Question Period Note: Lake Winnipeg Water Quality

Lake Winnipeg Water Quality

• The Government of Canada is committed to the protection of Lake Winnipeg.
• Through Budget 2017, we committed $25.7 million to protect Lake Winnipeg by conducting science, implementing actions to reduce nutrient loading to the lake, and by strengthening collaboration throughout the basin, including engaging Indigenous partners on freshwater issues.
• Our government is committed to working with provinces, territories, Indigenous partners, and stakeholders to improve water quality for fish and wildlife in the Lake Winnipeg basin, and for people living in the region.
• As well, the new Canada-Manitoba Memorandum of Understanding Respecting Lake Winnipeg and the Lake Winnipeg Basin (2021-26) signed in August 2021, will continue to facilitate a collaborative and coordinated approach to address challenges such as excessive nutrient loading and climate change facing Lake Winnipeg.
• We will implement a strengthened Freshwater Action Plan, including a historic investment of $1 billion over 10 years to protect and restore Canada’s large lakes and river systems.

• Freshwater management in Canada is a shared responsibility between federal, provincial and territorial governments, and Indigenous peoples by virtue of their Aboriginal and treaty rights. The Canadian Constitution provides for various sources of federal authority over fresh water. For example, the federal Parliament can enact laws respecting fisheries, shipping and navigation, international relations, boundary and transboundary waters, and criminal law.
• Lake Winnipeg is the eleventh largest lake in the world and sixth largest in Canada. At approximately 1 million km2, the Lake Winnipeg basin is the second largest drainage basin in Canada (second to the Mackenzie River Basin) encompassing parts of four provinces (Manitoba, Ontario, Saskatchewan, and Alberta) and four American states (Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Montana). Approximately 6.8 million people live in the Lake Winnipeg basin, with roughly 87% of the population residing in predominantly urban areas of the Canadian portion of the basin. The domestic and international transboundary aspects of the Lake Winnipeg basin provide a clear federal role in relation to the inter-jurisdictional coordination of actions to restore and protect this important resource.
• Lake Winnipeg is a valuable freshwater resource that sustains an important commercial and recreational fishery, provides a source of hydroelectric power, supports tourism and recreational activities, and is of significant cultural, social and economic importance to many First Nations and Métis communities. Annually, Lake Winnipeg contributes significantly to Manitoba’s economy by generating $610 million through hydroelectric power and recreational activities. Manitoba’s fishery, which is mainly comprised of Lake Winnipeg harvest, was estimated at $28 million in revenue in 2018, represents approximately 30% of Canada’s freshwater fisheries. Many Indigenous communities also depend on the health of Lake Winnipeg’s fishery for their sustenance and their livelihood, with 80% of fishers on Lake Winnipeg being First Nation or Métis.
• Nutrient loading to Lake Winnipeg from multiple transboundary sources such as agriculture, municipal wastewater and urban runoff continues to exceed the lake’s natural capacity to process them. More than 50% of the nutrient loading to Lake Winnipeg originates in upstream jurisdictions, transported predominantly by the Red River, with approximately one-third of the nutrient loading to Lake Winnipeg from U.S. sources. Lake Winnipeg’s annual average phosphorus loading (7,368 tonnes) is second only to Lake Erie (9,000 tonnes) among all North American great lakes.
• Lake Winnipeg is home to aquatic species of risk and of concern, and provides globally and nationally significant breeding and nesting habitat for birds such as the American White Pelican and the Piping Plover. Climate change implications for Lake Winnipeg and its basin are not widely understood, but are likely to include warmer water temperatures, longer ice-free seasons, and changes to nutrient transport due to hydrological changes and more extreme events leading to more frequent spring flooding, winter melts, and intense summer rain events. Combined with high nutrient loading, this will create conditions for more frequent and larger toxic and nuisance algal blooms. Lake Winnipeg remains at risk of crossing several potential tipping points due to the cumulative impact of a variety of stressors, such as excessive nutrient loading, invasive species, fisheries management, climate change, population growth, and land use changes.
• The goal of the Budget 2017 Freshwater Action Plan commitment is to tackle the most pressing challenges affecting the health of Lake Winnipeg by working with others to protect it and its basin, taking action to reduce phosphorus and nitrogen loading to the lake, strengthening collaboration throughout the basin, engaging Indigenous peoples on freshwater issues
• Science plays a key role to inform protection efforts in Lake Winnipeg and its basin. The science contributes to our shared understanding of the issues in the lake and basin. It also supports priority setting, decision-making, and action.
• Canada and Manitoba issued a State of Lake Winnipeg report in 2011 and issued a second report in 2020. The reports provide vital information about the health of Lake Winnipeg, identifies emerging issues and gaps in knowledge. The second edition of the State of Lake Winnipeg Report, released in April 2020, indicated the nutrient status of Lake Winnipeg remained unchanged from the 2011 report and that broader ecosystem health had deteriorated due to the introduction of new invasive species. New questions have emerged regarding the impacts of climate change and invasive species on the aquatic ecosystem as well as uncertainty around the effects of microplastics on different biota.
• A new Canada-Manitoba Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) respecting Lake Winnipeg and the Lake Winnipeg Basin was signed in 2021. Similar to the previous Canada-Manitoba MOU that was originally signed in 2010, it will continue to facilitate a cooperative and coordinated approach to address challenges facing Lake Winnipeg such as excessive nutrient loading and climate change.
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