Water Diversion, Export and Canada-US Relations: A Brief History
Frank Quinn
September 09, 2007
- English
This paper, written by Dr. Frank Quinn on behalf of the Canadian Water Issues Council, makes an important contribution to the literature on Canadian water policy.
During his long and distinguished career in the Canadian Federal Department of the Environment, Dr. Quinn was closely involved with the water export issue. The topic of his paper is particularly timely, given current concerns about the possible implications on Canadian freshwater of deeper continental integration. Since 1960, the topic of water export has come to the fore on several occasions: when proposals for several water export megaprojects first surfaced in the 1960s, when the GRAND Canal proposal was promoted in the early 1980s, when the Free Trade Agreement with the U.S. was negotiated in the mid-1980s, and again when the North American Free Trade Agreement was negotiated in the early 1990s. On each of those occasions, the Canadian public reacted negatively to what they perceived as threats to Canada's water sovereignty posed by proposals to export of our water. The potential for water to be included in trilateral Security and Prosperity Partnership discussions reminds us that the issue of trade in Canada's water has not gone away, and may in fact, be more important than ever.
Dr. Quinn's paper presents an in-depth historical analysis of the water export issue, including the many complex factors that have led us to today's unsettled legal and policy regime.