urisdiction over water resources in Canada is shared, the same is not true for federal powers concerning international and inter-provincial trade. This should justifiably raise questions about the purposes of an Accord which appears to shift responsibility to provincial governments for matters with respect to which they have little constitutional authority. Second, the Accord is not legally binding on the provinces, nor are there proposals to equip it with a credible enforcement mechanism. Thus governments, perhaps upon a change of political administration, would be able to abandon obligations they have agreed to under the Accord. Moreover the ability of governments to readily extricate themselves from such commitments is likely to be formally expressed in the Accord itself. For example, the federal government has indicated that it would use a similar accord concerning the environment as prototype for this initiative. Under that arrangement, "a government may withdraw from the Accord six months after giving notice." Finally on this point, Quebec would be unlikely to endorse such the Accord as it has declined to do for the Environmental Harmonization Accord. Third, by indicating that provinces will be free to develop their own approach to achieving the goals of the Accord, the federal government is setting the stage for a patchwork of policies and regulations across the country. While this problematic from a public policy point of view, it is even more so, when the principle of National Treatment is considered. We consider the implications of differential provincial policies from this perspective below.For these reasons, an Accord would not in our opinion represent a credible or durable guarantee against bulk water exports, and would not therefore, be an adequate substitute for legislation that would establish enforceable sanctions against such exports. However there is another, and in our view more important, reason for rejecting this f...
