Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague, the member for Winnipeg South Centre, for her comments. I know she cares passionately about the lake. She has a cottage in my riding and. As she mentioned, her kids have grown up there, she grew up on the beaches and it is very important to her.
The one thing that all of us is concerned about is the way North Dakota has approached this whole topic. As she mentioned, if it runs the pump at full tilt for 22 weeks, it will only drop the lake a half an inch.
I understand that North Dakota and the northern great plains have seen a great deal of precipitation this spring. For that reason the pumps have been turned on to try to control some of the flooding. There is no question, though, that part of the issue they are facing is the intensive drainage projects that they have undertaken over the last 50 years in North Dakota, especially in western North Dakota, in draining a lot of their wetlands and cleaning up a lot of their agricultural lands. That has created the problem that we face today.
If we look at the larger picture, as was mentioned earlier by the member for Saint Boniface, it has been a thousand years since the last time Devils Lake overflowed. In the dirty thirties the lake was dry. There is something that has changed and it has to do with the overall management of the drainage system within the state of North Dakota.
I know we all feel compassionate for the people of North Dakota, especially those people who live along Devils Lake and the flooding problem that they have faced for decades. What does the member see as the reasonable way for them to address the issues they have facing them?