Mr. Speaker, yesterday the Minister of Foreign Affairs and the Minister of the Environment tried to pretend that they were living up to the NDP motion passed in the House of Commons the day before concerning the bulk export of water from Canada.
However, what they announced falls far short of the motion. For example, the motion called on the federal government to declare immediately a moratorium on bulk water exports. Instead there are to be 10 separate provincial moratoriums and they are not necessarily immediate, if some of them happen at all.
Worst of all the Liberals continue to parade the half-truth that water is not affected by NAFTA. If so, why do they say that they want to avoid a national ban on exports on the grounds, that that would treat water as a tradable good and might trigger NAFTA?
If water was exempt like raw logs, beer and culture are under NAFTA, we could ban it or not ban its export as we please; but we cannot and we will not be able to until the Liberals face up to the reality of what they once knew and now deny, that we either have to change or scrap NAFTA.