The first change, Mr. Chair, makes it clear that the prohibition is for the purposes of potential risk through environmental harm resulting from a loss of water.
The second change avoids redundancy in new prohibitions introduced by Bill C-383. The amendment accomplishes this by replacing the words “non-boundary or boundary waters” in clause 14 with terminology that is consistent with that proposed in clause 4 of the bill for the International Boundary Waters Treaty Act. Clause 4 of the bill amends the International Boundary Waters Treaty Act to prohibit the bulk removal of boundary and transboundary waters and the taking of that water outside the Canadian portion of the water basin.
To avoid redundancy, the new prohibition in the International River Improvements Act should also focus on linking of all waters not covered by the International Boundary Waters Treaty Act, in other words, all waters other than transboundary and boundary waters. To accomplish that, we are proposing to amend clause 14 to use the phrase “neither boundary waters nor transboundary waters” to replace the current language, which is “non-boundary or boundary waters”. It's adding the transboundary part. This amendment would eliminate the redundancy between the two acts.
The third and final proposed change in clause 14 clarifies that the new prohibition applies only to an improvement that increases the annual flow of an international river at the border. This clarification is necessary to respect provincial jurisdiction in water management, while still ensuring that international rivers are not used as a conveyance to transfer additional water across the international boundary.
Perhaps we could ask the officials to clarify those amendments again.