This article was originally published in the Montreal Gazette on August 24, 2022.

News of the drying up of Lake Mead — the largest-capacity water reservoir in the United States — and the recent high-profile release of California’s strategy for dealing with the state’s growing water shortages are combining to raise questions of whether Canada will one day be exporting its freshwater south.

The prospect of our water being exported in bulk to a thirsty U.S. neighbour captures Canadians’ attention. For one, the subject goes to the heart of concern about our national sovereignty. It is also a scenario that is readily and intuitively grasped: one can see in the mind’s eye Canada’s water flowing north to south — top to bottom on the map of North America — as if through some giant open tap, even though many cross-border rivers actually flow south to north.

But the massive 1950s water-engineering proposals, like Thomas Kierans’ GRAND Canal project and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ North American Water and Power Alliance (NAWPA), conceived at the height of the technological hubris of the modern era, were put forth at a time that pre-dated current awareness about the environment and the lengthy environmental assessments that today accompany large projects of all kinds.

Fortunately, all provinces, owners of the resource, have acted to effectively prohibit the mass removal of water from their jurisdictions (New Brunswick requires approval on a case-by-case basis). And while NAFTA once raised fears about Canada’s freshwater sovereignty, CUSMA has largely removed those fears. Namely, CUSMA dispensed with NAFTA’s controversial investor-state dispute mechanism that created — at least in theory — the spectre of Canadian governments having to pay large sums to private foreign interests should these be prevented from exporting our water by laws and regulations found to contravene the principles of free trade.

The federal government has also created a legal bulkwark against any threat of mass removals from boundary and transboundary waters.

In 2002, the Chrétien government adopted amendments to the Boundary Waters Treaty Act to prohibit the bulk removal of water from Canadian boundary waters, including the Great Lakes.

As for using naturally-flowing transboundary rivers to funnel our water south, Bill C-383, which became law in 2013, amended the International Rivers Improvements Act (IRIA) to prohibit the issuing of a licence to link inland waters to “an international river if the purpose is...to increase the annual flow of the international river at the international boundary.” At the same time, Bill C-383 de facto blocked a province from building a water pipeline to the U.S. While a pipeline is considered a transboundary river under the IRIA, and thus subject to the same prohibition against use as a conduit for water exports, even if a court were to disagree with this interpretation, the amended IRIA’s stated purpose — to “prevent the risk of environmental harm resulting from the permanent loss of water from Canadian ecosystems” — would constitute a sound legal backstop.

There are those who may still insist on the economic benefits of selling Canada’s water abroad. These proponents may even at times tug on the strings of our conscience by invoking the obligation to ensure the human right to water for those not as well-endowed with water riches as we Canadians. In replying to objections about the environmental impacts of bulk-water removals to the United States or elsewhere, they propose measuring Canada’s water “surplus” as a precondition for export. However, taking a definitive water inventory is an impossible task — a chimera and human conceit given the complexity of ecosystems and of forecasting the effects of a changing climate on those ecosystems and the water they contain. Fortunately, public opinion is deeply protective of our most vital resource and in response governments, both federal and provincial, have implemented layered safeguards against compromising our domestic water security.     

Francis Scarpaleggia is MP for the West Island riding of Lac-Saint-Louis and Chair of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development.