Landmark legal opinion released on eve of Great Lakes Annex deadline

OTTAWA - On behalf of concerned citizens across the country, the Council of Canadians has submitted a comprehensive critique of the Great Lakes Annex 2001 Implementing Agreement to the federal government and to the Council of Great Lakes Governors. This analysis is the first Canadian legal opinion on this dangerous agreement.

Today is the last chance for citizens to register their opposition to the Annex, an agreement that could irreversibly damage the Great Lakes and jeopardize Canada’s sovereignty over these shared waters.

Prepared by attorney Steven Shrybman of Sack, Goldblatt, Mitchell, the legal opinion confirms that the Annex would:

• substantially increase the likelihood of long-range, high-volume water diversions from the Great Lakes.
• challenge Canadian sovereignty by undermining the Boundary Waters Treaty and marginalizing the role of the International Joint Commission (IJC).
• lead to the commodification of Great Lakes waters.

"The Annex is fundamentally flawed," says Shrybman. "It puts further at risk the ecological integrity of Great Lakes waters and represents a significant challenge to Canadian sovereignty."

"This legal opinion confirms our worst fears about the Annex," says Sara Ehrhardt, National water campaigner for the Council of Canadians. "It is atrocious that it has been the responsibility of citizens to obtain the only Canadian legal analysis of such a nationally significant issue. Clearly the federal government has shirked its responsibility to Canadians by remaining silent on the Great Lakes Annex."

"In recent weeks, Canadians from coast to coast have flooded the Prime Minister’s office with calls and letters demanding that the federal government stop the Annex," says Maude Barlow, National Chairperson of the Council of Canadians. "Canadians have spoken. We now call on the Federal government to act immediately to stop this agreement. The fate of the Great Lakes depends on it."

Click here to download the legal opinion. PDF

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