Madam Speaker, we understand the occasional mistake and that is fair.
My apologies to the hon. member from the Liberal Party for he unwittingly was taking the space of a Conservative, which they seem to have done a lot of since 1993. That being the case, that will not always be the case so they can enjoy their time in the sun at this juncture.
The issue and the motion before us is one of critical importance. It is very positive that the New Democrats have brought forward this motion for an important debate today and for an important debate in the future on the issue of water and more specifically on bulk freshwater exports.
I have some concern about the motion upon first glance. I will quote the motion specifically. It recommends that the government “should introduce legislation to prohibit bulk freshwater exports and interbasin transfers”.
I would support and our party is supporting this motion. We want to ensure that a debate on this very important topic occurs here in the House of Commons.
We believe that the government should introduce legislation such that there can be a debate in the House of Commons on this issue, a full debate that can delve into this extremely serious issue. That being the case, I think we all need more information before we would necessarily support in the future the legislation which the government brings forward in terms of prohibiting bulk freshwater exports and interbasin transfers.
We will be supporting the motion today because of the importance of this debate. That being the case, if and when the legislation is actually brought forward, we would appreciate the opportunity to debate fully the pros and cons of the legislation.
It was noted earlier, and it is very important to recognize, that the PC Party did in the NAFTA negotiations move to protect freshwater. During an earlier exchange between my hon. colleague from the New Democratic Party and a member from my party, some questions were raised as to the sanctity of water and the protection of water under NAFTA.
The fact is that trade agreements and trade negotiations are ongoing. This is not a static process. A trade agreement is not reached and then that is the end of it. An ongoing process of negotiation and discussion occurs, not just between countries, but between subnational governments within a sovereign state like Canada. That is an important issue which has to be discussed more fully within this House once the legislation is brought forward. We have to discuss the jurisdictional authority over water within Canada and the roles of subnational governments with the federal government in terms of the jurisdiction and beyond that, the role in terms of the conservation of water.
Water is a unique commodity. It is more fundamental obviously to human life than any other commodity and certainly any potentially exportable commodity.
It is not just a trade issue, it is not just an environmental issue, it is even a foreign policy issue. In a post cold war environment with an increasingly complicated world in terms of foreign affairs, with the declining role of the nation state, water is going to be—it is not a matter of will it be—but water is going to be the source of conflict in the future. In the past it may have been oil or some other commodity, but water in the future will be more important in the role it plays in our foreign policy and in terms of world conflict.
In an age where we talk more of human security versus national security, water certainly plays a role in both. Those will be issues that we have to delve into with significant debate. This type of debate has to exist in the committees for example, environment, trade, intergovernmental affairs, as well as in this House.
The U.S. and Canada have no shortage of things to fight over. We have beer, wheat, lumber, magazines, all kinds of trade issues to deal with on an ongoing basis. Canada has 20% of the world's freshwater supply, most of it in the Great Lakes. The remainder is pouring unchecked into three oceans. The United States with one-tenth of our freshwater has nearly nine times as many people, a great deal of whom want to live in the scenic but dry southwest, but all of whom need water.
Certainly there is growing pressure on Canada to export water in bulk. These attempts of course have run afoul of environmentalists, the Canadian government and Canadian nationalists. Naturally it has ended up in the courts as part of the ongoing process of international trade engagement.
The latest battle in California between Sun Belt Water company and the province of British Columbia is just another example of the types of ongoing negotiations and legal battles that we will have within the NAFTA framework.
We should always expect that these will occur periodically.
It is very important that we do not dismiss at hand the export of water. Some estimates are that 60% of our freshwater supply is wasted. All someone has to do is spend a rain soaked winter in Vancouver to recognize that we have a significant supply of freshwater. A significant amount of our water is running unchecked into oceans.
Certainly water is different. Maude Barlow and the Council of Canadians argue that water is different. Maude Barlow and the Council of Canadians believe that nothing should be traded. She and her organization do not believe that in any way, shape or form trade can benefit Canadians. I disagree fundamentally with that principle.
We are supporting the motion today because we feel it is an important debate. We will not be supporting the amendment, however, because the amendment is unequivocal and says that Canada should not be party to any international agreement that compels us to export freshwater against our will. The word compels has its inherent ambiguity.
I do not believe that any member of this House has all the facts to make that kind of unequivocal judgment at this time. We need the debate.
Currently the government will dither and dilly-dally as it is wont to do with a number of these types of issues. Water export opportunities are appearing. In Gander, Newfoundland McCurdy Enterprises, formerly a construction company, has a proposal to load water from Gisborne Lake into oil tankers and ship it to parched souls in Asia. There are issues in British Columbia.
There is an economic opportunity but we cannot partake in economic opportunities if they compromise our environmental policy in this country. That is something I would argue no member of parliament would want to do.
We cannot separate economic and environmental arguments. The separation of economic and environmental arguments has led over the years to the degradation of the environment. It is extraordinarily important that these two areas, economics and the environment, are inextricably linked in public policy. We have to get our heads around this.
We will be supporting the motion. We will not be supporting the amendment. We look forward to a legitimate debate in the House of Commons about this very important environmental and economic issue.
We would hope that when that debate occurs we can consider all the spheres of influence involved, including our foreign policy, our policy in terms of foreign aid and our obligations to people in a human security and not just a national security context, and that we deal very seriously with an issue that could very easily be turned into a political issue and not a public policy issue.