Mr. Speaker, it is good rise to add some comments to the debate because water is and will be a topic of serious discussion for a long time. I will be sharing my time with the hon. member for Esquimalt--Juan de Fuca.
I spoke to the bill at second reading and I would like to add some comments to that, particularly with respect to the comments of the member on the government side who wanted a special committee with full committee status to look at this issue because it is so important. That is a good idea and certainly I would like to participate in such a committee.
As some other members have alluded to, the bill does not really address the entire issue of bulk water exports. All it does is deal with the International Boundary Waters Treaty Act, and that is between ourselves and the U.S.
My riding is unique in that the Oldman River, which flows through my riding, ends up in Hudson Bay and the Milk River ends up in the Gulf of Mexico. Talking about interbasin transfer and water that leaves our country and goes to another is pretty important to the area I live in, and has been even more so in the last couple of years because we are in a drought. We have seen very little precipitation during the spring and summer. The winter runoff coming out of the mountains is almost non-existent. If it does not snow this winter we are going to be faced with some very serious problems. Whether it is for agriculture or civic use in our communities the safety of water is of concern to Canadians. Canadians have become very concerned with what has happened in the last two years with the quality of water. This emphasizes the need to focus a discussion on water. The government should look at all aspects of it.
The act was created in 1909 so I guess it is about time it was dusted off and tuned up a little bit. It prohibits the removal of waters out of the water basin in which they are located. That stops interbasin transfer. It requires a licence from the Minister of Foreign Affairs for any activity in boundary or transboundary waters. If Canada were to do something on a river that flowed into the United States and back, it would need the blessing of the Minister of Foreign Affairs. It gives sanctions for penalties.
Addressing bulk water exports in the way the government has clearly lacks in scope. The government has used a three-pronged approach, one of which is the amendment of the International Boundary Waters Treaty Act. The second is a proposal to develop, in co-operation with the provinces, and the hon. member for Davenport alluded to this as voluntary, a Canada-wide accord to prohibit bulk water removal. The third aspect is that Canada and U.S. agree to a joint reference, the international joint commission, that would deal with the Great Lakes. That is a problem because the water in the Great Lakes is at an all-time low. It is a precious commodity to so many people in that area of Canada and the United States and it has to be handled properly.
Those are the three areas that have been put forward to address the issue of bulk water, and to me they do not. It gets back to NAFTA. The only thing that was put into NAFTA to deal with water was in 1993. Actually raw logs and unprocessed fish were exempted but water was not. All it says is that NAFTA creates no rights to the natural water resource of any party to the agreement. There has been a debate since that was created whether or not that protects our water. I have a tendency to say that it does not. If we sell bulk water to each other, i.e., B.C. could sell water to Alberta or vice versa, that makes bulk water a commodity and it allows the other signatories to the free trade agreement to have access to it and we would not be able to stop that.
The whole idea of the provinces being involved is that it is a natural resource and the provinces have control over natural resources. Thus, the provincial issue has been brought into it. We feel as a party that this resource falls under provincial rights and that it is shared, but the provinces have ultimate control. It is important that this aspect was brought forward.
Canadians have brought to our attention some of the issues they are concerned with. Canada has 9% of the world's renewable water, which is a huge amount. Protecting that and keeping sovereignty over it is paramount to Canadians. We have to have absolute control over our water. We cannot even consider any marketing or selling of it until we have that control.
Challenges have already been put forward by our neighbours to the south and deals have been made with some companies. There are Internet sites advertising Canadian water for sale. This cannot be allowed to proceed until we have clarified that as a country we can control the use of water because NAFTA does not put a complete and outright ban on bulk water exports.
What brings this to a head I suppose is the fact that we need stronger legislation. We need to reaffirm the power that the provinces have over this resource. We cannot use the three-pronged approach which the federal government has put forward as the means to put the minds of Canadians at ease. This is the means to keep our bulk water exports completely under the control of Canada. It does not do that. In order for this to be done we have to study the issue.
Water safety has been a topic of debate in Canada since the Walkerton and North Battleford incidents and there have been a few others. Every community is concerned. It has to be addressed along with the issue of exports.
Right now the lack of water in many parts of Canada has had a devastating effect on our agricultural community. Thanks to the member for Selkirk--Interlake we will have an opportunity this evening to debate the effects that the drought has had on the agricultural community and the income crisis it has created.
We see what is happening in the United States right now, the predicament that it is in and the support we are offering. If this were to happen in a different way and some major water supply were to be affected, what would we be able to do?
We have to be very careful because when our neighbours run out of water, and they will, how are we as a nation going to deal with that issue? There are places in the world right now where fresh water could be shipped by tanker. Here in North America it could be shipped by pipeline. It could be done in many ways. Until we have the absolute power to control that resource, we have to proceed with utmost caution, and rightfully so. Whether we sell it or not will be the ultimate debate, but we have to get the control first. When we do that, then we can proceed with the next step.
This bill is a small step. It is not the right thing to do at the moment. It needs to be broadly expanded, but because it is a small step in the right direction we will be supporting the bill.