Dam Politics: The Renegotiation of the Columbia River Treaty

• In Event: Contemporary Issues in Canadian Political Economy

Abstract

The Columbia River Treaty is under renegotiation by the governments of the United States and Canada. But these are not simply state-to-state negotiations. The existing treaty, signed in 1964, expires in 2024.The importance of the renegotiations cannot be understated. The 22,500 km river generates a 92 per cent of British Columbia's hydro electricity and 40 per cent of the total hydroelectricity in the United States. Simply put, the renegotiation of the treaty between Canada, the United States is profoundly important for the economic future of both nations. But the circumstances of the current negotiations reflect very different constitutional, legal, and social realities which have emerged over the past sixty years. As it did in the first treaty, the province of British Columbia plays a key role in the talks. Canada’s constitutional division of powers between the national government and the provinces, gives British Columbia, the geographic location of the Columbia River in Canada, a seat at the table. But changes to Canada’s constitutional and legal frameworks have also provided Indigenous peoples, environmental groups and activists, and local communities a role in the negotiations. The American states within the Columbia River basin, Idaho, Washington, Oregon, Montana, Utah, Wyoming, and Nevada, are not officially involved in the negotiations but have influence over the national government’s position on the negotiations. The Columbia River Treaty renegotiation reflect the governance mechanisms found in several river basins in Europe, such as the Danube, which traverse different state boundaries.

The negotiations are complex. They do not involve just two national governments but a number of sub-nationals jurisdictions, Indigenous peoples, environmental groups and activists, affected communities, and interested individuals. Indigenous groups on whose traditional territory the Columbia flows are key members of the Canadian negotiating team. Local communities along the river have also been involved to elicit opinions on the revised treaty.

The intent of the paper is to examine how the institutional arrangements in Canada and the United States have shaped the current round of treaty negotiations to include a number of different groups into the process and how these changes could potentially affect the outcome of the treaty. The renegotiation of the Columbia River Treaty, therefore, provides a case study of changing constitutional, legal, political, and environmental circumstances on inter-jurisdictional relations. Moreover, the experience of governance of several river systems in Europe provide a comparison for the Columbia River renegotiations. This paper will identify the various participants in the current negotiations to illustrate the complex, multi-level nature of the talks. It will map the current negotiations, the involvement of various groups, and the role of sub-national jurisdictions in both Canada and the United States. Using process tracing a narrative of the current negotiations has been constructed. Information has been collected through interviews with key participants in Washington, Ottawa, and Victoria as well as from those individuals and groups in the Columbia River basin. Government documents and media reports will provide background material for a discussion of the current negotiations.

Author

• Keith Douglas Brownsey, Mount Royal University