Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise today on behalf of the constituents of Calgary East to speak to Bill C-6, an act to amend the 80 year old International Boundary Waters Treaty Act.
When the Minister of the Environment spoke on the bill this afternoon he came out very strongly and proudly, with his thumbs pounding, stating that his government has acted decisively to address the concerns of Canadians in reference to the export of water. He proudly said that the bill would stop the export of water and fulfill the commitment made to Canadians about the export of water. He went on to say that his government was putting a tremendous amount of priority on the bill.
I was a little surprised. I would like explain to those who are listening to my speech today what the bill amounts to and what the Liberal government has not done for our water. It is still hanging out in limbo because of the inability of the government to address the issue seriously.
The government said that it put a priority on the bill. I spoke to the bill in the 36th parliament. It was the last bill that was presented to parliament. I made a speech and thereafter the bill was off the table because the government had another agenda. It did not care about that agenda. It wanted to get re-elected.
Today, because the government has no vision for the next three or four years and needs to do some housekeeping, it brings back this bill because there is nothing else on its agenda. Now it is saying that it is committed to stopping the export of water and that it is committed to this bill. What a contradictory statement and action that has taken place.
Bill C-15, as the water bill was called in the 36th parliament, came up for debate during one of the final days leading up to the election, as I mentioned. The bill was debated only for one day and then disappeared. I think that shows the importance the government places on protecting Canada's waters.
As we know, water is an issue that touches the lives of all Canadians as it is part of our Canadian heritage. Canadians are very concerned by the thought of losing control of our freshwater resources. It is a legitimate concern because a thirsty world will sooner or later turn its attention to our lost freshwater resources.
In fact, water export was never supposed to be an issue in Canada. A number of federal politicians in the early 1990s claimed that Canada had a sovereign right to manage its own water and that water would never be challenged under any international agreement. Unfortunately, this has proven to be false and the water issue is back on the table.
The Liberal government is on the record as saying that NAFTA should be amended to prohibit bulk water exports. Had the Liberals kept their promise, Canadians would not have to worry about the issue of bulk water export and we would certainly not be discussing this matter today.
Regardless of its promise, this government signed the NAFTA deal without a side agreement on water. Raw logs and unprocessed fish were exempted from NAFTA but the best arrangement Canada could get on water was the following side deal signed on December 2, 1993, by Canada, the U.S.A. and Mexico. It states:
The NAFTA creates no rights to the natural water resources of any party of the agreement.
Ultimately, this side deal is of little legal value because unless water in any form has entered into commerce and become a good or product it is not covered by the provisions of any trade agreement, including NAFTA.
Nothing in NAFTA obliges any NAFTA party to either exploit its water for commercial use or to begin exporting water in any form. Water in its natural state in lakes, reservoirs, water basins and the like is not a good or a product. It is not traded and therefore is not and never has been subject to the terms of any trade agreement.
This side agreement worked as long as Canada never allowed water to enter into commerce and become a good or a product. Let me repeat that: this side agreement worked as long as Canada never allowed water to enter into commerce and become a good or a product.
However, with the exception of international boundary waters, the vast majority of water in its natural state is owned and managed by the province. It is a provincial responsibility to manage the resource carefully, just as a province manages its forests and its oil and gas. If one of the provinces enters the business of tendering contracts to export bulk water, it must, according to chapter 11 of NAFTA, treat Canadian, American and Mexican companies in a similar fashion.
National treatment provisions give the right to all corporations of our NAFTA partners to help themselves to our water the moment any Canadian company is given an export permit. If any Canadian company is given an export permit by a province, because it is a provincial resource, then it falls under NAFTA where we have to treat the Americans and the Mexicans in the same manner. Now that we are going into FTAA agreements which will be coming up in the next five years, I hope that the government will have water exempted. Otherwise we will be facing the same difficulties.
In fact water is not exempt from NAFTA, as I said. Once water starts being shipped, either the government is powerless to stop it or, if it does, the government would have to compensate for the lost income under the investor state provisions.
The government did not have the foresight to think that some provinces might one day look into the possibility of licensing the export of water, but recent examples show us the opposite.
First, the province of Newfoundland granted an export permit to McCurdy Enterprises Ltd. to export water from Gisborne Lake. Second, in Ontario the Nova Group received a licence to extract water from Lake Superior. Finally, in British Columbia, Sun Belt, a Californian company that wanted to export water from B.C., is now demanding up to $10.5 billion in damages from the federal and B.C. governments alleging that its rights under NAFTA have been violated. Sun Belt is demanding restoration of a water export licence that the B.C. government cancelled in 1991 as well as compensation for lost business opportunities.
Although the provinces eventually pulled out of these proposals, they renewed the fears about water export and the impact of our trade agreements.
The government, having failed to protect Canadian sovereignty over water during the NAFTA negotiations, is now proposing a backup solution. Bill C-6 proposes to prohibit bulk water removal out of the boundary waters between Canada and the U.S.A., which covers only 15% of Canada's water resources. The provinces manage the remaining 85%.
That is what I meant when I said I do not understand the Minister of the Environment when he talks about stopping bulk water export. His bill would cover only 15% of Canada's water resources. That is fine. I hope he will tell Canadians that it would cover only 15%. The government should not say that the bill would address the issue about water resources.
Clearly, 85% of the water resource is held by the provinces. They control it. It is their natural resource. It is not controlled by the federal government. If any province so desires to sell water from its basins, from its lakes, then suddenly we have a federal government that is powerless. It can run to the provinces but the provinces can tell the federal government no. They can say they want to sell it.
Canadians have a right. It is theirs. Canadians demand that right. However, the government failed to remove water from NAFTA as it had promised in the election platform, because it failed to renegotiate NAFTA and get water out of NAFTA and have it exempted. It was the right only of Canadians to say yes if they wanted to export water. Now we have this jurisdictional problem with the federal government practically unable to have any teeth to stop bulk water export for 85% of our water supply.
The government is trying to have a Canada wide accord to prohibit bulk water removal. It has recognized this problem so it is trying to get a Canada wide accord to prohibit the removal of bulk water. The problem is, as I have just mentioned, that five provinces have refused to endorse the accord, leaving the country's water vulnerable to exportation.
The federal strategy was designed in the belief that all provinces would agree on a national ban. It is quite obvious, after the two day debate in Kananaskis in Alberta in November 1999, that the government has failed to achieve this goal. The parties could not come to an agreement.
It is very important to note that the bill deliberately avoids the term export. With good reason, the Liberals fear that the term export will imply that water is a commercial good. What the absence of the term export really means is that water was in fact part of the negotiations during the NAFTA talks and nothing was done. That is one thing the government should admit.
As it stands now we can say yes or no, but we have lost the right for only Canadians to say yes. What I mean by that is what I just emphasized, that is, under NAFTA if water is exported because it is not exempted that gives the opportunity to allow opening up the doors to American and Mexican companies to come and export our water. This is the real fear.
Canadians have lost the right to say yes to this precious resource. Whether they want to export or do not want to export, this should be a right that should remain with Canadians. They can decide whether they wish to export water. They can decide whether they want or do not want to export water as a natural resource, or whether under certain conditions they want to or do not want to.
There are many options we can use. Some small communities may want to do it as part of an economic reason and we can do so if it does not damage the environment. However, this right should be the right of Canadians. We have lost that right because the government failed in its election promise to remove water from NAFTA.
In 1993 while the government was busy signing away our sovereignty over water, the Canadian Alliance made a specific statement on the protection of our freshwater. The Canadian Alliance stated that exclusive and unrestricted control of water in all its forms should be maintained by and for Canadians.
Canada possess about 9% of the world's renewable resources and 20% of the world's total freshwater resources. This includes water captured in glaciers and polar ice caps. Protection of our sovereignty over this valuable resource is critical to Canadians and to our national identity.
The Canadian Alliance believes that Canadians should retain control over our water resources and supports exempting water from our international agreements, including NAFTA. An outright ban on water exports could run contrary to our NAFTA commitment because water was not exempt from that agreement. Therefore, a side agreement would have to be negotiated which would exempt water from NAFTA before a ban on water exports could even be considered.
Until an exemption is achieved, we encourage the provinces to place a moratorium on commercial water licensing so that water in bulk form never becomes a good governed by NAFTA rules. Once an exemption from NAFTA is in place, the decision to export water in bulk should rest with the provinces who own the resources. That means once the decision is given to the provinces, which are elected governments, it is up to Canadians to decide what to do with water. They can decide.
I would like to emphasize again that we are heading into an FTAA agreement. The Quebec summit chose that path and the Alliance supports it. We think that if it is handled correctly, free trade will bring prosperity. However, there are always dangers when we sign blindly, as we have found out now with this water issue. No long term thought was given to this. When it was signed, no thought was given to what would happen if the provinces said no. No thought was given to the fact that the government was signing an international agreement on one of the most important resources we have, a resource controlled by the provinces. Its strategy, which was to have a total ban by convincing the provinces to do so, has failed.
As I mentioned, the 1999 Kananaskis meeting clearly showed that the provinces were not on board with the federal government on this issue. They wanted the right to do whatever they wanted to with a natural resource that they feel is their responsibility.
In the absence of exempting water from NAFTA, the Canadian Alliance will support the bill. We will support it because it represents the only viable approach the federal government can take and the only constitutionally valid NAFTA compatible ban on bulk water export that can be achieved.
The Canadian Alliance has indicated quite clearly that it favours a ban on water export. All export of water should be done by Canadians only. Since the ban is not there, the Canadian Alliance feels that the bill would in some degree ensure that water is not taken away from the international boundaries basins, and it is a NAFTA compatible ban on bulk water exports.
However, I would like to see the government propose real answers to this issue and show some leadership in exempting water from our trade agreements.
I was hoping today that the Minister of the Environment or the Minister of Foreign Affairs, when they presented the bill and talked about the commitment of the government not to export water, would listen to Canadians. In reality they failed to say that the bill was only dealing with 15% of the issues.
I hope the government takes the initiative and try to get water exempted from other trade agreements. It would have been preferable to exempt water from NAFTA but, failing that, Bill C-6 will have to do as second best.
Canadians should realize that we no longer have sovereignty over our water. We have that threat over our heads because of our international trade agreement called NAFTA and the failure of the government to take water out of it.
Future generations would also lose sovereignty over water if something is not done to change this. That is why the government should do something. Bill C-6 or not, the bottom line is that Canada's water resources are vulnerable to exportation.
While I am a strong supporter of free trade, I believe it should not come at the expense of our sovereignty over water. Perhaps one day Canada will decide to export water if it is proven environmentally sound. If that ever happens, and I strongly stress if, the tap should belong to Canadians only.
The Canadian Alliance will be supporting Bill C-6. However I re-emphasize that the federal government should work with the provinces now to ensure that water does not become an export commodity. It should try to get water exempted from our international trade agreement.