At last, a federal water agency

Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 10/05/2023 (870 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

AFTER a rather long gestation — three and a half years — the recent federal budget gave birth to a bouncing baby Canada Water Agency (CWA). You may recall the 2019 Liberal campaign promise to create an agency, modelled on the previously eliminated Prairie Farm Rehabilitation Administration (PFRA), to provide coherence to federal freshwater expenditures and with a regional focus on agricultural water issues, particularly those related to climate change.

Terry Duguid, Liberal member of Parliament for Winnipeg South, was given the task of turning the notion into reality, a fairly straightforward assignment given the unusual clarity of the promise; at least one would think. Ottawa is spending billions of dollars on water-related programs scattered among more than a dozen departments with co-ordination and common direction lacking for all but a few of these. The guiding policy — federal water policy — was crafted in 1987 and has been a dead letter for at least a couple of decades. An academic study of federal water expenditures conducted in 2020 found it impossible to determine from public records exactly how much Ottawa was spending on water and for what specific purposes.

Of course, anyone expecting a rapid creation and operationalization of a Canada Water Agency would be reckoning without taking into account an Ottawa bureaucracy that suffers an allergic reaction to anything that promises to loosen central control in favor of the hinterlands. The virology lab in Winnipeg has long been the target of this tendency; and PFRA — the most successful federal water program ever — fell victim in spite of (or perhaps because of) being a model of co-operative federalism.

Needless to say, something that resembles PFRA was bound to trigger the tried-and-true reaction of the Ottawa mandarins to anything not viewed as being in their self-interest — delay and dilution. In the case of the CWA, this was neatly accomplished by a lengthy consultation process largely involving established water interests with a menu of competing issues and self-interests, many remote from the 2019 vision.

In spite of all this, Duguid — in a move that no doubt brought a smile to the face of Lloyd Axworthy — has not only created the agency but has managed to have it headquartered in Winnipeg! To some, this is simply modest political spoils, but it is of much more symbolic importance, signaling a regional and agricultural focus true to the original 2019 vision, not to mention that Manitoba is the focus, being downstream of everyone, of international and regional transboundary water issues.

Before we get too excited however, we should look at the details, in fact the only detail that matters — money. The paltry $8.7-million annual operating budget is disappointing. After all, as often as not policy follows the money rather than the other way round.

But let’s take a more positive view of what can sprout from this modest beginning.

On the policy front the agency’s mandate should be clearly articulated to include responsibility for: drafting a new federal water policy identifying water as the critical element in climate change adaptation; ensuring consistent application of this policy to all federal water programs; designating CWA as Canada’s lead agent for climate change adaptation; supporting and co-ordinating national water research; entering into agreements with provinces, individually or in regional groupings, addressing water issues, particularly those related to adapting agricultural water management systems to the effects of climate change; and, addressing water issues affecting Indigenous water interests and communities.

The budget’s parsimonious allotment to the CWA is capable of supporting only a very limited policy agenda. A meaty policy agenda needs the support of measures the feasibility of which is dependent only on political will exerted by elected officials. These include: transferring programs relating to flooding, water quality and quantity from the departments of Natural Resources and Environment and Climate Change to form a core competency; designating a portion of existing capital funds for agency partnerships; and, supplementing the agency’s core funding by redistributing existing water funding.

It appears that the CWA will be embedded in Environment and Climate Change Canada, reporting through that department’s chain of command. If this new entity is to avoid being slow walked into oblivion it needs a degree of independence that direct reporting to the minister can afford. In addition, and most importantly, the provinces have to get on board starting with its Manitoba home. As owners and managers of the resource provinces can revive the spirit of cooperative federalism so successfully practiced by PFRA by embracing this new partner.

Duguid hasn’t beaten the bureaucracy, but he has at least escaped alive. The CWA is located in the right place, the geographical center of Canada. Now those whom we elect to do our bidding need to provide it with the necessary political and financial muscle. Stay tuned.

Norm Brandson is the former deputy minister of the Manitoba departments of environment, conservation and water stewardship.