Internal government emails show staff at the Canada Water Agency trying to make sense of Prime Minister Mark Carney’s budget cuts in response to questions from the media.
The Canada Water Agency launched in October 2024 to help protect Canada’s fresh water, including leading restoration work to clean up the Great Lakes, Lake Winnipeg and other important sources of drinking water. Canada is home to 20 per cent of the world’s fresh water, which is being threatened by climate-driven floods, droughts and algal blooms, as well as industrial contamination and other groundwater stressors.
Carney’s first federal budget proposed $3.8 million in lower spending by 2029-30 at the agency, and a further $1.2 million categorized as a separate “ongoing,” or permanent spending reduction, for a total of $5 million in cuts. They were part of Carney’s $60 billion in proposed cuts — split into $48 billion in spending reductions through 2029-30, and a further $12 billion in “ongoing” cuts with no given end date.
The Narwhal reported on the budget in November, summarizing the government’s proposal as cutting $5 million in total spending at the agency over a number of years. After that story was published, the agency emailed The Narwhal with a request for a “small correction,” asking that figure be changed to $3.8 million.
When The Narwhal asked the agency why it shouldn’t include the $1.2 million in ongoing spending cuts in the figure — which would make it $5 million — internal emails released under Access to Information law show staff reached out to Finance Canada, sharing a screenshot of the budget’s spending review page for the agency with the proposed “ongoing” cut circled in red.
“Hello Finance Department colleagues, we are fact-checking an article in The Narwhal that mentions the [agency]’s budget cuts, and just want to make sure we are understanding the budget chart correctly,” the agency wrote.
The water agency asked the Finance Department whether the $5-million figure, which it had already asked The Narwhal for a correction on, was in fact, correct.
After the Finance Department said it would look into the matter, the water agency asked for guidance on how to explain the permanent portion of the spending reductions to journalists.
“Do you have messaging you can share around communicating the ‘ongoing’ to the media?” the staff member asked.
The next day, an official at Finance Canada said the story did not need a correction after all.
Canada Water Agency to cut 13 jobs, but continue restoration and protection of fresh water
Last month, a Canada Water Agency planning document showed how it expected to absorb the first three fiscal years’ worth of cuts, amounting to $2.6 million by 2028-29. One result was the loss of roughly 13 jobs, or what’s known as full-time equivalent positions, from a workforce of 223.
It said it was also planning on “modernizing government operations” and “leveraging new technology” as well as making administrative and support functions more efficient.
At the same time, the agency plans to keep conducting water quality and ecosystem restoration, including in the Great Lakes, it said.
The federal budget says cuts are necessary to “rein in government spending” from pandemic highs. Carney has gone on to trumpet other multibillion-dollar investments in areas like the military, technology and infrastructure that could in turn pose new environmental challenges for water.
Last week, the Canada Water Agency took on a new task when the Carney government promised $3.8 billion to “protect nature” as part of a new environmental strategy. The agency will be working on the country’s first National Water Security Strategy meant to reflect Indigenous knowledge systems including water stewardship.
The Narwhal emailed the Canada Water Agency asking how its spending cuts will affect freshwater stewardship and restoration work.
A spokesperson said the government’s budget cuts would not impact the agency’s “planned activities, staffing and funding commitments for restoration and protection” of its eight freshwater ecosystem initiatives through Canada’s Freshwater Action Plan, a “signature” federal program.
The program includes the Great Lakes, lakes like Simcoe and Winnipeg and rivers like the St. Lawrence in Ontario and Quebec, and the Mackenzie in the Northwest Territories. Former prime minister Justin Trudeau’s 2023 federal budget allocated $650 million over 10 years to these freshwater initiatives.
“Like all federal organizations, the Canada Water Agency is contributing to the government’s plan to reduce spending, eliminate duplicative programs and focus resources on core priorities,” the spokesperson wrote.
“The agency remains fully committed to delivering on its mandate to improve freshwater management in Canada by providing leadership, effective collaboration federally and improved coordination and collaboration with provinces, territories and Indigenous Peoples to proactively address national and regional transboundary freshwater challenges and opportunities.”
The agency also told The Narwhal the reduction in jobs would be staggered, with four next fiscal year, followed by another four the year after and five more after that.
Asked how the agency was planning for the budget’s proposed $1.2 million in permanent cuts, the spokesperson reiterated the budget review was meant to ensure government spending was sustainable and funding cost-effective programs and activities.
Federal funds support water conservation in Ontario and the Great Lakes
The spending reductions come at a time when the Ontario government is amalgamating its watershed protection agencies, called conservation authorities, from 36 to nine, as well as moving to give itself the power to dictate more rules around drinking water.
Federal funding has been important for conservation authorities because Ontario has not been investing as much in community science and ecosystem restoration, Catherine Febria, the Canada Research Chair in freshwater restoration ecology, said.
An associate professor at the University of Windsor’s Great Lakes Institute for Environmental Research, Febria said that the federal “scale of investment is something that the province was never able to do.”
“That was really exciting, it was like a leapfrog in progress with this single initiative, and a number of large-scale projects were invested in [over] the first two years,” she said, naming the freshwater ecosystem initiatives in places like the Great Lakes as one example.
The federal government and Ontario have been working together “for over 50 years” through a series of agreements on protecting and conserving the Great Lakes, the spokesperson for the Canada Water Agency said.
As one example, the Canada-Ontario Agreement on Great Lakes Water Quality and Ecosystem Health lays out how the two will coordinate protection efforts.
“This partnership has led to remarkable improvements, including dramatic reductions in harmful pollutants, and the return of pollution-sensitive species such as bald eagles,” the spokesperson wrote.
Ontario’s Ministry of the Environment, Conservation and Parks did not respond to questions from The Narwhal about how much provincial funding was going towards efforts to restore freshwater ecosystems, and to what extent the ministry was working with the federal water agency.
Febria said given the federal water agency is still relatively new, it’s still not clear what its full mandate will be, not to mention if or how the proposed cuts will impact its work or what exactly may be lost.
She said another Carney initiative, directing $1.7 billion toward a series of scientific initiatives, including research awards attracting high-level talent from abroad, holds promise. Some of the research awards will focus on water security, environment and climate resilience.
Still, it’s a “tricky balance,” she added, between investing in research and also carrying out on-the-ground work to improve local areas.
“I think we need both,” she said. “When the pendulum swings towards a whole bunch of researchers, that’s great, but at the end of the day, we still need people and organizations and communities on the ground.”
