“While this level of rescue for world-renowned science should never have been necessary, Greens thank Premier Wynne and IISD for stepping up,” said Green Leader Elizabeth May, Member of Parliament for Saanich-Gulf Islands.

Ms. May served on the board of the IISD for nine years prior to entering politics.

“IISD, a think tank, is not necessarily the right organization to take on this mandate. However, keeping the ELA open and functioning, and in a public and transparent context, was paramount,” said May.

“The refusal of the Harper Conservatives to re-think their anti-environmental agenda remains disturbing,” said May.

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“While it is good news to have the updated agreement signed after eight years of negotiations, its success is entirely dependent on effective implementation. The Great Lakes have been so consistently underfunded by Prime Minister Stephen Harper that the majority of recommendations from previous joint agreements and action plans have been impossible to implement,” said Elizabeth May, Member of Parliament for Saanich-Gulf Islands and Leader of the Green Party of Canada. “Political strategy rather than jurisdictional responsibility seems to direct the Harper Conservatives’ investments in freshwater lakes. Evidence shows that funding is often directed to areas where Prime Minister Stephen Harper wants votes, including the Lake Simcoe and Lake Winnipeg regions. While it is important to protect all ecosystems, the Great Lakes are critical to supplying water to over 40 million people, and contain 18 percent of the world’s surface freshwater supply.”

Under the 1908 Boundary Waters Treaty, Canada has an obligation to follow through on commitments for protecting the Great Lakes in partnership with the United States. “Neglect for this critical resource has gone on long enough,” said Elizabeth May. “We need to see significant financial commitments behind this new agreement if it is to be successful.”

As Senior Policy Advisor to former federal Environment Minister Tom McMillan, May worked on the previous iteration of the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement in 1987. In her years as the Executive Director of the Sierra Club of Canada, May was also very engaged in all Great Lakes issues.

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The IJC nuclear task force undertook an inventory of nuclear pollutants in the Great Lakes in 1997 indicating that there was a need for greater follow up on many concerns identified.   (http://www.ijc.org/php/publications/html/invrep/index.html)

“Given the history of concerns about nuclear contaminants including Port Hope on Lake Ontario, and decades of nuclear waste storage on the shores of the Great Lakes at various nuclear facilities, the Green Party demands a scientific and citizen partnership to provide oversight of these impacts on water quality,” said Elizabeth May, MP Saanich-Gulf Islands, and Leader of the Green Party of Canada.

The IJC in its Report of Bioaccumulation of Elements to Accompany the Inventory of Radionuclides in the Great Lakes Basin identified the need for further work.  http://www.ijc.org/rel/boards/nuclear/bio/index.html

“The Green Party is joining the call from a number of concerned citizens and environmental groups to urge this government to take a serious look at radioactive impacts on Great Lakes water quality,’ said May.

The IJC has responded to requests from various groups stating that it will not re-instate the nuclear task force until it is directed by governments to do so.

“Protection of the Great Lakes must be a top priority.  The government has a legal duty to ensure that it protects water quality for Canadian citizens.”

“The IJC has in the past studied nuclear energy and waste issues in the Great Lakes basin and has made recommendations to governments. The Commission reviewed nuclear issues in the Great Lakes in the context of its biennial reports.  In the 1997 publication The IJC in the 21^st  Century, the Commission identified a number of nuclear issues for which the Canadian and U.S. governments might consider issuing a reference to the Commission, under the Boundary Waters Treaty, “ said Lorraine Rekmans, Aboriginal Affairs Critic for the Green Party of Canada.

A reference requires the Commission to examine and report on questions and concerns shared by the governments or matters of difference arising between them. Governments have not issued such a reference to the Commission.

The IJC was briefed on April 24, 2012, by both the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission on nuclear energy and waste issues in the Great Lakes region. In addition, they heard from a representative of the Union of Concerned Scientists.

However, in the absence of a specific reference from governments, the Commission will not be taking action on the matter of nuclear facilities and nuclear waste storage in the Great Lakes Basin.

“We need informed oversight,” said Rekmans.  The IJC must create a new IJC Nuclear Task Force and report on nuclear issues impacting the Great Lakes.  This has to be addressed as part of the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement, and we need a new IJC Nuclear Task Force to produce such a report.”

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As Farley Mowat documented decades ago in Sea of Slaughter, we have already caused a drastic loss of biodiversity in our oceans.  The Magdalen Islanders once hunted walrus, we had Orcas on the east coast, seabirds once blocked out the sun in their enormous numbers, while the coho, sockeye and steelhead salmon runs kept hundreds of B.C. canneries humming, and sea otters existed in large numbers, hanging on to their kelp moorings to munch on abalone.  As beautiful as our oceans are today, what we see is a tragically decimated and threatened water world.

Our oceans are facing numerous threats — over-fishing, pollution from both land-based and marine sources, astonishing levels of plastics circulating in the oceans — an estimated 143 million tons of plastic currently imperils life in the seas, and the dual climate change-related threats of increased temperatures and acidification are the most dangerous of all.  On top of all this we have the increased threat of oil and gas development in fragile ecosystems.

Recently, we have seen a growth of off-shore oil and gas, creating conflicts in some areas between fishing and fossil fuel industries.  The US-Canada agreement to keep oil drilling off Georges’ Bank on the east coast was extended in May 2010 to December 31, 2015.  A similar measure is urgently needed for the waters of the Gulf of St. Lawrence.  The Gulf is the most biologically productive marine region in Canada and is essentially an inland sea, as it is surrounded by four Atlantic provinces, with Prince Edward Island in the middle.  Any oil spill would be caught in the counter-clockwise currents of the Gulf, bringing disaster to a multi-billion dollar fishery.   Despite this and despite the fact the promised regional environmental review promised by the Minister of Environment in June 2011 has not yet taken place, the Gulf of St. Lawrence is specifically targeted in Budget 2012 for oil and gas development.

Similarly, recently the Harper Conservatives have launched an oil rush for license bids in the Beaufort Sea.  There is no ecosystem more fragile than that that is ice-covered (at least at the moment) for much of the year.  It is worrying that the National Energy Board has recently accepted industry demands to remove the requirement that any project must be capable of drilling a relief well in the same drilling season to cap any blow-outs.  This is conditional on industry having another viable technology to achieve the same end. So far, the industry has not explained how it will meet this relaxed requirement.

At the same time as the Harper Conservatives aggressively promote off-shore oil and gas development, as well as super-tanker traffic with bitumen crude heading west from Kitimat through some of the most treacherous waters on earth, they are also cutting the emergency response measures to cope with disaster.

Environment Canada’s Environmental Emergency Programme has been shrunk from regional offices, including one in Vancouver, to one office in Quebec.  Ten Coast Guard operations are being shut down.  In BC alone, we are losing the search and rescue operation in Vancouver plus marine communication operations in Kitsilano, Comox and Tofino.  The cuts affect the ability of the Coast Guard to monitor and deal with marine pollution offences. As well, the safety of mariners could be affected.

Meanwhile, the entire contaminants programme within DFO has been shut down.  Nearly all of the DFO scientists studying marine toxicology across Canada are being laid off – 75 scientists. Dr. Peter Ross, a globally respected scientist from BC, recently dismissed from DFO, lamented, “The entire pollution file for the government of Canada, and marine environment in Canada’s three oceans, will be overseen by five junior biologists scattered across Canada – one of which will be in BC.”  (quoted in Times Colonist, “Ottawa sinks pollution checks,” May 20, 2012)

Most shocking, as the Prime Minister presses on to put super-tankers in the Hecate Strait, ranked by his own government as the fourth most dangerous body of water on the planet, scientific studies to determine DFO’s Centre for Off-shore Oil, Gas, and Energy Research (COOGER) is closing, ending work in progress in many areas, including a “Baseline Hydrocarbon Study in Hecate Strait.” It was studying impacts of oil and gas leaks, counter-measures for an oil spill, restoration of environment after any spill, among other key areas.

For Oceans Day, June 8, 2012, our Prime Minister is land-locked.

Green Party Leader Elizabeth May represents Saanich-Gulf Islands, B.C.
Originally printed in the Hill Times.

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Motion: That the House call on the Government of Canada to address on an urgent basis the needs of those First Nations communities whose members have no access to clean, running water in their homes; that action to address this disparity begin no later than spring 2012; and that the House further recognize that the absence of this basic requirement represents a continuing affront to our sense of justice and fairness as Canadians.

Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the hon. member for Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor. I want to take this moment to thank him, a member of another party, for quite magnanimously and generously making it possible for the Green Party to enter into the debate on this important opposition day motion.

We are concerned, as are all parties in the House, about the ongoing scandal of the failure of the federal government to ensure our fiduciary, legal and constitutionally required obligation to provide safe, clean drinking water to every person living within a first nations community. This is so fundamental, so constitutionally enshrined and so clearly something that we all share on all sides of the House, it is not only our legal obligation but also our moral obligation.

It is an ongoing scandal that disturbs the conscience of all Canadians when they realize that third world drinking water conditions exist right across this great and wealthy country, but in first nations communities almost exclusively.

I want to try to address the problem and propose some solutions as we discuss this issue in as non-partisan a fashion as possible

We recognize that the statistics on this issue are shameful. Only 27% of first nations enjoy drinking water that could be considered safe; 39% of drinking water supplies are judged to be of high risk; and 34% are judged to be of moderate risk. The first nations themselves have questioned these statistics collected by our Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development, which says these are collected in a bit of an arbitrary fashion but are the statistics we have.

In one month alone, in May of this year, there were 223 advisories and warnings in first nations communities, a statistic discovered by Canadian Press through access to information.

We recognize that the statistics, while dreadful, continue in the face of various governments. There is no question that previous Liberal governments and this Conservative government have made announcements, provided funding, and have said they would deal with this issue. Yet it remains an ongoing scandal.

I remember how shocked I was when a friend of mine who worked in a first nations community, Burnt Church, New Brunswick, described to me how the local hospital had to have water trucked in. That is how deeply we are failing first nations communities, that even a local hospital had to rely on trucking in bottled water because safe drinking water supplies were just not available.

What are the issues here? Some of them were discussed in a brief exchange between the hon. parliamentary secretary and the member for Edmonton—Strathcona. The member for Edmonton—Strathcona does have a long history on this issue, having authored a book on first nations governance around water issues.

Clearly we have to start finding a solution with fundamental respect for the rights, jurisdiction and responsibilities of first nations themselves. In the words of Grand Chief Shawn Atleo of the Assembly of First Nations, this was where the previous government legislation, which started in the Senate, Bill S-11, was so fatally flawed. It did not start with engagement that respected the rights and jurisdiction of first nations. We have to start with that.

The government has said in the past that it would enter into consultations with first nations to develop a water governance model that would work. To date we know there have been 13 engagement sessions that took place in 2009. That does not constitute the kind of full engagement with first nations governments that is required to really understand how we develop shared jurisdiction in this area, with a water governance model that will actually work. How do we develop that? It starts with talking to first nations about a shared model.

Once we respect first nations rights and jurisdiction, we then have to look at what they are saying about the problem. Grand Chief Shawn Atleo has said that there is a large capacity gap. In other words, we could impose regulations on first nations communities, but we have not addressed important holistic issues, respecting traditional knowledge, for example, attempting to support first nations in their communities through respect and government to government negotiations in order to create first nations water governance models that would actually work and are supported by enhanced capacity.

It is not all pipes that we need. It is more than that. It has to be holistic. We need to address the requirements in first nations communities.

Yes, we do need more money. That is going to be essential to providing any framework that works. We need water treatment systems. We need to develop those systems that make sense in the context of first nations communities, often in remote areas.

We need to stop polluting first nations water. This is pretty fundamental, but if someone lives downstream from a large pulp and paper mill that is not watching its effluent, if someone is downstream from the Athabasca tar sands, downstream from areas of pollution, or in the case of first nations communities where cranes lived all around and were surrounded by greater mercury contamination from the large hydro plants, there are going to be specific water pollution problems that are not simply bacteriological. It will not simply be dealt with through dealing with contamination in a bacteriological sense.

This holistic view starts with protecting water at source, ensuring there is capacity in first nations communities and ensuring we are respecting the rights and jurisdictions of first nations communities.

I am not trying to cast blame in any way here at all across party lines. It is important that on this issue, for once, we act in a non-partisan fashion that recognizes that, in a serial sense, there has been a serial failure here that is not something we can peg on one government or another.

It is something that speaks to who we are as a nation, that we come together, that we respect the primary responsibility that this is a governance issue where we are on somebody else’s territory. In a very real sense, anywhere in Canada we are on somebody else’s territory. However, specifically in first nations communities, those rights and responsibilities of jurisdiction cannot be abridged, cannot be ignored, cannot be conveniently treated as non-issues because we have decided we are going to put a particular type of water plant in and we are going to tell people how it is going to work.

We have had enough failures, as we know, with high tech water plants across Canada in non-indigenous communities that we should not be arrogant about this. The great failure of the Halifax water treatment plant comes to mind, after billions were spent. We need to approach this issue as a shared partnership to ensure safe drinking water for every first nations community.

Going forward from that, this day of debate and discussion in the House of Commons is an excellent start. We certainly have been admonished. We have been admonished by Sheila Fraser, as Auditor General, in her final statement to us as parliamentarians, that after years of filing reports pointing out the failure to deliver clean drinking water to first nations communities, she wonders if we can ever make any progress at all.

This is our moment. Let us not lose it. We are coming together. We agree on something. Let us work together on it.

My last thought goes to the question of drinking water in Canada overall. Now that we are addressing first nations drinking water in a non-partisan fashion across all parties in the House of Commons, can we not look at the larger question of how we regulate drinking water in general?

I may not be right about this, I just want to share this. I’m thinking out loud. Is there something wrong with the overarching framework of drinking water in Canada that we do not regulate the safety of drinking water in Canada? We regulate food safety. There have been various attempts in the Senate over the years to put forward a bill that would reclassify water as food, so that we would then regulate the safety of water.

We do not regulate the safety of water. We have federal government guidelines from Health Canada and when they are not being observed, there is no enforcement mechanism. Generally, enforcement for safe drinking water in Canada has been a process that involves media stories, headlines, and trying to get attention. Unless it is a desperate situation like Walkerton, sometimes drinking water standards, even in a non-first nations context, are not getting adequate attention.

Perhaps it is time that we address the need for a safe drinking water act that will reach all Canadian taps, all Canadian faucets, all Canadian homes. In doing that we will have created a federal framework within which the rights and responsibilities, and the appropriate jurisdictions of first nations can be respected as we augment the failures by providing significant resources to providing safe drinking water everywhere in this country, but particularly in that area of exclusive federal responsibility which we share with first nations on first nations reserves across Canada.

I am thankful for having the opportunity to speak to this. I look forward to questions.

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World Rivers Day is in partnership with the UN Water for Life Decade initiative with the goal of increasing public awareness and improving stewardship of  rivers.

Canada encompasses one of the Earth’s most freshwater-abundant regions, with 9% of the world’s renewable water.  “Fresh water is our lifeblood.  We must steward our  fresh water resources for this and future generations,” said May. “Sustainable communities need healthy watersheds.”

The Green Party is committed to responsible water stewardship. That  includes protecting watersheds from industrial and urban activities and  restoring those that have been damaged by such activities. We advocate a renewed federal government role in water management, focused on strong  regulations and programs created in collaboration with provincial and  municipal governments. When it comes to our vision for fresh water, the  Green message is clear: Keep it. Conserve it. Protect it.

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Seconded by Elizabeth May September 20, 2012

Click here for the full document.

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