Mr. Speaker, let me congratulate the federal environment minister for taking a watershed approach with the bill. Such an approach would ban the removal of water from its natural basin. Hopefully, this will be a more comprehensive approach than a simple export ban, and we will agree that it makes good ecological sense to stop the bulk water removal at the source, not only at the border.
However, the Minister of the Environment relies on a federal-provincial voluntary agreement to ban water removal from major drainage basins. This approach, I suggest, ought to be broadened and expanded to include all Canadian water bodies and not limited only to boundary waters.
I say this for three reasons. First, the proposed voluntary accord would be just that; it would be voluntary. It would not legally bind any province to protect our water resources. We recently had some ideas ventilated in Newfoundland, which have to be taken very seriously.
Second, the proposed accord would not prohibit export initiatives undertaken by municipalities, crown agencies, corporations or even private parties. Even if the provinces wanted to ban water removals and exports, the federal government has the constitutional authority to regulate trade.
Understandably, the federal government hopes that a province by province voluntary ban would keep water protection strictly as an environment issue and that trade lawyers perhaps would not notice this disguise. However, water removals and exports seem already to be a trade issue since there is a challenge under NAFTA brought by a water export company against the Government of Canada for compensation because of British Columbia's decision to ban water exports.
Through the proposed accord, the federal government is thus asking the provinces to take their own action on banning water exports, and we may hear more from that.
Before I go into the third reason, Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with my esteemed and distinguished colleague, the member for Toronto--Danforth.
Third, the current proposal would only prohibit removals of water from major basins but would allow the export of water as long as it stayed in the same basin. The government's definition of basins as Canadian leaves a lot to be desired because basin describes a geographical feature without regard to political boundaries.
The concept of basin is problematic and we understand it. However, for an accord or legislation intended to secure resources management for political institutions, it is a very key central issue. It is also an essential concept for any legislation that intends to withstand trade challenges that are exactly intended to transcend political boundaries.
The proposed accord will lead to some kind of a patchwork of provincial initiatives, thus possibly making Canada more vulnerable to trade challenges. I regretfully conclude that the legislation tabled today is too limited in scope to provide protection to most of our water bodies.
It seems quite clear that any meaningful protection of our water resources requires the federal government to face the reality of international trade agreements. This is the point that I would like to make as clearly as I can.
In search of the most effective strategy to protect our water resources from exports, I would recommend first, that we enact federal legislation designed specifically for the purpose of banning bulk transboundary water removals from Canada.
Second, I would recommend that we renegotiate international trade agreements to seek an exclusion or waiver of water from such agreements, which would perhaps be the easier route at the present time.
This debate is an extremely important one and has long term significance. The Great Lakes are a tremendously important water body as we all know. We are passing this legislation hoping that it will work, but we have no assurances at the present time that a mirror legislative initiative is not being launched and completed by our neighbours to the south.
Therefore, I will conclude by urging the government to see to it that in Washington an initiative that would mirror the Canadian initiative, as contained in the bill as a minimum, would be launched so that we would have reciprocity in this very delicate field, which is of great significance for many generations to come.