Madam Speaker, I would like to speak in favour of this motion. There are some significant issues covered by the proposal, and a full and complete study by a committee of Parliament, with recommendations back to the House as well as to cabinet and the Prime Minister, is in order.

There is an old saying in municipal affairs that if we do not manage our water, our water manages us. This was abundantly clear, unfortunately, in Calgary where a flood in 2013 did about $3.4 billion worth of damage to the city. That could have been avoided if an investment of $600 million had been made in flood protection in the river valleys that run through the city. The call from the City was made to the federal government, but it was dismissed by federal Conservatives at the time because it appeared that they were supporting the impacts of climate change. While the Tories were still struggling with their denial of climate change and the science of climate change, they allowed Calgary to fend for itself. In response, the damage was done because water does not wait for Conservative leadership to catch up to science. Science is science, geology is geology, and water is water.

This underscores a need. We have had five “storms of the century” in the last 15 years in Toronto alone. Water is going to play an increasing role in significant economic disruption but, more importantly, in population displacement and population loss in parts of the country.

The forest fires that have been plaguing western Canada are a direct result of drought and other influences tied to the management of water, and those fires do extraordinary damage. They are seen as fire and emergency situations, not as water and climate change issues. Until we start to broaden our understanding of exactly what the impact on water is as it relates to climate change, we are going to be playing catch-up on this. We are going to be spending billions of dollars mitigating the impacts of badly managed water, instead of spending the hundreds millions of dollars it would take to hopefully create and deliver much stronger environmental policies but also much stronger water policies.

I will note that I represent a riding that, as can be seen from the map behind me, is part of the Great Lakes system. There are a number of issues around this bill that are related to that.

For example, the Great Lakes are home to 51 million jobs largely dependent on fresh water, on power generated by water, and on the lakes' shipping capacity. All of these things combine to create an economic vitality that is quite profound in terms of its impact on the continent, so there are a significant number of jobs. In fact, one-quarter of all Canadians draw their drinking water from the Great Lakes. We have to be smart about how we manage this asset or, as I said, this asset will manage us.

The situation is fluctuating. It has great volatility and great capacity to cause danger. It is not simply something, as a member from the Bloc said, to relegate to the Province of Quebec. How do we relegate water to a province when it crosses boundaries every time it flows? How do we relegate management of the Ottawa Valley to one province over another, any more than we tell people in Montreal they should be flooded so we can spare folks on the north shore of Lake Ontario from being flooded, or vice versa?

Clearly a national conversation needs to be had. Clearly a national strategy needs to be enunciated. We can look at the 16 different international joint commissions that govern water in Canada, and the four national jurisdictional bodies that govern water from the prairie rivers to Lake of the Woods in the province of Manitoba. We can look at the Ottawa River, as I mentioned earlier. We can look at the Mackenzie River Delta. All of these interprovincial and interterritorial waterways have a profound impact on everybody who shares that water.

The floods that happen in the Ottawa Valley do not distinguish between the Quebec and the Ontario sides of the river, or between the Quebec and the Ontario citizens who are impacted. Neither do the floods contain the economic damage province to province, and simply say one province alone has to deal with it, and that the country is going to walk away from it because some sort of archaic, bizarre interpretation of the Canadian Constitution is that we do not share resources like water across provincial and territorial boundaries. That literally does not hold water as an argument.

In terms of the Great Lakes, our government has stepped up on these fronts, but the stepping up on these issues requires us to work within regulatory frameworks where we never have total control of the issue or a global perspective on what is happening with water, and we do not understand, from a national perspective at all times, what the best strategic direction forward is.

For example, the member from the Bloc said that water flow is an issue when navigating up the St. Lawrence Seaway and into the great lakes. The reason water flow is an issue is that we are trying to drain the Great Lakes because of their record high and fluctuating water levels driven by climate change and due to habitat destruction in the watersheds around the Great Lakes. When we do not plant trees or protect wetlands, as we are seeing in Ontario now with the MZOs from Queen's Park and when we do not protect our conservation authorities, as we are also seeing being undermined by moves at the provincial legislature, what ends up happening is that the Great lakes overflow with water and the flooding is profound. We had 600 homes in my riding alone flooded in the last couple of years, and the way we have protected those waterfront properties is by flowing the water out of the Great Lakes faster. That has implications for shipping. It has implications for Montreal and downstream, and to simply pretend that we can manage the Great Lakes without understanding the impact in Quebec and downstream into the Atlantic provinces is just absurd.

This is a critically important issue for protecting water quality; protecting the integrity of our habitat, our wetlands and our river basins, as well as our Great Lakes; and also managing the navigational and shipping capacity that water offers us, in particular to cities like Hamilton, where the agricultural business there depends on getting boats through the St. Lawrence River. We cannot do that if the water is too low or too high, or if it is moving too fast or too slowly. All of these issues require comprehensive, coordinated action and investment in a stronger water agency to make sure that we have coordinated action and that the best science is available so that the best conservation and displacement policies are put in place. As well, this would inform us on how to manage the environment upstream, so that we create a more balanced approach to the way in which water impacts us right across the country.

I will also say this about water, the impact it has on cities and settlements and why this institute is so critically important, which is that we have a fifth of the world's fresh water in Canada. That commodity is going to result in unbelievable economic opportunities and advantages in the coming years. It will also be what will give us the ability to survive the next century, if we manage it properly. To start trying to solve the problem after it has been created is like trying to mop up a house after there has been a leak in a bathroom. The thing to do now with water is to attend to it immediately before it causes damage that takes out so much in so many communities around our waterways.

When we take a look at this proposal to study the joint commissions and international treaties and the interprovincial and territorial treaties, indigenous water lot rights and indigenous approaches to conservation, as well as indigenous treaty rights tied to water lots, we are examining the water quality issues that are required for human existence and industrial standards. In Pittsburgh a few years ago, they had to close a high-tech plant because the water quality was so low they could not get water clean enough to do some of the high-tech work in that part of the country.

When we take a look at water quality, it is not just a question of human existence; it is also what our economy is based on. We have an economy that is based far more than on just the fish and what we pull out of the water; it is the use of the water in industrial processes. It is critical.

When we take a look at our energy and switching away from fossil fuels where possible and moving toward renewables where there is an opportunity, water plays a critical role in that new energy future in this country.

As we move toward more electric vehicles and greater use of batteries as a mobile power source for more than just vehicles, but also for all sorts of machines, water is going to play an increasingly important role in all of this.

If we do not understand where fresh water is being managed, what the goals and strategies are and the impacts of decisions as they relate to the economic dynamics around water conservation, water usage and the use in industry as well as power generation, if we do not also take a look at the impact in terms of the storms and flooding we are seeing and the droughts that we are trying to mitigate, but also take a look at the climate change impact and where water—

Adam Vaughan

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