Federal budget calls for Winnipeg to serve as HQ for new Canada Water Agency

The 2023 federal budget calls for a new national water agency to be based in Winnipeg, provided Justin Trudeau’s Liberal government remains in power long enough to see it established in the Manitoba capital.

The budget announced on Tuesday calls for the creation of the Canada Water Agency, a new federal entity with a headquarters in Winnipeg.

While the federal government is still determining precisely what the new agency will do, one Winnipeg-based environmental organization expects it to become a one-stop shop for water science, water quality assessment and water management.

“This is something that we don’t actually have in this country at the moment,” said Matt McCandless, a vice-president for the non-profit International Institute for Sustainable Development.

The 2023 federal budget calls for a new national water agency to be based in Winnipeg, provided Justin Trudeau’s Liberal government remains in power long enough to see it established in the Manitoba capital.

Right now, municipalities, provinces and Indigenous authorities take different approaches to managing water quality, water science, flooding and droughts, said McCandless, adding a national water agency could provide more co-ordination.

Winnipeg, he said, is the ideal place to base the organization, given the geography and the presence of existing water science organizations.

Winnipeg Mayor Scott Gillingham agreed.

“The Canada Water Agency will bring new investment, create new jobs and will build on the innovative work being done in this field by organizations like the Lake Winnipeg Foundation, International Institute for Sustainable Development and the Freshwater Institute,” Gillingham said in a statement.

For now, it’s unknown how many employees will be based at the Canada Water Agency’s Winnipeg headquarters. According to the budget, legislation to create the agency won’t be introduced until later this year.

That means the Winnipeg headquarters likely won’t materialize before 2024, one year before the Trudeau minority government faces re-election, assuming it doesn’t lose the confidence of the House of Commons beforehand.

Nonetheless, several Canadian cities and provinces were vying for the Canada Water Agency’s headquarters, including Manitoba.

Agency is good news, premier says

Speaking from Brandon, Man., on Wednesday, Manitoba Premier Heather Stefanson said her government was pushing for the headquarters to be located in Winnipeg and called the water agency good news for the entire province.

Stefanson also criticized the federal budget for including an increase in the federal carbon tax.

“It continues to rise and I’m concerned [and] our government is very very concerned about what that means from an affordability standpoint,” said Stefanson, who earlier went to Twitter to call on “the NDP-Liberal coalition” to cancel the carbon tax.

That drew a comment by Manitoba’s opposition, with the provincial NDP accusing Stefanson of flip-flopping on the carbon tax after voting for the PC government’s environmental levy, which was later abandoned.

The 2023 federal budget also includes other spending in Manitoba, including previously announced allocations for child welfare at Peguis First Nation and sewage treatment upgrades in Winnipeg.

The budget also calls for $65 million worth of annual spending on lake science and restoration, with an unstated fraction of that cash devoted to Lake Winnipeg.

McCandless calls the spending on water science an improvement over previous budgets.

The federal spending plan also calls for $21 million a year to be spent on rail lines outside of the Quebec City-Windsor corridor, including the passenger connection between Winnipeg and Churchill in northern Manitoba.