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.