Hon. Stéphane Dion
P.C., M.P., Minister of the Environment
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23/05/2005 - Thank you, Mr. Mayor, Your Worships
-- I believe I have included everyone by addressing
you in this way -- and now I can add a few
chairpersons, my colleague Herb Gray, and
now I think I have mentioned everyone.
Thank you so much for your unanimous support
of the view that we need to go to the IJC
about Devils Lake. It is a significant issue.
I had hoped to convince you to take this step,
but you did it on your own. Thank you.
As Canada’s Minister of the Environment,
as a little kid from Quebec City who grew
up with the magnificent view over the St.
Lawrence from the Parc Falaise, and as a nine-year
Member of Parliament for the Montreal riding
of Saint-Laurent Cartierville, with the Rivière
des Prairies as its northern boundary, I had
to accept the kind invitation of your president,
M. Jean-Paul L’Allier, Mayor of Quebec City.
I have looked forward to speaking to you
on the occasion of this 19th Annual Conference
of the International Association of Great
Lakes and St. Lawrence Mayors, especially
because I know to what extent your association
believes in a common approach to the dangers
that threaten the waters and ecosystem of
the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence. You are
clearly aware of these dangers. The resolutions
adopted by your association last year, and
just an hour ago, attest to that.
You dealt with threats such as the bacterial
and chemical pollution that threatens the
health of citizens as well as commercial and
sport fisheries. You are right to deal with
it. These are huge issues. And I will come
back to this in more detail later.
I concur fully with the approach that underlies
the theme you have chosen for the conference
this year: The Saint Lawrence and the Great
Lakes: a collective responsibility
Collective responsibility indeed. In fact,
it is the same ecosystem.
Anything that happens in Detroit or Toronto
will have its effect in Quebec City sooner
or later. Wherever they are introduced, invasive
alien species, such as the zebra mussel or
the sea lamprey, can well multiply and spread
anywhere in the ecosystem. And decisions on
the management of water levels flowing out
of Lake Ontario influence levels and currents
in the St. Lawrence River.
Without a doubt this is a collective responsibility.
The Great Lakes are the responsibility of
two countries and their populations. They
are the responsibility of two provinces and
eight states. They are the responsibility
of all municipalities along the shores and
beyond. They are the responsibility of industry
and of the environmental groups. We are all
responsible. We must all work together.
This is why the Government of Canada welcomes
the merger of the International Association
of Great Lakes and St. Lawrence Mayors and
the Great Lakes Cities initiative. This merger
can only be beneficial since it will allow
all municipal governments to work in better
partnership with the various stakeholders
in the basin.
Our decisions must be sound, and above all
error-free, because the stakes are enormous.
Forty million people, on both sides of the
border, live in this vast Great Lakes and
St. Lawrence region. In Canada alone, this
great expanse is home to more than half of
our population, 16 of our 30 largest cities,
three quarters of our manufacturing industry,
and about a quarter of our agriculture.
We are talking here of the greatest reservoir
of fresh water on the planet. It is a precious
source of drinking water, and of hydroelectric
energy. It allows goods to be transported
into the very heart of the North American
continent. Its shipping industry is valued
at six billion Canadian dollars annually.
The Great Lakes and the St. Lawrence play
a key role in the growth of our industry,
our trade, our agriculture, our tourism, and
our urban centres. They are the cradle of
our history, the great artery that made settlement
possible.
Our responsibility to them is environmental
and economic, but it is also historical. We
must look after this ecosystem, and treat
it with great care. Caution and responsibility,
the environment and the economy, all pointing
in the same direction: that is the vision
of our Prime Minister, the Right Honourable
Paul Martin. That is the principle that guides
the actions of the government of Canada to
protect the integrity of the Great Lakes -
St. Lawrence System. In order to achieve this,
we must build on what has been achieved to
date, and that is already substantial.
It gives us courage to see what we have been
able to accomplish up to now. Let me give
you some examples. Since 1989, PCB’s have
been reduced in the Great Lakes by 86 percent,
mercury by 83 percent, and dioxin inference
by 84 percent. More than 3,800 hectares of
wetlands have been protected and almost 5,200
hectares have been regulated. We have established
a bilateral strategy to monitor Lake Ontario,
a strategy that is considered a model by other
countries.
We have reduced by 96% the toxicity of liquid
discharges into the River by 50 of the most
polluting industries. Several thousand hectares
of natural habitat have been preserved and
species at risk have been reinstated. Along
the River, we have established and maintained
94 comités de Zones d’intervention
prioritaire [priority action area committees],
the famous ZIPs, to implement the ecological
rehabilitation plans in the areas they cover.
Yes, we have accomplished much together,
but we must do more because enormous challenges
remain. The Government of Canada is very aware
of this. This is why in the last Speech fom
theThrone, the Government committed itself
to protect and preserve the ecosystem of the
Great Lakes and the St. Lawrence.
In its 2005 Budget, the greenest one since
Confederation, the Government honoured its
Throne speech commitment. Budget 2005 starts
with an additional $40 million for the improvement
of the ecological integrity of the Great Lakes
ecosystem. The significance of this Throne
speech commitment is also reflected in previous
budget commitments to the Great Lakes.
Budget 2005 transfers $5 billion from the
gas tax to municipalities. This transfer will
increase your ability to act because this
transfer aims mainly to support environmentally
sustainable infrastructure projects like mass
transit, water and air quality improvement
and drinking water and waste water treatment.
As well, Budget 2005 injects another $300
million into Municipal Green Plans. Half of
this amount will be directed, earmarked for
the clean-up and rehabilitation of municipal
contaminated sites. Since a number of these
sites are situated next to waterways, the
positive impact of the initiative of the Great
Lakes and the St. Lawrence is easily understood.
There is also $3.5 billion earmarked from
the previous budget to address contaminated
sites. Those of you who have contaminated
sites linked to the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence
basin, please speak to me to ensure that it
will be a priority to address them.
I can see my mayor looking at me with eyes
agog. He has often talked to me about this;
some of these sites adjoin the water and we
really must put a stop to that.
We are working to achieve better harmony
and integration between economic and environmental
federal policies. To this end, in addition
to the Throne speech and this budget, the
Government of Canada has developed a Competitiveness
and Environmental Sustainability Framework
(CESF), the vision that aims to ensure that
Canada has the highest level of environmental
quality.
This is the aim of our Prime Minister, the
Right Honourable Paul Martin. He wants to
be sure that you will find in the Government
of Canada, the partner you are looking for,
because the agenda needs it. Now I would like
to discuss some of the more pressing issues
we are facing all together.
The first issue I want to mention is the
review of the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement,
which is the basis of Canada-US cooperation
since 1975. As you know, early next year,
Canada and the United States will begin the
next periodic review of the agreement to ensure
that it remains relevant in addressing current
priorities and emerging threats. I invite
you, the Mayors of the Great Lakes and St.
Lawrence, to participate in this review.
Another key deadline: the study board is
also scheduled to deliver its final report
on its five-year review of the regulation
of Lake Ontario’s outflow to the International
Joint Commission (IJC) in the Fall of 2005.
The Government of Canada totally supports
the IJC’s efforts to enhance the regulation
of Lake Ontario outflows for the benefit of
all stakeholders by adding such factors as
the environment to the list of decision-making
criteria. The Government of Canada will follow
carefully the public meetings that are planned
for this summer.
There is another deadline to note because,
as you know, Canada and the United States
have embarked on a joint study to assess the
economic, environmental and technical factors
associated with the present and future needs
of the Seaway linking the Great Lakes and
the St. Lawrence. A preliminary version of
the environmental study is scheduled to be
ready by the Spring of 2006 and the study
itself will be completed in November of that
year. The study is not in any way intended
to consider widening or deepening the Seaway.
The official position of this country, which
was expressed by the Minister of Transport,
Canada’s main spokesperson on the issue, is
not to support the widening or deepening of
the channel of the St. Lawrence Seaway.
There is another issue that we cannot miss.
At the present time, the Great Lakes States
and provinces are negotiating implementation
agreements to the Great Lakes Charter Annex.
In a presentation to the Council of Great
Lakes Governors, the Canadian Government encouraged
the Great Lakes States to provide the same
level of protection to the waters of the Great
Lakes basin as the one already provided by
Canada, Ontario and Quebec. I encourage you
all to support this position.
Canada prohibits interbasin bulk water extractions
in boundary waters, and will continue to do
so. In conjunction with the measures taken
by the provinces to protect water under their
jurisdiction, this prohibition gives very
strong protection to Canadian waters. This
has been recognized by the International Joint
Commission.
I should now like to say a few words about
municipal wastewater effluents. All the ministers
in the Canadian Council of Ministers of the
Environment have agreed to develop by December
2006 a Canada-wide management strategy specifically
focusing on this issue. Last December, Environment
Canada published two instruments for the management
of risks relating to discharges of municipal
wastewater. Both these instruments, namely
guidelines for ammonia and the preparation
of pollution prevention plans for chlorine,
were developed in response to Environment
Canada’s legal obligations under the Canadian
Environmental Protection Act.
Another challenge is the national policy
on invasive exotic species. Well, we now have
a national policy in Canada approved by the
ministers responsible for forests, fisheries,
aquaculture, species at risk and wildlife.
At your meeting in Whitehorse in September
2004, during your last annual conference,
you yourselves examined these problems.
The economic consequences of the proliferation
of species such as the zebra mussel, the sea
lamprey or even the longhorn beetle, the Asian
Capricorn, total somewhere between $13 billion
and $34 billion per year. This phenomenon
has deleterious effects for industry, forests,
fisheries, farming, flora and fauna and private
property. At least 85 exotic species of plants
and animals have been introduced, 85, into
the waters of the St. Lawrence over the last
200 years, including the zebra mussel, the
round goby, the purple loosestrife – I would
not recognize it if I saw it – the water chestnut,
among many others.
What could help us here is the fact that
the 2005 federal budget includes investments
of about $85 million in a strategy to combat
the risks posed by these species.
I come now to the St. Lawrence Action Plan,
which, as you know, has proven itself over
the years. Since the last agreement expired
in 2003, the governments of Canada and Quebec
have been negotiating a renewal of the plan.
I am quite confident that we shall soon complete
the administrative details to be included
in the next agreement. I should also point
out in this context that the government of
Canada has just concluded a new three-year
funding agreement with each of the 14 priority
action area committees as well as with Strategy
St. Lawrence.
The last issue I want to mention, is the
issue I started with - Devils Lake. Let me
reiterate how pleased I am that you have unanimously
endorsed the need to go to the International
Joint Commission. There have been many comments
to the effect that the Boundary Waters Treaty
and the Canadian-US Great Lakes Water Quality
Agreement has created the institutional mechanisms,
such as the IJC, that has made bi-national
Great Lakes protection possible.
It has also been said that failing to use
the IJC appropriately would undermine one
of the most significant international environmental
agreements ever signed. I totally support
these points of view. Our two countries have
built excellent institutions through our treaties,
institutions that have a long history of success
in protecting our shared water systems. And
that is why, in addition of the risk of pollution
that initiative would create, I am such a
strong advocate of referring the matter of
the new Devils Lake outlet that will affect
the Sheyenne and Red Rivers to the IJC, which
was created for such a situation.
With respect to this issue, I want to thank
all the Great Lakes related associations and
organizations that support our position, and
congratulate them for taking a stand.
Finally, with respect with international
cooperation, I am pleased to announce the
release of Our Great Lakes, a biennial report
published jointly by Environment Canada and
the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
This joint publication brings out the need
for greater collaboration between Canada and
the United States on environmental issues.
Our Great Lakes provides a detailed report
on the health of the ecosystem. I invite you
to consult it.
So, I will conclude right away. In 2008,
Quebec City will celebrate its 400th anniversary.
This marks an important date in our common
history. So it is not surprising that for
this great occasion, the Government of Quebec
and the Government of Canada have chosen to
invest $110 million each, specifically for
development projects along the banks of the
St. Lawrence.
Yes, the greatest expanse of fresh water
on the planet must be a priority for us all
and we should not miss one opportunity. The
Government of Canada has every intention of
continuing as your active partner in the communities
of the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence basin.
We are going to energetically support municipal
initiatives designed to enhance the cities
of the basin, and to improve the quality of
life of their residents, the prosperity of
businesses and the health of the natural environment
now and far into the future.
Thank you so much.
