Joly, Blinken push to get B.C. river treaty through Congress before Trump government

Top officials in both Canada and the United States are pushing for the need to finalize the Columbia River Treaty to manage water flowing between the two countries before the administration change in America. Water spills over the Bonneville Dam on the Columbia River, which runs along the Washington and Oregon state line, on Tuesday, June 21, 2022. (Jessie Wardarski / AP / The Canadian Press)

Top officials in both Canada and the United States are pushing for the need to finalize the updated Columbia River Treaty to manage water flowing between the two countries before the administration change in America.

Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly told reporters in Lima, Peru, on Friday, that much can be accomplished to get the treaty through Congress before president-elect Donald Trump takes office on Jan. 20.

Joly is attending the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum in Peru and said she met with U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Thursday to discuss the importance of a clear agreement between the two countries on water management on the West Coast.

She said she thinks there can be bipartisan support for the treaty after an agreement in principle was signed with the Biden administration in June, calling it a "key objective."

"We think it's a win-win situation for both sides of the border. British Columbia is on board, First Nations are on board, and we know we have the support of key senators, also on the American side," she said.

Blinken's office said in a statement that the meeting with Joly "reiterated the need for the United States and Canada to finalize a modernized Columbia River Treaty."

Matthew Lebo, a specialist in U.S. politics at Western University in London, Ont., said "generally, if the Democrats want something passed and they can get 50 votes now, they should move fast."

While it's not immediately clear where Trump stands on the treaty, once he is in the White House he has the ability to kill it, even if there's bipartisan support, by directing the new Republican majority leader not to bring it to the Senate floor, Lebo said.

At a news conference in September, Trump claimed that Canada had "essentially, a very large faucet" that was sending water into the Pacific Ocean, but that it could be turned around to send water "right into Los Angeles" to help with natural disasters.

At the time, experts told The Canadian Press that while systems that divert water back and forth between the United States and Canada exist, there is no infrastructure, let alone a water system with "a large faucet," that would directly transport water from Canada to California.

The Columbia River runs through British Columbia and down into the states of Washington and Oregon.

In June, Prime Minster Justin Trudeau and President Joe Biden announced the agreement in principle to modernize the 63-year-old treaty, which Trudeau said would allow continued flood-risk management and co-operation on hydro power on the river.

At the same time, Biden said the deal would "rebalance energy co-ordination" between the two countries, allowing the United States to keep more hydro while giving Canada opportunities to both import power and export it to the U.S. market.

The original treaty was signed in 1961 after a flood in 1948 devastated communities along the river, killing several dozen people.

First Nations along the Columbia River Basin in B.C. have long been calling for changes to the treaty to support the restoration of salmon runs that have been blocked by dams in the U.S.

— With files from Dylan Robertson in Lima

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 15, 2024