no loopholes. I would argue that, notwithstanding Mr. Dechert's comments, putting a reasonable limit and looking at the size of containers—that is why we came up with the amount 9,000 litres—would make infinite sense for it to be put at that level. As I mentioned, this doesn't touch the provincial area nor does it interfere with the notion of manufactured goods at all. There's still explicit language in the bill that protects that.

Again, this is simply an amendment to ensure there are no loopholes. I'm sure we all agree this is about trying to ensure that it's not economically feasible. That was brought up in the witnesses' comments. That's the nature of this amendment, so I hope all members vote in favour of it.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Thank you.

Mr. Scarpaleggia.

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

I'd like to get some information from the experts. It seems like an indirect question but it will help me to better understand.

Let's say you took water across the border in a tanker that had a capacity of 49,000 litres and the provincial government gave a permit to a trucking company to take 49,000 litres of water a day in a tanker. Would that not be trade in water? Would that be considered trade in a water product, such that it wouldn't open the door to bulk water exports because it would be considered a product?

My second question is related. The International Boundary Waters Treaty Act was mentioned and the 50,000-litre threshold. If you were allowing the water in its natural state to leave the country in quantities of 50,000 litres, if you're not using a pipeline, canal, tunnel, aqueduct, or channel, I don't know how you would be transporting it other than through the natural flow. Where does this figure of 50,000 litres come from in the context of the International Boundary Waters Treaty Act? Why is it 50,000 litres?

If you could answer my questions, I think that would help me understand better.