
On October 16th, the Honourable Steven Guilbeault (Minister of Environment) announced the official launch of the Canada Water Agency. He was joined by Thomas Axworthy (Massey College), Elder Barbara (Nepinak Pine Creek Ojibway First Nation), Chief Clarence Easter (Chemawawin Cree Nation), JoAnne Remillard (Minister of Environment and Climate Change, Manitoba Metis Federation), Dan Vandal (Minister of Northern Affairs), Mike Moyes (NDP MLA for Riel), and Scott Gillingham (Mayor of Winnipeg).
This new, standalone agency (meaning that it acts independently from Environment and Climate Change Canada) is a monumental achievement for the entire Canadian water sector. At the announcement, Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister and Special Advisor for Water, Terry Duguid, gave a special thank you to numerous members of the Forum for Leadership on Water (FLOW), including POLIS’ Oliver M. Brandes.
Less than two weeks before this historic announcement, Our Living Waters hosted a webinar on the role of the Canada Water Agency within the national framework for freshwater management. Oliver M. Brandes was one of the featured speakers at this event, which attracted an audience of over 170 people from across the country.
The Canada Water Agency was initially established through Environment and Climate Change Canada in June 2023 and was designed, among other things, to support and implement the federal Freshwater Action Plan. As a new, standalone entity, its mandate is “to improve freshwater management in Canada by providing leadership, effective collaboration federally, and improved coordination and collaboration with provinces, territories, and Indigenous Peoples to proactively address national and regional transboundary freshwater challenges and opportunities.”
The webinar hosted by Our Living Waters helped inform a diverse public audience about the function of the Agency, in particular around collaborative freshwater governance between provinces, territories, and Indigenous communities. Speakers also discussed the role of the Agency in coordinating and streamlining historically siloed approaches to freshwater decision-making across Canada. They explored potential challenges and, more importantly, opportunities to advance sustainable water management and collaborative watershed governance in the future.
The webinar featured three complementing presentations from policy experts and leaders from the Canada Water Agency. Nadine Stiller and Megan Sullivan outlined where the Agency currently stands in its establishment and functionality. Ralph Pentland (FLOW), identified some of the key pivots and inflection points that must be considered and understood for the Agency to grow, evolve, and achieve its full development and potential. Oliver M. Brandes (POLIS/FLOW) situated the Agency within the broader watershed governance landscape. He explored the potential of a modernized Canada Water Act and outlined a vision of how the Agency could help make the “Federation work for water” through better national coordination and the development of nested systems.
Now that the Agency has been officially launched, the POLIS team — in particular through Oliver M. Brandes’ role as Chair of FLOW — will continue to promote national awareness of its mandate, while encouraging discussion around the how, when, where, and what of its practical functionality as it evolves.