Madam Speaker, I think that is a very reasonable question and a good example.
I think there are relationships that have been developed dealing with water rights even within rural municipalities where one creek will run through one person's property and on to another. At no time is the property owner allowed to cut off the supply of water altogether to create a backwater, a slew or a lake on their own property, a reservoir of any kind.
There are water rights agreements that are negotiated. Right back to the Magna Carta there is reference to water rights I believe. I do not think anything in our motion deals specifically with that international flow of natural sources of water. We were more specifically talking about the bulk sale of water and the diversion from one basin to another to make water move in an unnatural way and force it into another basin.
To answer the member's question, which is very legitimate, I believe there are international water rights treaties currently in effect just as there are interprovincial treaties. The most relevant example I can think of is the Garrison diversion project in southern Manitoba which deals with farmers in North Dakota. The river actually dips across the international boundary many times as it snakes its way along the North Dakota-Manitoba border.
The farmers in North Dakota, worried about source, wanted to build the Garrison diversion project on the American side obviously which would nip off the flow back into Canada. That has been stopped by very rancorous negotiating between the provincial government and the state government.
I am comfortable that we have the wherewithal to negotiate the free movement of natural sources of water across international borders. Our motion does not specifically deal with that natural flow of water.