Downtown advocates expect new federal water agency at Cityplace to help ease worker drought conditions in area By: Carol Sanders Posted: 7:33 PM CDT Friday, May. 17, 2024 Last Modified: 11:52 PM CDT Friday, May. 17, 2024 Updates

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A new federal agency is making its home downtown, and advocates for the city’s business community couldn’t be happier.

Although Winnipeg was named last year as the home for the Canada Water Agency, its location — at Cityplace — wasn’t made public until Friday.

“We’re always excited to welcome new offices downtown and government offices have a really important role to play in the downtown landscape,” said Rhiannon Hayes, director of policy and economic development at the Downtown Winnipeg BIZ.

“We’re always excited to welcome new offices downtown and government offices have a really important role to play in the downtown landscape”–Rhiannon Hayes

“Bringing workers back downtown is still so critical for downtown vibrancy. We know they’re grabbing coffee, running errands or meeting people for lunch. Small businesses are always happy to welcome more workers downtown.”

The location was announced by Winnipeg South MP Terry Duguid.

“It is extremely rare to have a major government department located outside the national capital region,” said the parliamentary secretary to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and special adviser on water.

The agency, which will begin operations in the fall, is in the process of hiring. About half of the expected 215-person staff will be working in Winnipeg, with the rest posted elsewhere, including Ottawa, Duguid said.

It’s a standalone entity— similar to Parks Canada and the Public Health Agency of Canada — and fully funded with $85 million over five years, he said.

The Canada Water Agency will be co-located with Environment and Climate Change Canada at Cityplace. The two agencies share a common interest and will be working together to protect and manage “our freshwater resources,” Duguid said.

Rather than a regulatory body, Canada Water Agency is a “collaboration, co-ordination and partnership agency (with) significant resources to work with that will actually improve water management in our watersheds,” he said.

It will draw on Manitoba’s experience and expertise on water issues, whether it’s spring flooding, blue-green algae on beaches, or ice jams on the Red River.

“Water is very, very important to us in Manitoba,” Duguid said. “Having this agency in the middle of the Prairies, where we have all of these water challenges, will make a real big difference.”

“Having this agency in the middle of the Prairies, where we have all of these water challenges, will make a real big difference.”–Terry Duguid, Winnipeg South MP

It’s expected to bring new investment, create new jobs and build on work being done in the field by organizations such as the Lake Winnipeg Foundation, International Institute for Sustainable Development and the Freshwater Institute.

Its goal is to bring together municipalities, provinces, Indigenous governments and groups and scientists in a co-ordinated way.

Duguid said the agency will have two very important priorities.

One will be administering the federal freshwater action plan — a 10-year, $650-million fund in the 2023 budget for watershed action on the ground.

That includes funds for Canada’s major watersheds, including the Great Lakes, Lake Winnipeg, Lake of the Woods and the Experimental Lakes Area in northwestern Ontario, which is managed by the International Institute for Sustainable Development located in Winnipeg.

The other is taking the lead in engagement and consultation on modernizing the Canada Water Act that’s more than 50 years old, he said. It was introduced in 1971 under then-prime minister Pierre Trudeau, “when climate change and Indigenous rights were not referenced in the legislation,” Duguid said.

Trudeau’s son Justin, the current prime minister, was also in Winnipeg Friday. The Canada Water Agency is aiming to restore support for freshwater resources dismantled by the former federal Tories, he said.

“This is a response to the Conservatives, who shut down the PFRA Prairie Farm Rehabilitation Act, which was all about protecting water across the Prairies,” Trudeau said at an unrelated event.

“This is a response to the Conservatives, who shut down the PFRA Prairie Farm Rehabilitation Act, which was all about protecting water across the Prairies.”–PM Justin Trudeau

“When Conservatives made cuts to the Experimental Lakes (Area), when they made cuts to freshwater supports… we saw for many, many years an under-investment and under-protection of water, which is why over the past years we’ve stepped up in significant ways in restoring science and research and are working closely with jurisdictions that are willing to work like Manitoba on protecting freshwater resources, dealing with invasive species and nitrification,” Trudeau said.

“We’re going to continue to work with our partners to make sure that Canada’s most precious resource — fresh water that we have more of than any other country in the world — continues to be there for future generations.”

The Canada Water Agency has been in the works since 2019, when the federal government said it would establish a water agency. The government said the agency was needed because the country is up against several challenges, including floods, droughts, and deteriorating water quality, which it blamed, in large part, to climate change. Online public discussions were held from late 2020 to March 1, 2021.

It was expected to launch this spring but was delayed by opposition Conservatives holding up passage of Bill C-59 that includes the Canada Water Agency Act that establishes it, Duguid said. He expects it to pass by the end of the month.

“We fought for that and we fought for that hard,” said Duguid. Locating the National Microbiology Lab and the Canadian Museum for Human Rights in Winnipeg also required a fight, he said.

“So now Winnipeg protects the health, the rights and, now, the waters of Canada.”

— with files from Kevin Rollason

carol.sanders@freepress.mb.ca