Thanks very much, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you for coming. It's good to see all of you again, I think. I just wanted to focus on a couple of issues to help committee members understand whether there's a role for us in the water issue. I think that's why we're here today, to learn more about it and to see if there's some role for the committee to play with respect to the larger water question.
I think the three presentations, Mr. Chairman, have been really complementary and have helped us to understand the big issues in front of us—and there are a lot of them. But could you help me understand this from a federal perspective and federal responsibility with respect to water, whether it's the trade and environment interface, the trade and environment and economy interface, or whether it's...? We haven't talked at all about oceans issues; I'm assuming those are outside the ambit of this committee at this stage.
But I'm trying to narrow in on this. We've heard about management systems. The country has a couple of wonderful examples of co-management approaches, for example, the Fraser Basin Council in B.C. and its coming together of aboriginal governments, provincial governments, municipal governments, and industrial players, all working together and treating, for the first time in history, the Fraser Basin and its river as one whole or system.
Just outside this building, we have the mighty Ottawa River, which has a daily water flow equivalent to every western European river combined, and yet we have no co-management approach there with provincial governments, the federal government, and other actors. So could someone help me think through if there is a role for us there?
The other one has to do with water pricing. Mr. Pentland, you alluded to pricing more specifically in your paper and in your remarks. Municipalities are cash constrained across the country. We have billions of dollars of water infrastructure needs across the country, in our urban areas in particular. Municipalities are raising water rates across the country uniformly, because they're using water rates as an additional form of revenue-raising, with one of the few tools they have.
I need to get a better sense of whether there is a federal role for us here on water pricing and on water metering, for example. A significant percentage of Canadian homes are still not water-metered. You pay a flat monthly fee, I understand, and whether you fill up two swimming pools a month or whether you fill up two bathtubs a month, you pay the same price.
I think I heard you say, Mr. Brooks, that it's cheaper to save or to conserve a clean litre of water than it is to generate a new litre of water, just as it's cheaper to conserve a megawatt of electricity than it is to generate one.
So could you help me think through, or could you just elaborate on, those two points in particular, the management system question and whether there is a role for us. And on the water pricing and metering question, full-cost pricing has been mentioned for water and waste water services. Is there a role there for us? If there isn't a role on those two, where do you see the role potentially coming down?