Debates of June 14th, 2007

Devils Lake Diversion Project

[Steven Fletcher, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Health]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the member for Kildonan—St. Paul for her excellent contribution this evening and, in fact, for her excellent contribution since being elected and as an MLA before that.

The member for Selkirk—Interlake also has to be commended for what he described as his crusade. He is a very passionate advocate for Lake Winnipeg in all aspects, and in particular the problem that we have with Devils Lake.

The Devils Lake outlet remains a persistent irritant for the Government of Canada and the management of its overall--

[The Acting Speaker, Andrew Scheer]

Order, please. Perhaps the Minister of the Environment and the hon. member for Saint Boniface could maybe sit together for the next little bit and carry on their conversation a little bit quieter, so that the rest of us can hear the hon. Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Health.

[Steven Fletcher, Conservative, Charleswood—St. James—Assiniboia, MB]

Mr. Speaker, as I was saying, the management of the overall transboundary water relationship with the United States has been a major irritant for the Government of Canada.

I am pleased to speak on this matter tonight. As many members will know, the Assiniboine River is the major tributary to the Red River and the Assiniboine River flows through my constituency with its many tributaries, like Sturgeon Creek and others.

The reason why I raise this is the fact that this issue goes far beyond Lake Winnipeg. It goes to the entire watershed and that includes the prairie provinces, Ontario, and who knows where it goes beyond that. This is an important issue for all Canadians and it is really important that we work together to solve this problem.

It is important that we continue with the critical science and engineering efforts that are currently underway. I wish to assure members that the Devils Lake outlet and its implications for Manitobans are key concerns for the federal government.

The President of the Treasury Board has spoken with his colleague the Minister of the Environment and the minister of water stewardship in Manitoba on the decision by North Dakota to operate the outlet.

The governments of Canada and Manitoba are united in their concern and disappointment over North Dakota's move to release water in the absence of a permanent treatment system at the outlet. The governments of Canada and Manitoba have been steadfast allies throughout the Devils Lake outlet dispute and we will continue to support each other's efforts to address this issue.

Engagement by the Minister of Foreign Affairs, the Minister of International Trade, the Minister of the Environment, Canada's ambassador to the United States, and other officials have underlined the government's commitment to put our concerns about Devils Lake front and centre in our dealings with the United States.

This government has conveyed Canada's concern regarding North Dakota's Devils Lake outlet to the highest levels of the U.S. government on many occasions and we will continue in these efforts until the matter is resolved successfully.

Our consistent aim is to address Canada's concerns regarding the outlet, including safeguards to prevent the transfer of invasive species from Devils Lake to Lake Winnipeg. Our government believes that the Devils Lake outlet should not operate until measures are implemented to ensure the protection of downstream waters from the potential threat of invasive species transfers.

Based on the boundary waters treaty of 1909, water that flows across the international boundary “shall not be polluted on either side to the injury of health or property on the other”. Our government takes its obligations under the treaty seriously and expects the U.S. government to make every effort to ensure that it upholds its side of the bargain.

In addition to exposing Canadian waters to an unknown and unwarranted degree of risk, North Dakota is jeopardizing very important binational scientific work on invasive species in the Red River basin being conducted under the International Joint Commission. The IJC is the international organization created by the boundary waters treaty to help resolve and prevent disputes on matters arising related to waters shared between Canada and the United States.

Based in part on the advice of this House and the terms of the 2005 joint statement on Devils Lake flooding and ecosystem protection, the Canadian and U.S. governments have engaged the commission to conduct a survey of fish parasites and pathogens in Devils Lake and the broader basin. This work will help shed light on the risks posed by the outlet and aid in informing the development of a permanent treatment regime.

As well, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, in consultation with Canadian technical experts, is undertaking an important engineering analysis on the design of an effective treatment system for the outlet.

North Dakota's decision impedes the important progress that has been made with the United States toward resolving the Devils Lake outlet dispute. Further, we remain dissatisfied by North Dakota's effort to relax the terms of the operating permit for the outlet, a move that has allowed the outlet to run this year.

A key constraint on releases from the outlet into the Sheyenne River is the maximum sulphate concentration allowed in the river. Last year North Dakota's health department approved a request from the North Dakota state water commission to increase the allowable sulphate concentration in the Sheyenne River by 50%, from 330 milligrams per litre to 450 milligrams per litre. Our government was and remains critical of this weakening of the permit.

In its submission to the North Dakota health department on the permit modification, our government pointed out that the changes could result in degraded water quality at the international boundary and increase the risk of harm. In the final analysis, our government underlined its belief that there was simply not sufficient science to warrant the proposed changes. Lack of sound science has continued to be a persistent feature of the entire state of the outlet project.

Along with insufficient science to allow for informed decisions about the operating permit, the state outlet has proceeded without a proper environmental impact assessment. For these reasons, Canadian waters face an unknown risk from the Devils Lake outlet.

Because of this unknown risk, our government has worked closely with Manitoba and the U.S. government to advance our understanding of the potential threat by the outlet and to design an effective treatment system so that the outlet can be operated safely.

Once again, I hope that the House will support the government's efforts in pressing North Dakota to close the outlet and allow the engineering work now underway on a permanent treatment facility as well as to allow the important biological survey to continue unhampered by discharges from Devils Lake.

This is an important issue for Manitoba and all Canadians, and I hope we stand united to fight and continue to work on the science, so that we can make the best decisions with the information available.

[Francis Scarpaleggia, Liberal, Lac-Saint-Louis, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with my colleague, the member for Newton—North Delta.

I am very pleased to take part in this debate. I have noticed that up to this point, most of the speakers have been from Manitoba or from the west. I feel somewhat like a visiting relative on this issue.

I am very interested in the whole issue of the government's approach to water policy. This interest flows from my membership on the Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development and the work I have done with the national Liberal water caucus.

As I have said before in this House, we cannot say that a government has a complete environmental policy unless it also has a strategic and comprehensive approach to the issue of how to protect and manage our water resources.

Tonight's emergency debate is welcomed. It is important for a number of reasons in my view.

By debating this issue and giving it some attention and hopefully some headlines, we are offering our moral support to Manitobans, Obviously, this issue impacts on them directly. It is important to support our fellow Canadians in this complex struggle they are engaged in with regard to the state of North Dakota and of course against, in some way, the federal government of the Untied States.

North Dakota has acted unilaterally and in so doing, is harming the biological integrity of the Red River and Lake Winnipeg. The U.S. federal government's involvement is almost involvement by not being involved. The EPA has delegated to North Dakota the authority for setting the quality standards for the water involved. The Bush administration has not been overly aggressive in lobbying the state of North Dakota to cooperate in this matter for two reasons, specifically: one, it has a philosophy of not wanting to interfere with state rights; and, two, Governor Hoeven is a powerful Republican governor in the Republican family which is currently in the White House.

I know that this problem was not created by the government. It has been a long-festering problem. If I could ask one question right now of the foreign affairs minister or the environment minister, it would be why we did not see the reopening of the outlet coming. It happened on Monday, June 11. It seems to me that if we had been monitoring the situation, we might have seen the probability that the outlet would be opened and perhaps we could have raised the issue before action was taken by the government of North Dakota.

The problem with the water from Devils Lake entering into Lake Winnipeg stems from the fact, among other things, that Devils Lake has high concentrations of mercury, phosphates, arsenic and salt, making it too contaminated for local irrigation. I think that answers the question of my hon. friend across the way who asked, given that there are water shortages in the United States, why water from Devils Lake is not diverted to other areas of the United States. I am not a scientific expert, but my hunch would be that the water is too contaminated.

One of the reasons the water is so contaminated is that Devils Lake is somewhat isolated from other water flows in its vicinity. It really has no outlets and no inlets. The water has been sitting there fed by precipitation and so on and so forth for about 1,000 years.

Estimates indicate that if nothing is done to resolve this situation, 40,000 pounds of phosphorous will reach Lake Winnipeg each year resulting in a five inch algae layer on approximately 10 miles of beach.

The second reason to have this debate is it is important to keep the federal government focused on this issue. The government is dealing with many environmental issues, of course climate change being one of them. There have been indications that perhaps the government is not taking this issue that seriously. It is very important to keep the government focused on the Devils Lake issue.

One thing the government should do in order to give attention to this issue but also to the whole range of water issues that are very complex, that touch on many jurisdictions and that involve at least 20 departments and agencies across the federal government, is to create a secretary of state for water policy. This would give focus to the issue of water and would be a champion on the issue of water. It would take a greater lead in protecting Canada from the outflow from Devils Lake. The government could take that important step.

The third reason to have this debate is it is very important to raise awareness both inside and outside this House that North Dakota's unilateral action on this issue has put into jeopardy perhaps the long term viability of the boundary waters treaty. Article IV of the 1909 boundary waters treaty states that cross-border water flows “shall not be polluted on either side to the injury of health or property on the other”. In a sense, the current situation is in clear violation of the treaty and it is leading many people to ask whether the treaty is at all effective.

It is important to have a debate around this issue and impress upon Canadian citizens and our American friends who are listening to this debate that this is an important issue and that the actions of North Dakota are putting in jeopardy perhaps the long term viability of the boundary waters treaty.

The fourth reason we need to have this debate is that Devils Lake is one flashpoint in the issue of cross-border water resource management but there are others below the surface. We will have to be ready in future to deal with those other flashpoints as they ignite, and they will. I think there are over 40 tributaries or rivers that cross in and out of the United States and Canada. It is only a matter of time before problems arise similar to the Devils Lake problem.

The question becomes, what should the federal government do? We have heard a lot about talk, diplomacy, scientific studies, analysis and work going on at the EPA in an effort to develop a better permanent filter. We need some innovative leadership on this issue. Strong aggressive lobbying is needed both on Capitol Hill and in the states that go along the Canada-U.S. border.

We have to tell our American friends what is going on. We know that they have a sense of fair play and the more people south of the border we sensitize to this issue, the more pressure they will put on their own politicians to protect North American water resources.

[Sukh Dhaliwal, Liberal, Newton—North Delta, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to congratulate the member for Wetaskiwin for having taken the Chair.

I am happy to have this opportunity to speak to this issue of the Devils Lake outlet project today. I would like to thank my colleagues on both sides of the House who have worked on this issue diligently throughout the years and who continue to bring this important issue to the attention of Canadians.

I can understand the reason for this project. Devils Lake has grown from 70 square kilometres to over 200 square kilometres flooding communities, schools and farms. This was a lake that almost entirely dried up in the sixties and has only recovered its water in the past 30 years.

However, let me be frank about the actions of the North Dakota government. In January 2004, then secretary of state Colin Powell wrote to the governor of North Dakota encouraging him not to proceed with the unilateral action on the state funded Devils Lake outlet. The secretary of state identified four conditions that should be met before proceeding with this project: a biota survey, Canadian participation in the survey, no inlet from the Missouri River, and a resolution of other science-based concerns relating to mercury levels.

North Dakota has proceeded anyway with this unilateral action and has addressed none of these conditions. North Dakota has not even met the standards of a previous army corps of engineers' proposal on which the U.S. government had previously approached Canada in 2002.

When the North Dakota project came forward in 2004, the United States refused to refer this state project to the International Joint Commission. One can imagine the political reasons in Washington for this decision.

I had the opportunity to visit North Dakota many times as I was admitted to the masters of engineering program at the University of North Dakota in Grand Falls. North Dakota is a state which does not have an environmental protection agency and whose legislator only meets on odd numbered years.

This is about an irresponsible state government in North Dakota unilaterally opening the Devils Lake outlet without first addressing the environmental concerns it had agreed to fix first.

Canada and the United States have a long history of cooperation and co-management of our boundary waters despite this ongoing disagreement over Devils Lake.

In fact, in just two years we will reach the 100th anniversary of the signing of the 1909 boundary waters treaty which laid the foundation for the establishment of the International Joint Commission.

It consists of three American and three Canadian commissioners and traditionally undertakes action to investigate pollution problems and other issues in lakes and rivers along our border after a request from the Canadian or American governments.

Unfortunately in this case, the International Joint Commission has not been asked by either government to initiate action. In fact, on the IJC website we will not find Devils Lake mentioned despite all the attention to this issue.

I am told that the IJC has been monitoring test results conducted by the Red River board consistent with the precautionary principle that is within the principles and guidelines of this organization. However, these results have not been made public because there has been no referral or request from either government and I have no idea why this continues to be the case.

We are playing politics with our ecosystem and this is totally unacceptable. This issue is a black hole in water management relations between Canada and the United States, and this situation cannot be allowed to continue.

Article IV of the 1909 boundary water treaty states that waters flowing across the boundary shall not be polluted on either side to the injury of health or property of the other. The treaty could not be more clear and without definitive scientific study, it will never be clear whether the claims of invasive species and other pollutants or the denials of this are actually true.

In the absence of a definitive study or the release of those test results, no diversion with the potential to abrogate article IV of the treaty can be allowed to occur.

The longer the situation continues, the more Canada and the United States will be abrogating their responsibility to adhere to these treaty for the good of the citizens of both countries.

This issue was last at the centre of public attention in 2005 when North Dakota had completed this project. At the time, the environment and sustainable development committee, chaired by the member for York South—Weston, unanimously passed a motion calling on the Government of Canada to exhaust all diplomatic and legal options to stop the Devils Lake diversion until it had been reviewed by the International Joint Commission.

The United States is hardly 100% behind North Dakota's position in this matter either. I have copies of letters from various U.S. senators, congressmen and governors, written to the secretary of state in 2005 on this issue. Let me give some of examples.

Senators Mark Dayton and John Marty and Governor Tim Pawlenty, all of Minnesota, stated that the Devils Lake outlet would destroy the integrity and reliability of the boundary waters treaty. The state of Minnesota is strongly opposed to this project.

Governor Bob Holden of Missouri wrote that he was fearful of a potential inter-basin water diversion from the Missouri River into the Hudson Bay basin through Devils Lake, and he called for a referral to the IJC.

The governor of Ohio wrote of his long cooperation with the Canadian government and his work on the Great Lakes charter annex with Quebec and Ontario and pointed out that a lack of cooperation with respect to the boundary waters treaty would affect his state as well as Canada.

There are dozens more letters from congressmen, senators, governors and non-governmental organizations and everyday citizens.

What happened with all these powerful politicians of every political stripe from across North America writing to the secretary of state after Canada's request for a referral to the IJC? We put out a joint statement from Canada of the United States, North Dakota, Minnesota and Manitoba announcing an agreement. The agreement called for environmental safeguards, a scientific review of aquatic nuisance species, which is diplomatic code for invasive species. It called for a bio-assessment. It called for a rock and gravel filtration system, as well as a more advanced filtration system.

The goodwill generated from this agreement looked promising at the time, but the agreement has now been broken. It seems that diplomatic channels have been exhausted.

This is an international issue and it has international importance. I am very happy to see that all members, irrespective of their political stripe of where they were elected, are united on this issue to mutually send a strong message to North Dakota that it has to stop and it has to do something to deal with the Devils Lake project.

After the unanimous motion is passed in the House, I would like to see our Minister of the Environment and our Minister of Foreign Affairs take this to the U.S. government to take action on this important issue.

[Raymond Simard, Liberal, Saint Boniface, MB]

Mr. Speaker, just a few minutes ago my colleague, the member for Lac-Saint-Louis, indicated that most speakers on this topic were from Manitoba. I find it refreshing to have a speaker from Quebec and now from B.C. getting involved in this discussion.

It was interesting that today the member for Newton—North Delta insisted in speaking on this topic. I know the Lake Winnipeg basin reaches the Rockies. Why was he so interested in speaking on this topic, because I thought his speech was excellent.

[Sukh Dhaliwal, Liberal, Newton—North Delta, BC]

Mr. Speaker, first, I congratulate all the members in the House who have spoken today irrespective of their stripes. In particular, I commend the good work done by the hon. member for Saint Boniface and the member for Winnipeg South Centre from the Liberal caucus in dealing with the issue of Devils Lake.

Lake Winnipeg is the 10th biggest lake in the world. As Canadians, we have to be united on this issue, as was talked about earlier, so we can send a strong message to the U.S. government. When I speak here as a member from British Columbia, I send a message to my neighbouring state, Washington, that this kind of action cannot be tolerated.

I earlier mentioned that I have a whole bunch of letters from governors, congressmen and senators from the U.S. condemning the actions of the government of North Dakota on Devils Lake.

I congratulate, one more time, all members who spoke today for the good work they have done.

[Judy Wasylycia-Leis, NDP, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. Discussions have taken place among all parties and I believe you would find consent for me to move a motion, seconded by the member for Selkirk—Interlake, the member for Saint Boniface and the member for Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie. I move:

That this House call on the government to continue to employ every means possible to have the flow of water from Devils Lake into the Canadian water system stopped immediately and to coordinate with the relevant authorities in North Dakota and the United States to ensure the principles of the August 2005 Joint Statement to halt the diversion of water from Devils Lake until adequate environmental and health protection measures, including the construction of advanced filter, are respected.

[The Acting Speaker, Andrew Scheer]

Does the hon. member for Winnipeg North have the unanimous consent of the House to move the motion?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Acting Speaker, Andrew Scheer]

The House has heard the terms of the motion. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Acting Speaker, Andrew Scheer]

(Motion agreed to)

[Tony Martin, NDP, Sault Ste. Marie, ON]

Mr. Speaker, first, I want to thank and congratulate the member for Winnipeg North for all of the work she has done in getting this issue to this place and on the table tonight so that we might discuss it.

[Mauril Bélanger, Liberal, Ottawa—Vanier, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. Since the motion has been adopted, could you please advise the House as to what is under debate now?

[The Acting Speaker, Andrew Scheer]

Pursuant to the special order made earlier today, the debate is scheduled to go on until 10:30 p.m. Nothing in the motion, which was just adopted unanimously by the House, precludes that from happening. If there are still members who wish to make some remarks tonight, they are free to do so.

[Mauril Bélanger, Liberal, Ottawa—Vanier, ON]

Mr. Speaker, my question was simply, what is the motion currently under debate? For the House to be debating, it has to be debating a motion. Could you advise the House what the motion is that we are debating right now, after you said we were resuming debate?

[The Acting Speaker, Andrew Scheer]

During an emergency debate, the motion being debated is “That this House do now adjourn”. That is the wording of the motion that we are now debating.

The hon. government House leader.

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, York—Simcoe, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I would simply add my contribution that my understanding is that there is an order in place right now, and I know it is very interesting what I have to say, which has been agreed to by this party. However, the Speaker also does retain the discretion, as the Speaker always does, on an emergency debate, to conclude the debate at such time as in the Speaker's opinion the debate has run its course.

[Libby Davies, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Mr. Speaker, with all due respect, there was an agreement that the debate would go until 10:30 p.m. It is a very important subject. The member for Sault Ste. Marie has risen and is asking to speak for about 10 minutes. I do not think that is an unreasonable request, so we would ask the members of the House to allow the member to rise to speak.

The fact that we have approved the motion was great and we thank the members of the House for agreeing to that, but it does not end the debate. We would ask the Speaker to allow the debate to go until 10:30 p.m., as was agreed to by all members, so that we can conclude this in the proper time.

[The Acting Speaker, Andrew Scheer]

As all members know, chair occupants are servants of the House, and the House did adopt a special order to have the emergency debate tonight on this subject for three hours until 10:30 p.m. As long as there are members who would like to continue speaking up until the time that the three hours expire, the Chair will recognize them and they will have that opportunity to do so.

I thank members for the opportunity to clarify that, and we will continue with the hon. member for Sault Ste. Marie.

[Tony Martin, NDP, Sault Ste. Marie, ON]

Mr. Speaker, we could have gone on for the next 12 minutes with that useless banter back and forth about whether we should speak further here tonight, but I prefer to return to the substantial issue that is on the table.

I want to thank my colleague from Winnipeg North for working so hard to bring this issue forward so we could debate it and have this resolution that we have all supported. I thank her for the work she has done in getting us to a point where all of us could agree to a resolution that we will, through the government, put to our U.S. neighbours, and thereby we perhaps will have some constructive and positive resolution to this very difficult and worrisome challenge. It is being faced now and will continue to be faced by the member in her riding and by others who have spoken here tonight if we just continue on the path we are on.

It is also interesting that we who have brought the motion forward had only one speaker tonight on this matter, so I think it appropriate that we have a second shot at putting some matters on the record about this important issue.

In the time I have, I want to make a few brief comments on three areas that this subject allows us some opportunity to speak about. One is the ongoing problematic issue, I believe, and certainly as New Democrats we find this in terms of U.S.-Canadian agreements that we enter into on all kinds of subjects. At the end of the day, we end up in situations such as the one we have here tonight. We work at it, we think we have agreements, we get close to something that would be satisfactory, and then the U.S. decides unilaterally that in its own interest it is going to do something that is going to affect very negatively the interests of Canada and Canadian jurisdictions, both in the short term and in the long term.

Over and over again we have seen that problem and we see it again here tonight. I think the government needs to address that when it goes with this resolution in hand to speak to the government of North Dakota and to our U.S. counterparts in Washington about this particular issue. It is a trend that we have to nip in the bud. We have to stand up and be counted. We have to fight on behalf of Canadian interests to make sure that our sovereignty is protected, our land is protected, and our ecosystem and our resources are protected.

This is one piece that I think needs to be put on the table here tonight as we discuss this issue. It is indeed important. It will become more important as we try to protect this scarce resource we have that is so valuable and so important: our water and our water systems. We must not allow anything in the interests of protecting one or the other jurisdiction to affect this natural resource, which in fact is at risk as we speak here tonight.

The second issue that I think is important for us to reflect on is the issue of invasive species and what this diversion of water from Devils Lake into the Red River system and into Lake Winnipeg now presents to us as Canadians. We have seen it over and over again as we have not paid attention, as we have turned our backs, and as we might have thought that someone else was paying attention.

We have had invasive species come into our country. Not only have they have affected us in the short term, but they are doing so now as we move forward into the long term and as we try to protect the integrity of our natural resources against species that do not belong here in the first place. They are species that cause us all kinds of concern and will attack our ecosystem in a way that could destroy it altogether if we do not stand up and do something, particularly immediately and initially when we identify that we have a problem coming at us.

In this instance, we have done that. We can take proactive and pre-emptive action here. Together, the U.S. government, the North Dakota government, the Manitoba government and the Canadian government could put in place some vehicles that could help us with this.

We have seen it in my own jurisdiction in the Great Lakes and Lake Superior, which are so important to my constituency of Sault Ste. Marie and indeed northern Ontario. We have seen the bringing in of the zebra mussel, which is now causing us such concern and doing such damage. It is costing us literally millions of dollars to try to correct this problem as we go forward.

We did not do anything about the sea lamprey, which has become a huge problem and a huge challenge for us. Every year literally thousands and millions of dollars are being spent to treat the St. Mary's River in Sault Ste. Marie, not to get rid of sea lamprey, which we should be doing, but to simply control the growth of sea lamprey. Sea lamprey attack the fish that are so important to that ecosystem and to the livelihood of many of our constituents, friends and neighbours up there, not to speak of the livelihood of our first nations.

It is important that tonight we address the issue of invasive species and that we have a chance in this instance to take pre-emptive action to stop this problem before it actually gets out of control.

The third issue, and perhaps the most important issue in this whole question, is how we deal with our water. This is a strange situation in some ways.

Last night in Sault Ste. Marie, I hosted a public forum with scientists and engineers from the International Joint Commission. A number of organizations in my area hosted this. These organizations are concerned about the Lake Superior and Lake Huron watershed and the fact that our water is going down.

The water in Lake Superior has gone down by two feet in the last six to nine months. The people who live along that lake are seeing it and they are concerned. They want to know why this is happening. They want to know if there is anything we can do about it. They want to know if together the Canadian and U.S. government can actually determine and detect what is going on so that we can protect our water resource, which is in fact a glacial deposit, Once it is lost, it will not come back again.

Our water is a natural resource that as a nation we have not come to fully appreciate. We have not come to appreciate how valuable our water really is now and how valuable it will be in the future. I am speaking of clean water, water we can drink, water that will sustain life in all of its forms. That is what we are talking about in Manitoba with respect to the Red River Basin and Lake Winnipeg. We are talking about protecting the integrity of that water source so that it will continue to be a source of life for our livelihoods, our fish, our animals, our trees and the communities along that watershed.

It seems to me that if we were being cooperative, if we were honouring and acting in good faith with respect to some of the agreements that we have made with each other, and if those agreements were working properly, we could find a way to protect this valuable resource in a better way than what we see happening in the North Dakota Devils Lake and Red River situation we are talking about here tonight.

Over the years, through the oversight of the International Joint Commission, we have worked quite cooperatively in looking at the different ways in which we can ensure that the levels of our Great Lakes, and particularly for me the upper Great Lakes, are kept at a healthy balance as we deal with the weather, climate change and all of the other things that affect the amount of water we have and where that water goes.

The work of the IJC, the International Joint Commission, has been quite effective up to now. A $17 million study by the IJC is about to start and will take probably about five years. Every 10 years the commission takes a look at water quantity in the Great Lakes and how it is managed.

Last night's event in Sault Ste. Marie was an initial attempt to get some public input. It was a chance for the people who are very concerned about the levels of the water in Lake Superior and Lake Huron to speak to these scientists and engineers about what they are seeing every day as they look at the lake that we who live in the area have stewardship over. It was also a chance for the engineers and the scientists themselves to present to my constituents and the others who were there, including some Americans, some of what they see as the important factors in terms of water in and water out.

They presented a very compelling argument that what is happening in the Great Lakes is an effect of climate change. For the last 10 years we have had above normal temperatures and below normal water levels, so we have a problem.

This is what is interesting. We have a problem of lack of water where we are, but parts of the United States are in drought. Parts of the United Statest have a shortage of water and, looking forward, some areas of the United States do not know where they are going to get water once they use up all the glacial runoff from the mountains--

[The Acting Speaker, Andrew Scheer]

It being 10:29 p.m., pursuant to the order made earlier today I declare the motion carried.

(Motion agreed to)

[The Acting Speaker, Andrew Scheer]

Accordingly this House stands adjourned until tomorrow at 10 a.m. pursuant to Standing Order 24(1).

(The House adjourned at 10:29 p.m.)