Madam Speaker, when we are dealing with a national resource, such as water, which we deem to be of vital importance, our legal statutes and our legal history of common law have dealt with riparian rights but that does not deal with water rights. Riparian is more about the shore bed and property adjacent to water, but with respect to the actual body of water and the rights to that water, there is no legal history in this country.
In the House of Commons on February 9th, 1999. See this statement in context.