Mr. Speaker, I rise in the House to announce that the Liberal caucus will support this bill.
We will support it mainly because we pushed for the government to introduce measures regarding the water export threat. I admit that this is more of a future threat than a current one since, right now, there is not really any great threat to the export of Canada's fresh water. This threat will grow in the future.
We urged the government to introduce measures consistent with those proposed by the University of Toronto's Munk Centre, namely, an approach that is mainly environmental in nature that would prohibit water diversions from one watershed to another in Canada. Without this prohibition, it would be possible to export water. In order to conduct large-scale water exports, the water must leave one watershed and go through several others to get to another country, namely, the United States.
We will support this bill because we want to make it clear that we are against the idea of exporting fresh water outside Canada.
That being said, this bill has many shortcomings. In response to the question I asked earlier, the hon. member for Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound said that we should not dwell on hypothetical situations. I raised the idea that an entrepreneur could want to export water from Gisborne Lake in Newfoundland to another country using tanker ships.
That is not a hypothetical situation. It happened. I believe a local entrepreneur in Newfoundland may have even signed a contract with another country to do exactly that, but the provincial premier at the time, the hon. Brian Tobin, stepped in and declared a moratorium thereby cancelling the contract.
The hon. member for Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound said that, if ever a province decided to lift its moratorium on the export of water, there would be a public outcry and people would rail against the government.
Yes, I believe that is what would happen today, but one never knows what might happen in the future. If a province is short on revenue and decides that it would be a good idea to export water and use the returns to fund its education or health care system, public opinion could change.
I would like to add that the president of the Fédération des médecins spécialistes du Québec, whose name escapes me right now, is in favour of exporting water from Quebec to fund the health care system.
Public opinion can change, based on the type of campaign used to promote an idea.
I will set that aside for a moment to say that there are a number of flaws in this bill. My colleague from Drummond just mentioned a few.
The bill does not prohibit bulk water exports using tankers. It does not exclude the possibility of exporting water from rivers that flow into coastal areas, as is the case in British Columbia. This water could be exported using tankers or floating bags.
Even though my colleague would say the opposite, I doubt that this bill would prohibit the export of water to the United States via a pipeline.
The government claims that since this bill, which applies primarily to transboundary rivers, prohibits exports from these rivers, it therefore prohibits exports via a pipeline.
I am not sure that is the case. I would like to quote an expert, J. Owen Saunders, who works with the Munk Centre and who was involved when the centre presented the framework for a bill, which became my bill, to prohibit inter-basin water diversions in Canada.
Here is what Mr. Saunders said in committee:
I would say that when you're talking about pipelines or canals, it is a grey area of international law. I assume the government is aware of that and is prepared to defend it under NAFTA. But certainly the argument can be made that the water has been captured when you put it into a pipeline. I take that point.
That leaves the door open for a province to one day decide to lift its moratorium and sign a contract with an American company, and together the two could try to invalidate this aspect of the bill introduced by my colleague from Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound. It could happen, and that is one of this bill's flaws.
I would like to address the point that the member for Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound has made on numerous occasions. His point was that my bill, which was voted on in the House and was defeated by the government, based on the work of the Munk Centre and the work of people such as J. Owen Saunders, was somehow unconstitutional because it was infringing on provincial jurisdiction. That is not the case. I asked Mr. Saunders that question in committee and he was quite categorical on that point. Preventing massive diversions of water from one water basin in Canada to another is a matter of national concern and fits within the peace, order and good government provisions of our Constitution. Therefore, I do not think that is a valid point.
I think that it would be a bigger challenge to work with the provinces on issues such as this. This is the kind of challenge that a federal government that really cares about our water security would want to take up with the provinces. If a federal government wants to get anything done in this very complex federation, it has to have the courage to sit down with the provinces and work it out. However, it is much easier not to do that and to pass something that is much more limited and may have some holes in it.
I was hoping that we could have had more than one or two committee hearings on this issue. I was hoping that we could explore the issue of water exports within the context of NAFTA because this is where the issue gets complicated. This is why the hon. member has brought in the bill and why I brought in my bill. It is because there is still a lot of dispute as to whether our fresh water in its natural state is protected from the rules of free trade that are under NAFTA. It would have been good to explore that whole issue in committee. We might have drawn some conclusions about what more needs to be done to protect ourselves against the free trade provisions of NAFTA as they might apply to water.
If ever there is a dispute on this issue and there is a Canada-U.S. tribunal struck under NAFTA, do not expect the American members of that tribunal to take the same point of view we have, that water is not part of NAFTA. In the United States, water in its natural state is a commodity. Therefore, we know where they stand on this issue.