Proceedings of the Standing Senate Committee on
Energy, the Environment and Natural Resources
Issue 18 - Evidence - October 20, 2005
OTTAWA, Thursday, October 20, 2005
The Standing Senate Committee on Energy, the Environment and Natural Resources met this day at 8:40 a.m. to examine and report on emerging issues related to its mandate.
Senator Tommy Banks (Chairman) in the chair.
[English]
The Chairman: For the first order of business, I want everybody to note the message we received yesterday that Senator Spivak is about to receive an achievement award from the Sierra Club for her work over these many years. The event is next week.
Also, do not forget to congratulate Elizabeth May, Executive Director of the Sierra Club, for having been made the Order of Canada.
This meeting is devoted to continuing our study on western water questions. We are joined this morning by Red Williams, President of the Saskatchewan Agrivision Corporation, by Wayne Clifton, President of Clifton Associates Ltd., and by Graham Parsons, Vice-President of Clifton Associates Ltd.
We invited these gentlemen because some of us had an opportunity this summer in Regina to hear what they had to say about western water and we thought it was particularly cogent to our study.
Wayne Clifton, President, Clifton Associates Ltd.: We are pleased to be here and appreciate the committee extending the invitation.
The handout materials have been circulated. They include a copy of a PowerPoint presentation and a document entitled Water Wealth. Water Wealth is the executive summary of a major study prepared by Dr. Parsons for Saskatchewan Agrivision looking at the potential contribution of water to the wealth of Saskatchewan in particular but the Canadian Prairies in general. Also included are a document on priorities for water development in Prairie Canada and an executive summary of that document.
The Prairie vision is the opportunity to create the land of great prosperity: strong communities, strong industries, a diversified economy, plus a healthy environment. That is the vision we see for the Prairies, but there is a significant issue. The big issue is water.
We believe water is the next regional challenge for rural Saskatchewan, Alberta and Manitoba. Global climate change, as we will demonstrate, affects that region already, and a program is needed to manage how we, as Canadians, adapt to the world that is changing before us. There is no doubt at all that the world is changing.
Canada has adopted a strong Kyoto strategy to address global issues. We feel there needs to be a parallel strategy to address the regional issues for people living particularly in the water-short areas. We need a long-term regional response to sustain the economy and the environment.
A federal group, PFRA, has had a key role in —
The Chairman: Excuse me, Mr. Clifton, we have a fine. There is a pot over there in which we have to put a dollar every time we use an acronym without identifying it first.
Mr. Clifton: My tax money is not latent, I can see that.
Prairie Farm Rehabilitation Administration is an organization formed in the 1930s to assist the farm community and the agricultural industries to make a transition through the drought from early pioneer farming to modern water- managed agricultural methods. That organization was instrumental in drought-proofing the central Prairie economy and making it a viable industry.
While the Kyoto Protocol is identified clearly by the Canadian public as a federal response to climate change, there is no parallel effort in this region and the response to global warming is deemed to be distant from the public. We say there is a way to address that.
I have summarized, in the document, several key messages. Water is a critical resource in the central Prairie area. There is an opportunity to create a many-fold increase in benefits: social benefits, economic benefits, and environmental improvements from water.
The second key message is that climate change has, and will continue to have, a dramatic impact on that region. Because it is already a semi-arid climate, climate change will probably be noted earliest and will have a great impact in that area.
Third, Canada alone cannot prevent climate change. We have adopted national strategies in concert with the international community to address the climate change issue. That effort needs to be sustained. On top of that, a regional adaptation program is needed as well.
Fourth, 40 per cent of all Prairie river flow and water flow originates in Alberta. That province is the fastest growing part of the region and there is great pressure to use all available water in the economy and the economic development of that region. Distribution of water will become an ever-increasing regional issue.
Fifth, the public expects action from the federal government on global warming. An adaptation to global warming will take several generations and a start is required now. That start can only be provided by Canada. The provinces individually cannot provide the regional leadership required to oversee the technology, research and program implementation. It is a regional problem, a national problem, and it is not within the purview of provinces to be able to address it.
We know that the southern Prairies are water poor. Portions of the flow systems in that region are already over- allocated. The main stem of the South Saskatchewan River in Alberta is already 125 per cent allocated. In other words, it is allocated to 25 per cent over its allowable long-term base flow. Given the rate of growth in the region and the rapid expansion of cities such as Lethbridge and Calgary, that shortage will only be further aggravated.
We can expect the interprovincial distribution of water to become an increasingly sensitive political issue. We also know that the protection of the in-stream aquatic environment through maintaining sufficient flow in the rivers to support the aquatic ecosystems in the river valleys is in jeopardy, particularly in the South Saskatchewan River.
Water is key to a healthy region. It is key to the communities, to environmental preservation, and to maintaining a healthy economy where water is an essential component of the productivity system.
I will reiterate throughout my presentation that time is of the essence. One effect of climate change is that the long- term flow of the Saskatchewan River system has been trending downward throughout the century that it has been observed. It is statistically accepted that the flow is decreasing. The diminution of the icefields and snowpack at the higher elevations is real. There are examples of that in my document.
As those impacts become more apparent, the flow regimes of the rivers will change. Water released from melting glaciers and snowpack throughout the season will not be available in the same quantity as they were previously. It is time for Canada and the provinces to take management action to enhance nature.
The document speaks of the impacts of drought. Two out of ten years are drought years in the Prairie region, and droughts are economic killers. Drought eats up the equity of investors in industry and agriculture, pre-empts investment and makes economic progress difficult.
The consequences are felt not only in the rural areas. The work of Mr. Parsons shows clearly that 18 months after a drought on the Prairies that affects agriculture, there is significant job loss in urban areas. Therefore, drought is not only an agricultural problem but an economic and environmental issue for the entire region.
We have set out in our documents the makeup of the Prairie river basins, which are among the largest river systems on the continent. The river basins are home to almost 6 million people, partially in the fastest growing region in Canada. Those regions are water hungry.
There is no doubt that water and its management are the life blood of the entire Prairie region. Agriculture, oil and gas, mining and forestry are all large consumers of water and all of these sectors thrive when water is reliably available.
Our water resource is shared among the Prairie provinces and with the neighbouring states. It is a regional system and it must be managed on a regional basis in concert with our neighbours.
This issue is not only economic, and to illustrate that we highlight the Lake Winnipeg watershed. Lake Winnipeg is a threatened ecosystem. By some estimates, only the upper six or seven meters of the lake are currently alive. The deeper portions have become anoxic in some areas and are not productive. The system is threatened in part because of agriculture and other sources of nutrients flowing into the lake.
Lake Winnipeg is the sink for the majority of river systems in the southern Prairies. It extends almost to the Lakehead. It is a large sink and needs special management attention. That is another regional issue.
We have identified the climate change predicted by the latest modeling, which demonstrates that the Prairies are getting warmer and will continue to do so. It is predicted that it will get up to five degrees warmer in the next century, much of the increase coming within the next 40 to 60 years. That rise will increase evapotranspiration, change the flow base of the rivers and change land suitability for crops and vegetation.
The slide at the top left-hand side of page 6 shows the recession of the Bow Glacier, which is at the headwaters of the Bow River, west of Calgary. This slide shows where the toe of the glacier was in 1898. By 2002, it had receded well up the mountain, almost to the next watershed. It continues to recede and projections are that it may be almost totally gone within the next two decades. That is not a prediction of disaster. It is simply recognition of change that is taking place in the watershed that will continue to occur. That is consistent with other observed changes in Canadian ecosystems such as the melting of the Arctic icecaps and changes in other glacial caps in Canada.
The combination of warming, changes in river flows and population pressures will bring significant, ongoing, steady change to the Prairie region of Canada. Temperatures are predicted to become warmer and precipitation to be less reliable. There will be more big storms and more severe droughts. The growing season will likely be longer; soil moisture will be more variable, and generally less; and water flow in the rivers will be more variable. An important aspect is that there will be less storage in mountain areas in the snowcaps and snowpacks. In general, the weather will become more severe.
That is what has been learned from studying the Prairie water systems. This system is undergoing long-term change, usually in a way that will threaten ecosystems and the economy as we know it. Hence, we see the need for action that can be initiated only by the Government of Canada.
In 1972, the Prairie Farm Rehabilitation Administration, PFRA, completed a study on the Prairie river systems and published a document called the Saskatchewan-Nelson Basin Study. That study was the blueprint for development of the river system and usage of the water in an economic fashion. Although there were no specific plans, that study showed what could be done.
We embarked upon an era of capital investment in public works in Canada starting in about 1972. For the next several decades, we embarked on a program of social investment. In our view, it is opportune and necessary to study the Saskatchewan-Nelson basin again. That system is highly managed. There are a number of dams on it in each of Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta.
We strongly recommend reviewing the Saskatchewan-Nelson Basin Study with regard to today's engineering technology, today's environmental sciences, requirements for sustainable development, and as an economic instrument for the region. The study is important.
We also argue strongly in favour of balance. When you consider water and its essential role in sustainable development, you realize that there are multiple stakeholders. Those stakeholders are economic interests, those strongly in favour of sustained environmental conditions, and those who want to ensure there is water to sustain communities and clean water for people. Therefore, we recognize water is the one issue where there is a universal suite of stakeholders. They cover all spectrums and all interests in society.
Within that, we believe there are three strategic goals to creating water wealth in the region. Number one is healthy communities: Ensure that all communities have an adequate supply of potable water to supply families and industries, and to sustain communities.
Number two is the environment: to sustain natural ecosystems, sufficient water and sufficient flows.
Number three is economic interests: water to provide a sustainable source of water to support the economy, whether it is agriculture, industry, recreation or whatever. We do not know what economic development may come down the pike but we know that it is hard to foresee that water would not be a key component of any such development.
The major Prairie water issues from global warming are now becoming apparent. When you consider the abundance of evidence, there is increasing demand with the growth in the region, particularly in the headwaters on the Alberta side, and there are expanding cities and industries. Agriculture is adapting to drought through irrigation. All those things are increasing demand, but there is in the long term decreasing supply. The flow in all the river systems has been progressively decreasing. We do not expect that to change. In fact, as warming progresses and the evaporative loss increases, the supply will become less.
Pollution is an increasing concern, so maintaining quality in that era of decreasing supply and sustained effluent from cities and industry will become of greater concern. Finally, and probably foremost in many people's minds, is sustaining the aquatic ecosystems that currently exist in the lakes, river valleys and streams of the region. The ecosystems will change without some intervention.
There is a leadership role for Canada. The region was settled through policies of the federal government. It was instrumental in settling the area and adapting to changes that took place. The early farming methods that were adopted from Eastern Europe and Western Europe are not recognizable today. These methods resulted in severe erosion of topsoil and damage to the land. Canada, through PFRA and federal agriculture policies, was instrumental in changing the farming practices and water management, and in moving the region from decreasing return to stability in agriculture and industry.
Canada has facilitated adaptive change through PFRA, the agriculture research programs, and the National Hydrology Research Centre, which is resident in Saskatoon. The Agriculture Canada research stations have made immense contributions to management of the land base in the region; controlling erosion, bringing trees to the region, creating habitat and so on. These initiatives have been important.
Canada has invested in infrastructure. There are many dams and irrigation systems, most of which, in Saskatchewan and in early stages of Alberta, were established through federal investment. The Gardiner Dam has had a huge impact. The interesting thing about the Gardiner Dam is that the land base around Gardiner Dam is 15 per cent developed. Only 15 per cent of the land base has been developed compared with what was projected could be developed at the time the facility was constructed, so investment has stagnated.
The Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation initiated many programs regionally that initially funded or facilitated investment in the regional and community sewer and water systems. That was 50 years ago. The facilities are now reaching the end of their economic life, have to be rebuilt and are slowly being replaced. However, the Government of Canada had a major role initially in settling the region, in causing it to adapt to changing practices, and bringing in water management technology. Again, it is our view that only Canada can provide the comprehensive leadership required on this water and environmental issue in the region because the region encompasses much more than one province.
Therefore, we recommend a series of strategic thrusts. The first is establishing regional water planning and monitoring capability. Canada has been retreating from that activity at a high pace in the last two decades by closing monitoring stations, reducing data collection activities and turning it over largely to the provinces. As a result, in many watersheds and sub-basins, little data is being collected at this time.
I think it is fair to say that the Government of Canada's capability in that area is also eroding rapidly with retirements and turnover in the public service. The capability is not there and it has not been replaced in kind in the provinces. Thus, a technological capability in water management is being lost within Canada.
The roles for the federal government in our view are in planning and evaluation, infrastructure financing, education and research. We suggest those roles be managed by a regional water council — a council led probably by the federal government but incorporating the jurisdictions that are covered by those basins. That council may well include a water development fund to facilitate capital investment. The council would network with the province's universities and research centres.
A second strategic thrust is infrastructure investment and financing. A regional investment plan is needed to update the 1972 Saskatchewan-Nelson Basin studies and to prioritize investment in storage, distribution, treatment, ecosystem development and rehabilitation of existing works.
There is no ongoing investment program in water development in Western Canada. It is ad hoc and incorporates projects that are important to utilities, provinces or maybe one water authority, but there is no framework for investment in water in Western Canada.
An environmental management framework definitely needs to be established within the context of federal and provincial environmental protection regulations and legislation. Above all, it is important to do exactly what this committee is doing, which is conduct a public participation program to assess program alternatives and recommend those for investment. The national community is virtually silent on the water issue.
Strategic thrust number three is to protect the aquatic ecosystems by developing an aquatic ecosystem protection framework. What is important to the regions? What are the valued ecosystem components that should be sustained?
Establish minimum flow requirements to sustain aquatic ecosystems in lakes and rivers. At the moment in the most recent severe droughts, particularly in south Saskatchewan, there were times where it was feared there would not be sufficient flow to link the pools of water that remain in the basin so that fish and aquatic organisms could migrate up and down the system. It is important to have guidelines on what the minimum flows are to sustain the ecosystems.
Again, consult the public to gain input into and acceptance of those initiatives.
Finally, invest in education, research and development. There is a need to expand post-secondary programs directed to water management in this semi-arid region.
There are no programs at the moment that are focused in the way that they were several decades ago. There is a need to cultivate that in our institutions at both the graduate and post-graduate level, and to develop more highly qualified people with the skills to manage and develop water resources regionally and nationally.
There is an opportunity to consolidate and lead where there are federal assets in the research and development area in the region. The federal government has large and capable assets — from Agriculture Canada, the National Hydrology Research Centre Agriculture Canada research stations and the PFRA organization. There is an opportunity to give them a focus and direct them toward this major regional problem, to seek assistance that is available currently within the R&D community and to seek federal funding that is available. That component seems to be absent.
From a quick review of the initiatives that are being funded, we are funding a lot of high technology initiatives and many worthy causes. However, one worthy cause that seems to be absent from the funding profile is water management. There is an opportunity to refocus on that area.
Many decades of consistent future investment is required. That investment is not only in capital; it is also in human resources and knowledge creation.
There is a need for an immediate injection of public capital for a decade of activity to start an honest and sustained effort in water management and water development within the Prairie region. In the work that Mr. Parsons did, he estimated $10 billion of capital is required in the next 25 years to address pressing issues. That would not be public investment necessarily; a combination of public and private investment is needed to protect, conserve and develop water resources.
In summary, we are asking that Canada entertain a policy initiative that would be balanced to meet the needs of communities, the environment and the economy. We need an initiative that would address current and future water issues. It should include an urgent and pressing program that would allow adjustment to the global warming issues in the water initiative. Also, it should lead to improved regional water management and long-term planning research and training.
We believe that the Prairie region provides an opportunity for Canada to develop a regional model that may well apply to all regions of Canada. However, the test bed of the Prairie region is there and it is working already. The provinces and jurisdictions are already working in cooperation and are probably the most receptive that we can identify to undertaking such an initiative.
There is an opportunity for Canada to return to federal leadership in water. It was welcomed in that region during the settlement years. The need is as critical now as it was then and we think it would be welcomed again.
Time is of the essence. Water is a long-term issue that will require long-term regional solutions. It will not go away in one generation. It will require several generations, just as the impacts of global warming will take several generations to reach their maximum impact on the region.
While it is a long-term regional issue, immediate federal action is required. That concludes the formal part of the presentation.
Senator Cochrane: You have a tall order here for governments and for private enterprise.
My first question is what will we do about the public? They are not making the connection between climate change and the availability and distribution of fresh water. How will we get them to realize that they have to take action as well?
Mr. Clifton: They are clearly not making the connection. I will ask Mr. Parsons to comment, but this is an issue where public education is required. There is a massive role for our elected representatives and for the Senate of Canada. This committee is a wonderful vehicle for making the public aware that there is a connection and what the long-term trends are.
In the many consultations that we have, there is much goodwill. People do not want to borrow from their children's or grandchildren's future. There is much goodwill to make a difference but they are unaware of the issue.
Graham Parsons, Vice-President, International Development, Clifton Associates Ltd.: I will make two comments on that. At the extremes, they are aware of this issue in the sense that when there is a drought, all of a sudden it comes to the forefront. However, we should keep in mind that global warming is not just drought. It is also the Red River floods and the floods in Alberta this year.
Any long-term response on global warming does not mean anything to them. In emergencies, they want a response now. Interestingly enough, much of that response can avoid the most adverse effects of both floods and droughts, but only if we do something.
At public meetings we have had across the Prairies with farmers, groups, academics and whatever, there was a real concern about the quality of water, which was driven by Walkerton and North Battleford. No one wants to drink dirty water. In climate change, there is a possibility that these problems will increase.
There is also an understanding in large parts — more in the rural areas than in the cities, but even in the cities, that we are living in a dry part of the world and only by managing our water effectively can we come to grips with living there in a sustainable sense.
An awful lot of urban Prairie residents play in our managed waters. St. Mary's Dam is a big water playground for Calgary. This is true across the Prairies. That connection is coming slowly but we have to do much more work to explain why we need to manage the waters and how managing the waters gives us better protection for people and the environment. We are not close to that yet. Most discussions come up against an absence of information, because we shut down the monitoring stations; an absence of detailed investigations of what pollutants are in our waters; or an absence of a clear understanding of how much extra storage we would need to replace glacier loss. We have a huge void.
People on the Prairies are amenable to listening to and participating in these issues. As Mr. Clifton mentioned earlier, in the 1930s to the 1950s, the PFRA was a welcomed federal institution to adapt to the water problems. According to the polls of the day, it was the most loved federal institution in Canada. That no longer exists and we have a gaping federal void in this area.
Senator Cochrane: On page 2 of your presentation you mentioned that only Canada can provide the comprehensive leadership that is required. As well, you talked about an action plan. What do you envision for this action plan? Do you have priorities among the many things on your wish list.
Mr. Parsons: Absolutely: First, there is an institutional framework. The federal government's water response is all over the map and someone has to pull it together in a coordinated way. Having a Prairie regional council on water for the whole of the Prairies, or Western Canada, makes a great deal of sense.
Second, the simplest starting point is to revisit the Saskatchewan-Nelson Basin studies and have them redone in the context of global warming and the changes in hydrology and precipitation that will come as a result of that.
Third, we need to move forward with irrigation because it is absolutely critical to the future of rural Canada. Dry- area farming is losing money year after year and yet farming is the fabric of Canada. Thus, irrigation becomes a major part of the solution.
It would fall out of each of these broad areas that we have talked about. Those basic starting priorities would make sense to both the people and governments.
Senator Cochrane: I do not understand. Are organizations such as PFRA, Agriculture and Rural Development Act, ARDA, and Horticulture Research Institute, HRI, still operational?
Mr. Parsons: PFRA is now a part of Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, although it used to be far more independent with its own legislation and deputy minister who reported directly to the minister. It was active with the western Prairie caucus in its day but those days are gone. Currently, PFRA is a branch of government. As well, ARDA, is no longer.
The National Hydrology Research Centre, NHRC, exists in Saskatoon but if you talk to the people there, and federal water people in Lethbridge, you will find that there is no focus or coordination in terms of the current big water policy issues and the practical issues.
Senator Cochrane: What do they deal with?
Mr. Parsons: They research various numbers of items on the basis of their reduced funding. For example, some work is done on glacier melt flow. There is no coordinated way to bring this information together in a package. You have huge federal resources in water, and you have been writing federal water policies since 1987 with the Pierce report. There has been policy after policy but nothing is happening on the ground these days.
Senator Cochrane: I would like to come back to this on the second round, Mr. Chairman.
Senator Gustafson: First, I enjoyed your presentation, which is most timely. You mentioned the economic reality of the situation. For 20 years now, rural Saskatchewan, Alberta and Manitoba have supported continuous cropping as an environmentally sound method of farming. Because of the commodity prices that do not cover the input costs, all the farmers say that they will return to summer fallow, which will put them back to the era of the European investment in North America. I do not want to be political about this but Canada is too slow in responding to reality. No one is even saying anything about that yet. We have Durham wheat at $1.71, flax at half the price it was one year ago and canola at $5 when it was $10 one year ago. What can a farmer reap from those crops? We are in a critical mess in agriculture, which relates here. In Weyburn, Saskatchewan, the Weyburn Security Company farm sold all its dry land and bought land around Lethbridge with irrigation. By the time the water gets out of Alberta, there is none left; and you know that.
There is tremendous economic development in that province. Could you comment on that?
Mr. Clifton: Drive the corridor from Medicine Hat to Lethbridge, north to Calgary and then from Weyburn through Regina to Outlook, Saskatchewan. You will notice a significant difference. One is heavily developed and prosperous and the other is emptying at a high rate. The rural areas of the Prairies are emptying out; there is no doubt about it. We have gone from 300,000 farms to 50,000 farms in Saskatchewan only. Policies are directed at perhaps 15,000 farms.
Senator Gustafson: You have seen nothing yet.
Mr. Clifton: That is right. Now, as we hear about what dry land agriculture has to address in the coming year with increasing inputs, we realize that it is a disaster scenario. In our view, the only way to sustain the rural prairie environment is to get water to the Prairies. Mr. Parsons can quote you the dollars per hectare of the economic return of dry land versus irrigated land. It is about 10 times the economic return for irrigated agriculture in Alberta versus dry land agriculture in Saskatchewan. It is almost an order of magnitude. You do not have to do much predicting as to which direction the economic activity will flow. The stresses on maintaining the rural Prairies are greater than I can ever recall them being, and they are increasing rapidly. Absolutely, water is a key element in arresting the ``emptying out'' and in bringing an economic future to the region.
Mr. Parsons: I have a comment on that as well. On the back of the water wealth document, senators will see a small map that shows the irrigation areas and the associated employment.
The Medicine Hat-Lethbridge corridor in Southern Alberta has totally transformed that area, and it is partly the security of the water supply. If you have secure water supply, then you have secure crop supply. If you have secure crop and animal supply, then in turn you have a basis for processing, and those are the jobs that you see on these maps.
Saskatchewan has an identical opportunity because it has the water in Lake Diefenbaker but, for a whole variety of reasons that we have identified in a number of other papers, it has not been developed in Saskatchewan. The federal government built the dam and the lake. The downstream work was meant to be done by the province and, for largely political reasons, from my historical view of the situation and my personal correspondence with a number of people who were actively involved at the time, it did not happen.
In my view, there is a national interest in retaining rural Canada. The rural Prairies are the biggest farm part of rural Canada, and they are on the edge of falling apart. Dry land economics will not sustain rural Canada in the Prairies. We need the kind of development we have seen between Medicine Hat and Lethbridge extended across a much wider area. That is why I put irrigation and everything that goes with it as a critical piece of any water policy in the West.
The Chairman: Would you explain how irrigation, which uses up water, is part of the solution?
Mr. Parsons: Water, for the most part, flows into Saskatchewan from Alberta, and then it doubles in terms of what is collected in the province and then moves out. You can meet all the in-stream needs and have lots of water left over to irrigate somewhere between 1 million and 4 million acres in Saskatchewan alone. There is, in fact, lots of water available.
Management of the water and the number of storage facilities on the water systems in the Prairies may have to be developed. There was examination, for example, on the Meridian Dam. It was rejected. However, it was rejected on narrow evaluation terms. In practice, there likely will be a requirement for more storage. In terms of storage currently in Lake Diefenbaker alone, the simple development of the water from Lake Diefenbaker and its use will provide a major opportunity. The water is there. We have looked at the numbers. Somewhere around 15 million cubic decalitres of water flows into the province in the south, and 37 million cubic decalitres flows out. At most, we would use 2 million or 3 million for irrigation.
In Saskatchewan, there is an excess of water. In Alberta, there is a deficit of water. In Manitoba, there is a surplus of water as well, but some of it is in the wrong place.
The Chairman: You are the first person who has ever told us there is lots of water. I think we will come back to that. The list of questioners is long, so I will not allow supplementary questions.
Senator Angus: My first question has been partly answered, but it is important.
Senator Cochrane raised the issue of communication. You have outlined a critical, long-term, ongoing problem. You suggest it is a national problem, although it is located regionally. You are asking for national support to fix it.
I had breakfast this morning with a senator from Saskatchewan. I was rushing to get here for 8:30. He said, ``Why are you in such a rush? I want to talk to you.'' I said, ``I am going to look at a problem that is important to you. You live in Saskatoon. This is about water. We have these gurus, Red Williams and Wayne Clifton, who are coming to talk to us.'' He said, ``Who the hell are they? Water? We have no problem with water. We have had rain, and the water table is practically coming up into my kitchen sink. We have never had so much water.'' My friend Senator Gustafson told me that Saskatoon had the highest flow of water in history this year.
I told my colleague from Saskatoon that I am just a poor little guy from eastern Quebec, but I thought it was a big problem. This committee was in Calgary in March. In Alberta, they told us, of course, the things you have mentioned about the receding glaciers and mismanagement, if you will, of the flows of the river system and the ecosystems.
We were also told that whatever the problem is, it cannot be reversed. It can be stopped, but we cannot go back. Do I have that right? In other words, if it is bad now, that is too bad, but let us try to at least arrest it.
Mr. Clifton: Absolutely.
Senator Angus: I think that is why our chairman invited you here. We are aware there is this situation, and we are interested in knowing how to fix it. As he said, this is the first time we have heard that there is lots of water. We are interested in specific solutions.
In that regard, I have a problem, because almost everything you suggested — one has to paint with a broader brush here because of time — seemed to me to be provincial jurisdiction. We read about these vast gazillions of dollars in Alberta. You have said it is also an Alberta problem, not just Saskatchewan or Manitoba. Why and how do you expect to get sympathy at the federal level. The problem is not even known by senators in your own region. You mentioned that the feds built a lake and a dam, but the local people did not do their part.
In terms of publicity and helping you draw attention to the problem, we are in a position to do that, and it is incumbent on your federal MPs to get up to speed on it. Senator Banks is also from Alberta.
I will probably have difficulty subscribing to recommendations that involve major federal spending to fix a problem that is clearly within the provincial jurisdictions. One of the provinces is richer than the whole federal government, we are told.
Mr. Clifton: There are two components to that. First, the Saskatoon situation and the High River situation in Calgary this year are symptomatic of the changing environment in which we exist. Yes, the Saskatoon River and the Bow River had record high flows, but those flows all escaped. They are gone.
Senator Angus: Where?
Mr. Clifton: That water is now in Hudson Bay.
Senator Kenny: Some water is still in basements in Calgary.
Mr. Clifton: When they get that pumped out, it will end up in Hudson Bay, too. Part of the problem is that do not have in-stream storage to hold that water for beneficial use. That storage was previously provided by the snow-packed glacier. That is not there. The obvious solution is to focus on developing in-stream storage — more dams and more reservoirs to hold the water — and release it more slowly, because we know we will get a higher degree of variation that we have ever had. That prediction seems to be coming true.
The second component is the inter-provincial nature. The rivers do not end at the boundaries. You notice we have said ``leadership.'' Leadership from the federal government is vital. Money from the federal government would also be appreciated. It seems to us that the only jurisdiction that can lead here is the Government of Canada, because it is the only transcending jurisdiction that can take into account and integrate the regional interests. The rest will be parochial. They are interested between their borders. From our conversations with the elected folks, they are looking for help too.
C.M. (Red) Williams, Agrologist, President, Saskatchewan Agrivision Corporation Inc.: I would like to expand on that. Alberta can solve its water problems by itself. However, everyone else would suffer as a result, and that is not acceptable. There are serious considerations to reducing the flow to Saskatchewan according to the 1969 agreement.
Further to what Senator Gustafson said, the Prairies is not an isolated area that we can cut loose and set adrift in the Pacific Ocean. It is an integral part of Canada. If we do not produce product in Saskatchewan, industries in Ontario and Quebec will die. One hundred billion dollars of GDP is based on Prairie grains. If you try to make this a national issue, that is the issue.
Senator Angus: I am glad to have elicited that. You have an issue right now with Devil's Lake. The federal government has jurisdiction, and we have the International Joint Commission.
I asked a sincere question about jurisdiction and priorities. We hear every day about big problems with regard to energy. Should we go to nuclear? What about the Kyoto agreement and the environmental elements? You touched on all that with a broad brush. I can see that there is a big problem, and not only in the Prairies. We have other water problems in Canada, which this committee is trying to comprehend. That is why we welcome experts such as you to explain this to us.
With the fragile federation we have in Canada, issues in one area raise quasi-political issues in another area. I was struck by your desire for Big Brother and Big Government to help. I did not hear anything about the private sector and I heard about a lot of negligence by local authorities.
Mr. Parsons: From a technical legal point of view, the federal government has jurisdiction over international rivers and it has a role to play in rivers that cross provincial boundaries. Provinces would welcome a re-entry of the federal government into this field. These are watersheds, and the watersheds do not give a damn about provincial jurisdiction.
Senator Angus: I realize that. You talk about the Lake Winnipeg sink, which I find fascinating. You said that one of the largest river systems in the world ultimately ends up in Senator Spivak's backyard, including Devil's Lake. You got my attention with that because the people in Manitoba, particularly in the area of Lake Winnipeg, are the ultimate potential losers in this.
Mr. Clifton: In any jurisdiction but Canada, Lake Winnipeg would be a great lake. It is a huge water body.
Senator Angus: You are saying it is gradually dying?
Mr. Clifton: Yes, it is.
Senator Angus: That is without Asian carp and such things that are coming into the Great Lakes.
Mr. Chairman, I recognize there is a big problem and that we can play a leadership role. However, I think you understand the genesis of my question. I agree that there is federal jurisdiction here, which is found right in the Constitution with regard to interprovincial issues. There is an issue there.
The Chairman: There is, and I want to have that issue addressed more fully than it has been.
I ask everyone to look at the map on the back of the document entitled Water Wealth to which Mr. Parsons referred earlier. For decades the federal government has had those responsibilities in the three provinces shown on that map. However, the development of the use of the water, which is otherwise going off to Hudson Bay, where it is wasted in terms of the Prairies, simply stops at the Alberta border.
I would like you to answer Senator Angus's question more directly. What is the matter with Saskatchewan, and what is the matter with Manitoba? One assumes that federal participation has been the same all across the board, and it stops at the border. Why is the solution to the problem of wasted water not a provincial one?
Mr. Parsons: I will give you two answers. The first is a straight political answer. I did a lot of work on water in the 1980s. I wondered why this huge body of water in the middle of Saskatchewan was not being developed. Irrigation farmers get richer, because they have more stable incomes, and richer farmers vote right, not left.
Senator Milne: They are not voting left now.
Mr. Parsons: They are not now. This is the most credible historical rationale that I have heard.
If I pursue that to the current barriers, we have had provincial legislation on irrigation districts in Saskatchewan that is completely different from the legislation in Alberta. The legislation in Saskatchewan constrained the farmers; it kept them small and poor. They could not borrow. That was a big piece of the problem. We had a dripping tap of programs that we switched on and off. In Alberta, programs were stable that went on year after year. In Saskatchewan, trees are growing in the middle of irrigation canals because the canals have not been used. In Alberta, those same canals were rehabilitated. The list is long and the detail is in the report, Water Wealth.
It is a symptom of there being no focus on irrigation as a major water development opportunity in the province, by the province, because it did not fit the politics of the day.
The Chairman: It sounds as though, to a large extent, it is not a federal government problem but a provincial government problem.
Mr. Clifton: In fairness, Saskatchewan has responded when the federal government has led. In other words, when money is on the table that they can share, Saskatchewan has responded. However, in the absence of an investment framework, it is not something Saskatchewan initiates independently.
Senator Spivak: I would like to return to the question the chairman raised. You spoke about irrigation and a surplus of water in Lake Diefenbaker and Lake Winnipeg, which, by the way, is in worse shape than the Great Lakes were in my province, and only belatedly is the government looking at that. In the future, if that flow does not come, how will we maintain Lake Diefenenbaker and Lake Winnipeg? We will not have them.
The second issue is with regard to irrigation. Israel has created wonderful land out of a desert through irrigation technology. They do not waste a drop of water. Have we learned from that or do we still assume that we have immense resources and do not need that technology?
Mr. Parsons: Both of those areas are important. To take the first one, in terms of the flow of water, we anticipate that global warming will give us more water but at different times. It will not come off the snow melt and the glaciers slowly, but we will get big storms, and they will dump more water. The question is: How do we trap that water and use it? It used to be trapped for us nicely through the winter and it would come out in the snow melt in the spring.
We have a changed hydrology of Prairie river systems. We have to understand that more and we probably have to increase storage substantially.
The question of using better irrigation methods is absolutely crucial. Irrigation is going gangbusters in Alberta. I met last week with David Hill who runs the Alberta Irrigation Projects Association. He just came back from Israel. Part of the problem across the Prairies is the archaic forms of water rights that allow for irrigation that is wasteful. We can probably irrigate better.
If you move from flood to pivot, you save at least half the water. If you go from pivot to drop pivot, once again, there are huge savings. If you go to drips, you save even more. We can irrigate a lot more acres, but the incentives to upgrade that technology must be there. It is moving forward rapidly in southern Alberta and in Saskatchewan; in Manitoba, it is virtually dormant.
Senator Angus: Is that a federal problem?
Mr. Clifton: The R&D component is up to the federal government to support. There is virtually no support for developing R&D at the provincial level anywhere. The agricultural research stations have been important in soil, moisture conservation and technology developments. It is not a federal problem, but it is certainly an area where the federal government has provided the leadership to adapt. There is an investment issue here, things like R&D tax credits and how investment in technology is treated from a tax perspective. Certainly, the federal government can do many things to provide incentives to investors.
Mr. Parsons: There is a federal agricultural policy issue of major substance here in a sense that the federal government has certain goals for agriculture in Canada and for agriculture exports from Canada. The best agricultural farm land around our cities continues to disappear as the cities grow over it. It will have to be produced from someplace to keep the current level of agricultural exports in place.
It will not come from dry land. Agricultural production will have to increase from somewhere, and it will likely be in irrigated agriculture. Most of the world believes that the only way to feed ourselves is to irrigate.
Senator Spivak: From what you say, probably the most serious problem is the disappearance of the institutional capability at the federal level. I am familiar with that because it happened in the experimental lakes area. That was the fault of an absolutely stupid and criminally minded deputy minister. It is true: I happened to be right there.
Is the more fundamental problem the lack of analysis on the part of the federal government? They want exports, but they are not looking at the environmentally solid foundation in many ways to keep that thing going. That is a terrible failure of intelligence. I do not know how you solve that.
Mr. Parsons: In our view, in both our assessment of Saskatchewan and our assessment of the Prairie border issues, there is a major set of institutional gaps. In the federal government, you have at least 22 players. They meet frequently, but they never actually do anything apart writing policies. Policies that do not get translated into rural programs in my view do not mean anything. You are talking to somebody who rewrote PFRA's legislation in the 1970s. I worked in the Ministry of State for Economic and Regional Development in Canada. I have worked at various levels in both the federal government and the provincial governments in Canada.
This is why we recommend something such as a water council, because it gives the authority at the highest levels within a federal system to bang those heads together, bring them together and focus on the things that matter. I have seen it work in the past. I have seen it work with the Minister of State for Economic and Regional Development; I saw it happen with the Department of Regional Economic Expansion, DREE. I have seen it happen in various ways. If we ask Agriculture Canada and Environment Canada, they will talk from now until doomsday about how to get on with the water issues. I do not think they will get there. They have not for the last 15 years.
Senator Spivak: They used to say that war was too important to leave to the generals. It seems to me our lives are too important to leave to the politicians. We need a movement, and that is what you are talking about. Thank you.
Mr. Clifton: I think you put your finger on an important issue. The Government of Canada has progressively retreated from a whole series of issues related to the land base in Canada, including water. It will be difficult to find capability within the federal public service to address water management issues because strategically that is an issue that Canada has largely withdrawn from, leaving it to provincial jurisdictions.
Part of the debate here concerns whether this a provincial or federal responsibility? As with so many files in Canada, it is clearly a shared responsibility. In many areas, we rely on Canada to lead.
Senator Spivak: If we put a few people such as David Schindler of the University of Alberta and you in charge of a regional Prairie council, things would happen.
Senator Angus: With you as the chairman.
Senator Christensen: There are many things to look at here. Thank you, gentlemen, for being here. I appreciated your presentation while in Regina.
Page 5, the first slide, highlights what we will deal with. This ecosystem is complicated. We are going into global warming. How that is handled and how it ends up we can speculate. We will be looking at excesses, too much and too little, probably more on the ``too little'' side. We are dealing with a resource that, in some cases, there is too much of it. Overall, in the long term, we will be dealing with too little of it.
We have talked about wasted water. I think the only wasted water is the water that we as humans waste by contaminating it. All the other water runs into the ocean and that recharges our systems to return water back to the mountains again. It is not wasted water when it goes into the ocean.
In your presentation, you talked about the 15 per cent development of the dam. What further development do you see on that dam? What are you talking about that it is only 15 per cent developed?
Mr. Clifton: That is, 15 per cent of the irrigable land base has been developed.
Senator Christensen: The rest has not been touched yet?
Mr. Clifton: The interesting thing is that the fertility of that land and the climate is superior to the land that has been irrigated in southern Alberta. Even though Saskatchewan is economically and climatically more suitable for irrigation, it has not happened in central Saskatchewan.
Senator Christensen: When we look at the history of irrigation, over the long term minerals deposited in the land through irrigation often deplete the land and make it unarable. I am talking long term.
Mr. Williams: That goes back to Senator Spivak's comments. Irrigation, too, particularly in the flood irrigation systems, leads to excess salts. Water goes down, hits bedrock or a layer and rises up again, bringing salts with it if the soils have excess salts in them.
The newer methods do not lead to that because only enough water is used to fill the soil moisture requirements. That has been resolved. I would not say it is a myth, but it is one —
Senator Christensen: A lot of that water brings its own minerals with it, along with excess from other farms above and so on, so that the water itself brings things that are not desirable.
Mr. Parsons: To give you an explicit example, the Riverhurst Irrigation District, which is a high-pressure irrigation district around Lake Diefenbaker, has less salinity today after irrigation than it had before irrigation. Second, those things that are added to the water during irrigation should be limited ideally to those that the plant requires, in the high tech irrigation systems.
In what I will call ``old-style irrigation,'' which was the foundation for a lot of these environmental problems around the world, flood irrigation was often used. Irrigation was not closely controlled or monitored. We find today, particularly in southern Alberta, which has some of the most sophisticated water and additive monitoring systems in the world — as good as anything in Israel — that the plants take up almost all those additives. Any additional additives are wasted, from a farmer's point of view. Farmers do not want to buy them; they only want to add those substances that the plant essentially needs. We want the highest tech irrigation in the world and that, in turn, is fully consistent with improving the soil base and not depleting it.
Many other areas go along with this as well. When we irrigate, we usually add to the structure of the soils and strengthen them. From that point of view, the soils become able to retain more moisture.
It is true that there is a lot of conventional wisdom that irrigation is bad. The evidence, particularly the recent evidence, shows the opposite.
Senator Christensen: So there is a long-term sustainable type?
Mr. Parsons: Our best bet for long-term sustainability in many respects on prairie soils is for higher tech sustainable irrigation.
Senator Christensen: The other issue is the development — if you look at the older studies — of more storage capacity. You can only store what comes down. If nothing comes down, there will be water there for a while but it is not being recharged. You will have empty dams.
You are looking at the present system; and the system we have used ever since we developed Canada is glaciers slowly melting every summer and bringing down the water. Those glaciers are not recharged every winter. They have been developed for thousands of years, so it is a huge, long-term storage that has developed and we are benefiting from it.
Again, we are looking long term, because this problem is long term; if we do not deal with long term now, we will not get there.
How do you see that with global warming, which we have to admit is a reality? How do you develop more storage on the Prairies in the long term replacing what we have now in the glaciers? I do not see us making more glaciers.
Mr. Clifton: The total amount of water is adequate to serve the Prairies. In Saskatchewan right now, we use about 2 per cent of the total flow of the rivers and the watersheds. There is an abundance of water. Having it in place at the right time is critical.
The only alternative we have been able to identify to having it in place at the right time is building more dams and reservoirs. It is there that you capture the storm run-off. It is held through the growing season and all year long to maintain riparian flow and enough flow to maintain the aquatic environment in the rivers.
By the way, the public appetite for dams appears to be changing. In northwest Saskatchewan and east central Alberta, there is a strong push to develop a dam on the North Saskatchewan River. Two decades ago, that absolutely would not have happened, but there is a strong push from the communities themselves.
Senator Milne: Where is that?
Mr. Clifton: It is the Highgate Dame in North Battleford.
The public is starting to recognize that they cannot live with that great variability in water supply and water quality.
Saskatchewan has a huge oversupply of water. North Saskatchewan has 100,000 lakes, some of which are purer than distilled water in the laboratories. This area has some of the purest water in the world and it is largely not utilized.
Is there a resource there to be used beneficially? Absolutely.
Senator Christensen: My last comment, and I would like you to comment on it, is that our highest priority at this time is to find ways of keeping our water pure so we have 100 per cent pure water for industry, private use, municipal use or whatever. We do not have pollution if we keep all our waters pollution free and start from that point.
Mr. Parsons: It is clear that watershed protection to keep pollutants out is a crucial piece of any water strategy.
However, in the dry Prairies, adequate water supply through our rivers is also crucial. For example, the water in large dams is much cleaner than running straight through the rivers, believe it or not, from a human consumption point of view. Water settles to the bottom in dams, but it is also protected at the bottom and it cleans.
The Prairie river systems in the south are already highly regulated in the sense that they have many dams and many diversions. Inter-basin transfers, which everyone says is a heresy, are already a reality in the southern Prairies. Water is diverted out of Lake Diefenbaker into the Qu'Appelle system; it is an inter-basin transfer. The Qu'Appelle system of lakes and rivers would look extremely sick today if they did not get a large amount of water out of the South Saskatchewan River system, which would not normally be there. When Henry Hind explored in the 1800s, there was no diversion, although he pointed out it would be possible to do it.
Senator Christensen: That is an Arctic watershed.
Mr. Parsons: They are both in the Saskatchewan-Nelson basin system. Eventually it comes back. There is potential to move some of it even further.
The storage that we need to replace glaciers probably has to be dramatically increased. How much? We do not know exactly. We would need to redo the Saskatchewan-Nelson basin studies to get a good sense of that. More storage will be needed and more inter-basin movements may be needed. That will be part of the reality if we want to live in the Prairies.
Five or six million of us who live there think it is a pretty good part of the world. Many civilizations around the world have been able to live in arid regions for centuries by appropriately managing waters. We cannot let global warming push us out.
Mr. Clifton: To follow up on your comment on water quality, it is an essential issue. Governments cannot ensure water quality. Only users can and people who discharge. At other times, we have advocated strongly for a change in the regulatory environment.
Canada could use an environmental code that clearly spells out the responsibilities of users of water and the quality of water they discharge, as opposed to simply regulation. We agree entirely. The water is there to be used but has to be returned to the basin in a quality that the next user can benefit from as well.
Senator Tardif: I am from Alberta. What is the impact of the oil and gas industry on water availability in Saskatchewan and the rest of the prairies? Are there interprovincial agreements between, for example, Alberta and Saskatchewan on water management and availability or is this a federal jurisdiction area? What is the interest of the private sector in investing, because this sector is making a lot of money from oil and gas? Is there any investment from the private sector in infrastructure, supporting some of these dams, and even in the research component?
I know the oil and gas industry has a huge impact in Alberta because it takes, in some extraction processes, a lot of water. That is becoming an issue in Alberta as well.
How does this affect Alberta as it continues to grow and benefit from that water availability? What are the areas of cooperation, if any, between governments on this matter and the role of the private sector as you see it?
Mr. Clifton: Oil and gas is currently the number 3 user behind agriculture. Agriculture is by far the greatest user. The oil and gas industry has moved progressively from surface water consumption to ground water consumption. The majority of water consumption now in production is ground water.
Senator Tardif: What does this mean exactly?
Mr. Clifton: They are taking from wells as opposed to lakes and rivers. The reason is that often there is not a surface water supply near the well fields.
Mr. Parsons can speak at length about the interprovincial agreements, but Saskatchewan and Alberta have adopted a joint or common protocol on management of water for the oil and gas industry.
The industry has voluntarily come forward with quality initiatives and use-limiting initiatives. The industry has gone to extreme measures to treat supplies that would be too mineralized for normal consumption. They are skilled in treatment processes to make the water suitable for steam injection and other processes.
They have voluntarily moved away from surface water to wells and ground water. There is a common protocol. They are focusing on lower quality water wherever possible.
Mr. Parsons: Let me add to that.
Across the Prairies is a thing called the Prairie Provinces Water Apportionment Agreement where, between each province, they agree to move half their water to the next province.
That works reasonably well. However, the board managing the agreement has been consistently stripped back. Its resources have been primarily from Environment Canada and they have been removed systematically. The monitoring the board used to do has again been reduced to border monitoring. This is no longer enough to do what is needed.
On the investment front, you raise an interesting point. When we did the work in Saskatchewan last year, I did a major review of water investments around the world.
There is a great deal of private sector investment in water facilities, dams and reservoirs. You see a degree of that now in Alberta with respect to private investment in water canals and irrigation-owned utility companies.
There is none of that in Saskatchewan. All the dams are owned by the public sector in Alberta, Manitoba and Saskatchewan. It is not part of our culture in Canada. Water has been a publicly delivered good. This is not true of New Zealand, where there are many private dams. Arrangements are made and they are regulated, but the capital infrastructure is put in by somebody else.
The closest we get in many respects to our major water investments lies with Manitoba Hydro and with the power utility, SaskPower, who obviously pay for the dams they generate electricity with. The dams are owned by the state. The dams in southern Saskatchewan and southern Alberta were built by the federal government, PFRA, and have been transferred back to provinces.
Senator Tardif: Is the board you spoke of a federal one?
Mr. Parsons: The Prairie Provinces Water Board is a federal-provincial board and has representatives from the three Prairie provinces. The federal government acts as its administrator. It is located in Regina and its current director is Wayne Dybvig. It administers the agreement and, during drought times when flow looks as though it might not be adequate, it tries to resolve how that will be worked out.
The agreement has been in place. It is naive and simplistic, and there is probably potential to improve it.
This agreement does not make a lot of sense. For example, when there is a huge drought in Southern Alberta and it is raining in Saskatchewan, why do you need to put half of a smaller amount of water across the border and vice versa. There has to be more flexibility if our water flow becomes far more variable under global warming.
Senator Tardif: This would not be the Regional Council's idea?
Mr. Parsons: We think the boards of the Prairie Regional Council and the Prairie Provinces Water Board could become part of the same thing and it would strengthen the regional council to have this role.
Senator Milne: Remind me after the meeting to talk to you about the Common Agricultural Policy, CAP, and what has recently happened in the Council of Europe about it.
I was interested to hear you say there is much water in Saskatchewan. It has always been my intuitive reasoning that the only way we would solve the problem about dry land farming on the prairies was to gradually move to better methods of irrigation, rather than more irrigation: more efficient methods of irrigation and gradually start to move into crops using less water if we are going to sustain agriculture in the prairies.
It is interesting to hear you say the water is there and not being used properly. Lake Diefenbaker has 15 per cent of the available irrigated land around it.
The nub of your presentation is when you come to the strategic thrusts on page 10.
Concerning strategic thrust number 4, education, research and development, Mr. Clifton said there are no post- secondary programs that now exist as they did 10 or 20 years ago.
Is the reason they do not exist because there are no jobs available for people who graduate from those programs?
It seems to me strategic thrust number 4 should be strategic thrust number 1, because you will not have research and development unless you have the basic education to begin with.
Mr. Clifton: That is perceptive and absolutely spot on. In the era I graduated in, I graduated in engineering, and civil engineering investment was very strong until the time when Canada took the path of social investment. We essentially ended the investment era in public works in the early 1970s. The demand for skills in hydrology and civil engineering from the dam-building era dried up. Simply put, there was no market. The whole set of people with water management skills around that sphere of technology retired, and they were not replaced. The federal government was a large employer of that set of skills but they have withdrawn from that area. The funding is gone for many of the regional programs.
Alberta is one of the few areas that has maintained a program and such a set of skills, albeit greatly reduced. In fact, the University of Alberta and the University of Lethbridge are two of the few institutions in Canada that continue to train at a significant level, but it is largely for local needs. I do not know of a national research and development program in hydrology and water management in Canada.
Senator Milne: This might be the area where this committee needs to make its thrust and its recommendations, given that it falls under federal jurisdiction. It should be supported because it is absolutely essential.
I have questions about irrigation. In an area such as Lake Diefenbaker, where there is ample water, is irrigation economically viable? You talked about the different levels of irrigation from flood to spray, falling and drip. What do you expect to learn during your trip to Israel to study drip irrigation? Will it help you in respect of a system for Canada?
Mr. Clifton: It is crop dependent in that drip irrigation is suitable to some crops but not to others.
Senator Milne: For trees, drip irrigation would work well.
Mr. Clifton: I noted from a television newscast on harvesting potatoes that the drip irrigation line was exposed as the potatoes were recovered. It is being utilized locally but to what extent in the Outlook area I do not know. Southern Alberta has expanded its irrigated land base by about 50 per cent through water conservation technology improvements in the irrigation systems. They are using less water, or an equivalent amount of water to 20 years ago, but they are irrigating 50 per cent more land, mainly through the use of better technology.
Mr. Parsons: At the Outlook research station on Lake Diefenbaker a demonstration of drip irrigation is being applied to berries. It depends on the crops. The bigger picture is that much irrigated agriculture, particularly in the western United States, is disappearing because it cannot compete with urban needs and people interests in the water rights. Because of the change, there is a huge development opportunity for us to sell high value goods. Many of them will become amenable to drip because we have the heat units — it is hot enough — and we have the soils. We can grow them.
Senator Milne: We have the degree days.
Mr. Parsons: Yes, we have the degree days; that is it exactly.
Senator Milne: What percentage of the irrigation in Saskatchewan comes from groundwater, drilled wells, dams and rivers and runoff?
Mr. Parsons: It is all from surface water. There are few exceptions. Where they do exist, it is usually to replace a reservoir for a short term. In Alberta and Saskatchewan, there is surface irrigation.
Senator Milne: This brings me back to Senator Tardif's comment about how the oil industry in Northern Alberta is cleaning up its oil and how they are gaining their water. Water is not a problem in the northern areas of those two provinces but it does not have much effect on the aquifers because you are not drilling. What knowledge do you have in Saskatchewan of the aquifers? We were rather astounded by one of the witnesses, Dr. Schindler, who said they do not know about aquifers.
Mr. Parsons: This is precisely one of the major problems when we go back to basic research and information. There is a world of underground water called groundwater. While we have a certain amount of information about a small number of wells, which provides indications for us, much of the data-gathering information has been closed down by provincial or federal governments. Major investigations have ceased. I do not know if it is fair to say that it was a clean slate but we need to understand more about it. Mr. Clifton is an expert in geosciences and is able to speak to this more competently than I.
Mr. Clifton: An initiative of the Government of Canada brought forward the current level of knowledge in Western Canada on groundwater. The ARDA funded a large groundwater research program. Saskatchewan made great use of it, and Alberta and Manitoba to a lesser degree. As a result, the groundwater resources of Saskatchewan are well mapped on a gross scale — not in local detail but enough to provide a framework — so the geology of groundwater in Saskatchewan is well known. While ARDA was in effect, there was a provision such that the provinces would collect information. ARDA has ended and the provinces stopped collecting information. Senators can see the value of a framework of an umbrella program.
Environment Canada continues to conduct quality studies on groundwater, specifically the leaching of agricultural chemicals into the underwater system. That information is not being communicated to the public, yet. I think the public believes that groundwater is safe, but we know now that that is not necessarily true because trace chemicals are showing up. The public needs to be made aware of the trends, and we will press for action on some of those issues. For a long time the belief was that the aquifers in the Prairies — the groundwater supplies — were under deep, protective layers of clay and were not subject to pollution. However, we now know that we may have been too optimistic in our thinking.
Mr. Parsons: There is an important need to bring this information together on a Prairie-wide basis, although we do not know all the details. In the mining industry when exploration occurs, all that information is entered into a public database. Over time, we begin to understand more about the deep and mining geologies of various parts of the world. We enter this data on a regular basis.
We collect a great deal of water information from ancillary activities. For example, the oil and gas industry has great geophysical information, most of which never gets back into a water database in a functional capacity. I have talked to the geologists who work, manage and regulate this data collection. No one has taken leadership to bring these streams of information together and to focus this research and data.
Yet, the data is fundamental to knowing whether we are polluting our water or whether it is clean. This fundamental information is absolutely crucial to us in terms of understanding how we will adjust to global warming.
Senator Milne: These gentlemen have provided enough information for a report right now. One of the basic thrusts should be more federal funding for research and development and perhaps developing a central clearinghouse that people can get the information that provinces and people need.
Mr. Clifton: The Geological Survey of Canada had the resources to deal with the mineral wealth and geology of Canada, but that capability is dwindling. There is no repository at the moment for the national database. However, perhaps the committee could inquire as to its role in management and accumulation of the knowledge base on groundwater resources, the branch called hydrogeology.
Senator Milne, your concern is right on target. Who is doing it? Should it be done? If so, where is the responsibility to do it? It need not be done by government, but perhaps on a university-government agreement or a set of regional agreements. Important information is not being collected and analyzed at the moment. In our view, it should be. Governments have retreated on some issues and perhaps a little too far in some areas.
Senator Buchanan: I had a minister of agriculture for a dozen years who was a smart man; he was a farmer. He always talked about ordinary people. He always called farmers ordinary but smart people. He said not to inundate them with contradictions.
We had another MLA years ago who said there are true facts on both sides of every issue. I think there are a lot of contradictions in what we have heard today and what we hear all the time with ordinary people. Do they understand what is going on in this so-called changing world of ours?
You said we live in a dry part of the world. We have had more rain in Atlantic Canada in the last two years than we had for a decade. We hear about Western Canada and the fact they need rain.
Then you hear about the drought of the 1930s in Western Canada, which was probably much worse than recent ones.
We have had heavier snowstorms in Atlantic Canada in the last two or three years than in the past decade. Yet, if you go back to 1959, some of the worst snowstorms were in 1959 in Newfoundland and Nova Scotia where 120 inches of snow fell on St. John's.
Some climatologists will say all the hurricanes are caused by global warming. Yet others say that is not correct because most hurricanes in recorded history were in 1933. When you hear all that, what are ordinary people supposed to think?
One other thing, I disagree with Senator Spivak that politicians should not look after the so-called problems. I think, as a group, politicians do a good job. I think, Senator Spivak, you said that with tongue in cheek.
What are the ordinary people supposed to think when they hear all these true facts on one side and true facts on the other side that contradict one another?
Mr. Clifton: There are two pieces of data which, to my mind, are irrefutable. Number one is the long-term trend in river flow. It has been in a downward trend in the prairie river basin and it is continuing. If you look at it with common sense, forgetting about the computer models, when you take out the mountain snow pack and the ice fields, given the normal perturbations that occur in the climate, I see no reversal of that trend. It will continue in that direction.
When you add the global warming component, it reinforces that opinion.
Senator Buchanan: So it is not all global warming?
Mr. Clifton: It is a long-term trend. Global warming may be part of that trend. We do not know what component of these variations we saw last summer is global warming and what is a natural variation in weather. We do not know where the climate is going yet, but we will find out as we draw the trend line.
Another piece of evidence is computer models that scientists are putting forward. They are also pointing to a continuation in that trend. It becomes a convergence of evidence. Which way is the hydrology of Canada going? There seems to be no piece of evidence that mitigates the opinion that it will continue towards warmer, wetter and drier — bigger variations — and reduced runoff.
The contradiction of the Prairie region and the whole great basin is the second component. This area is dry largely because the average annual evaporation is one metre and the average annual precipitation is half a metre. The recent droughts through 1981 and the 1990s are worse than the droughts in the 1930s. The adaptation largely led by the federal government mitigated the droughts of the recent years. If those droughts had occurred in the 1930s, the impacts would have been more severe than they were. It is changes in farm practices, machinery, crop varieties and so on that have allowed the population to exist in the region, even in a more adverse climate.
It is arid to semi-arid, depending on where you are, but there is abundant water to create a verdant agriculture and abundance of industry. The water must be used in a knowledgeable fashion supported by technology and policies that make it possible.
Senator Buchanan: People think the drought in the 1930s in Western Canada was incredibly bad. What you said is interesting. The drought of the 1980s and 1990s was worse than that, but because of new technologies on the part of government and the farming community, it did not have the same impact.
Mr. Clifton: The social and economic disruption was much less.
Mr. Parsons: This is exactly our point. It is an adaptation to the regional needs.
To go back to your original comment, in the spring of this year I did some work right across Canada on water. It was clear that water issues are different in different parts of the country. Yes, it is wet down east. You have flood problems and all sorts of issues. Ontario has huge pollution problems, much worse than anywhere out west, even in livestock alley, which is an intensive feedlot area in southern Alberta. Nonetheless, they are different.
The model we have suggested for the Prairies generally works. You can put it down in different parts of Canada and it will do different things, in my view, in Atlantic Canada, Quebec and Ontario. It would work on this broad watershed basis and take into account some of these bigger issues, but the priorities would shift, as they will shift. Responses to global warming will shift, depending on how global warming hits. Yes, hurricanes perhaps will become a major consequence of global warming in Atlantic Canada. We do not think hurricanes will hit the prairies, but we are pretty sure drought and flood will be a consequence of global warming in the Prairies. In our view —
The Chairman: I will be rude in order to accommodate everybody.
Senator Buchanan: You are never rude, sir. You are just a good chairman.
Senator Kenny: I have a statement/question. It is driven by the comment that it is in the national interest to keep rural Saskatchewan economically viable. My instinctive reaction is to support that proposition. I lived in the west for a number of years, but that is not where my roots are. My background is essentially small-town Quebec and Ontario. I have roots in places like Buckingham, Thurso, Tavistock, Perth, Cabano and Renfrew. These are not names of places that people hear about everyday.
I have never farmed, but my family and I have been involved in a family business that is similar to farming. We have many things in common. The business is coarse-gauge textiles, with low wages and lots of capital tied up. We are cash poor. The payoff is on retirement, if you can find a buyer. If you cannot, you better hope there is somebody in the family that will keep the business going.
The mills are all in the towns I have mentioned. They are all on water, near a waterfall, usually, or fast-moving water. They are important employers in their communities. They are not important employers in terms of the province or in terms of Canada but, for their communities, they are a big deal. They do not survive without subsidy, protection or other measures that distort the economy. They do not survive unless the government intervenes in some way or another. The reality is that without government intervention, these businesses have to consolidate and modernize, and people have to leave those communities and they have to adapt.
The question is one that my family and other families with small businesses struggle with in Eastern Canada. Is it the right role for government to intervene and to protect us, if you will, or subsidize us indefinitely, or is it the right role of government to assist in a transition to get us someplace else that is competitive and able to function without continuing government support?
I have lived in the West, but I say this as an Easterner who feels much in common with family farmers and with people who are living in that sort of environment. It is obviously a different life, but there are many similar components. When I hear a farmer talk about something, I can say, ``Yes, we talked about that over dinner last night.'' What is your response to that?
Mr. Williams: The one unique thing about farming is that it is land-based or soil-based, and you cannot move it. Unless you grow crops, there is not another use for it. The opportunity cost, as they say, is not in soils like it is in business. In some way, you can usually use those resources. That is basically the answer to your question. It is unique.
Let me extend that. I spent yesterday explaining to various committees of the House what is happening in Western Canada. This is so fundamental. This is a terrible thing to bring in at the moment, but the United States, in its Farm Bill, has recognized a fundamental matter that you are touching on, that equity in land must be maintained. They have a policy which maintains the value of land. Canada supports income but does not support the value of land, so the value of land is falling. Farmers are losing their equity. I do not want to get too far into this, because we can spend a whole day on it. Your question is important, and I understand where you are coming from.
Mr. Parsons: There is a bigger public policy issue here for Canada and the nature of the country we live in. Everybody is master of their cities. Everybody lives in these big cities. They are the core of our economy. In practice, the nature of our country involves a big rural area, and a rural area does different things in different parts of the country.
In our part of the country, particularly in the Prairies, it does agriculture. Those people are the stewards of our land, for the most part. They look after it by doing what they do. It has, in my view, an inherent value that contributes to the nature of Canada as we know it. If we think of Canada, we think of the big Rocky Mountains that we show in the television ads, the great Prairies and the small farms in southern Quebec. This is part of the Canada we know. If we take those away — they have all gone bankrupt because they are not looking after their soils and not looking after the waters — it is a problem for us as a country. It is something that we should not walk away from. Water in the Prairies happens to be part of the solution to what that viable sustainable rural economy can become.
Senator Kenny: I hear you, but you are saying that you think producing food is more important than producing clothing. You think someone who works hard at growing a crop deserves more protection than someone who works hard at producing something that will keep people warm.
Mr. Parsons: I am an economist and I do not believe in long-term subsidies. I believe in getting the structural frameworks right so that regional parts of our country outside the big cities can be economically sustainable and viable. I think water in the Prairies is an important solution here. Bills such as the Canada Farm Bill, the U.S. Farm Bill and the European farm bills must be part of the framework policy. Overall, I think Canadians pay too little for the foods produced in the country. They should pay more.
The Chairman: Should the Government of Canada support a way of life as opposed to a viable industry? I will give you two examples. We have said to miners in Nova Scotia, ``Sorry, we cannot support this way of life anymore. You have to do something else because you cannot effectively mine anymore. Good-bye.'' We have done the same thing with some steel workers and some fishermen. We have said, ``Sorry, we are buying back your licences. The business is gone. Go find something else to do. Here is some help to do that.''
Are you sure that we are supporting something for which there is some light at the end of the tunnel, as opposed to something that we will have to continually prop up forever? Is it logical to try to farm in a desert?
Mr. Parsons: The answer to that question is yes. The markets that pay money are there. They may not be our traditional grains and oilseeds, unfortunately; we may have to move out of those. Can we grow crops in the Prairies for sale to Canadians and to other folks around the world? The answer to that question is absolutely yes.
Mr. Clifton: I agree with you that the concerns of people in Perth, Renfrew and Tavistock are exactly parallel to those of the people in Elbow, Eyebrow, Eastend and the West Bank in the Prairies. The issue is to have the economic and environmental infrastructure to earn a sustainable economic return. The issue is not subsidization of an industry. The issue is to provide an economic infrastructure to allow the economy to prosper. We have not invested at all in the water infrastructure in Canada. It is the same issue as you point out with the mill towns and the Prairie grain towns. We need to have a different way of sustaining those communities. Stewardship of the region is becoming a serious issue. You drive through the southern Prairies and road allowances are growing up with weeds, culverts are washed out and roads are not accessible, simply because there is no population left. We have to ask the question, Is that the Canada we want in that region? That is a serious question.
Senator Kenny: At the end of the day, people will fight for what is theirs. I understand that. You are making a pitch, and you may have enough political clout to make it work. In Eastern Canada, the mill towns do not have the political clout to make it work, so they will not get the subsidies and they will change and adapt. The consumer, at the end of the day, will probably get textiles cheaper, and it will probably cost less money for people to clothe themselves. In the meantime, many hundreds of Canadians who have devoted their life to an activity will not be able to anymore. It is a real problem.
Mr. Clifton: Is there not an alignment of interest among those communities?
Senator Kenny: There is, until you start coming back to the fisc too often. How long can you reasonably expect to be subsidized or protected? Who pays for it: everyone else. I can make a case for transition. I have a real problem making a case for perpetual support. I have been in this town since 1967, and the farm crisis has gone from bad to worse. The trend lines are clear about where farming is going. You look at the average age of farmers and that tells you the story.
Senator Gustafson: Canada is failing to recognize the global reality of what is happening in the global society. We recognize it in practically every other area but agriculture. We do not recognize it in agriculture.
I have chaired meetings in Europe. They will tell you that politically we will not get off subsidies; it is a way of life. The Americans are doing exactly the same thing to protect their land, as Red Williams said. I call what Canada is doing a lie. They sell the lie that they will get the Americans and the Europeans off subsidy. That will never happen.
The Americans feed half of Africa with, if you want to call it, their subsidy. The Europeans are doing the same thing. France last year doubled their subsidy on wheat. However, in Canada, politicians and bureaucrats fail to recognize the global reality of the economy we are living in.
Senator Milne: If we want to get into agriculture, subsidies in Europe and the United States are driving down world prices and hurting agriculture.
Senator Cochrane: You described the landscape of Saskatchewan when you talked about the roads depleting, and communities and populations diminishing. We have the same problem in Atlantic Canada. Come to Newfoundland.
The Chairman: Thank you very much. Sorry to have kept you so long. We will have more questions. I hope you will agree to let us send you those questions and you will respond.
The committee adjourned.