Natural Resources committee  In my written version, the Canadian policy is outlined, and the provincial governments have all adopted the same policy.

Natural Resources committee  There is no Canadian law that says you can't do it. There's no law, but there is a Canadian policy that prohibits inter-basin diversions. In the scenario you're talking about, there wouldn't be an inter-basin diversion. The Canadian policy talks about inter-basin diversions betw

Natural Resources committee  In the Great Lakes area, it would violate a provincial-state agreement. There's an interesting history here that you might want to look into. During the free trade negotiations, the federal government of the day introduced a bill called the Canada Water Preservation Act, which

Natural Resources committee  There are two issues, the consumption versus withdrawal. Generally speaking, you withdraw water, a small amount is consumed, and the rest goes back to the environment. In the case of a municipality, normally you'll consume about 10% of what you withdraw. In thermal power, you mig

Natural Resources committee  Maybe I could try to add a little bit on what we should be doing as facilitator and enabler, and so on. I guess if you think back to when the Canada Water Act was passed in 1972, and for two decades afterwards, when I used to manage the program I had $20 million in my budget per

Natural Resources committee  Just harking back to the annex in particular, it was a very good example. As you recalled, you chaired the committee hearing evidence on that one in a very timely way, and the committee produced a very good report at a very critical time. At the time the agreement was on the verg

Natural Resources committee  I'll look at all these questions just briefly. On the question of human rights, an interesting legal concept has developed over the last 25 years in the U.S. It's called the “public trust doctrine”, and it hasn't spread across the border yet. It's something that you as a committ

Natural Resources committee  These are questions that go way beyond my competence. I should just specify who I am and who I'm not. I don't work for the government; I left the government 15 years ago, but I've continued to have some involvement in this area through contracts with the IJC, and working with th

Natural Resources committee  I could start. If you look back historically at the federal role in water, we have a lot of direct federal responsibilities, but the more important thing that the federal government does is to provide leadership. If you look back over the years, say from 1970 onwards, via the Ca

Natural Resources committee  Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman and members. I was asked to speak about binational challenges, Canada-U.S. challenges. That's a very big topic, obviously--at any given time, 30 or 40 issues dealing with water are going on between our two countries--so I'm going to focus today