B.C. energy minister says treaty not a ‘bargaining chip’ in U.S. trade dispute

VICTORIA — British Columbia Energy Minister Adrian Dix says U.S. President Donald Trump’s claims about Canada supplying water through the Columbia River Treaty are “not accurate,” and the U.S. can manage the water that flows over the border “however they see fit.”

Dix says there has been speculation about how the treaty could potentially be used as a “bargaining chip” in the trade war with the U.S., but with a 10-year termination provision, he notes that “Canadian action to terminate the treaty would have little effect on the current dispute.”

Dix says there have been long-standing cross-border efforts to modernize the treaty, and though it’s not unusual for new American administrations to review international processes, he says the treaty modernization process comes amid “vicious anti-Canadian attacks” by the Trump administration.

The energy minister says Trump’s comments about the U.S. taking water from Canada through a “giant faucet” are not accurate because the Columbia River flows over the border and into the U.S., “and at that point it becomes their water to manage.”

Dix made the comments during an online information session about the treaty modernization process, which has been ongoing since 2018 under the first Trump administration.

Dix says reaching an “agreement in principle” with the U.S. government under former president Joe Biden in July 2024 showed there is “common ground between U.S. and Canadian interests and a clear path forward to modernizing the Columbia River Treaty in a way that would strike a fair balance and benefit both countries.”

The treaty was originally signed in 1961 after devastating flooding in 1948 destroyed and damaged communities in the Columbia River Basin, mostly in the United States, killing dozens of people in the area.

To address flood control as well as the growing need for electricity in the Pacific Northwest, Canada and the United States entered into a treaty that allowed for three dams to be built in British Columbia, with a fourth constructed south of the border, but with the potential to flood into B.C.

The Columbia River’s headwaters are in British Columbia before they flow down into the states of Washington and Oregon.

The provincial government says the agreement and the resulting dams “vastly reduced flood risks” while creating projects that “provide approximately half of the potential generation” of electricity in B.C.

But it also flooded 1,100 square kilometres of land that displaced more than 2,000 residents as well as First Nations communities.

First Nations groups have been vocal in wanting to be involved in the negotiations for the updated treaty, with the restoration of lost salmon runs in the Columbia River Basin among their concerns.

The treaty does not have an end date, but either the United States or Canada can unilaterally terminate the deal from September 2024 onward with an advance notice of at least 10 years.

The flood control provisions from the treaty also changed after 2024, prompting the 2018 launch of negotiations to update the agreement.

Both sides announced last summer that an in-principle agreement had been reached under the Biden administration in a deal that the province said, at the time, would support ecosystem health in addition to managing power generation and flood control.

But the deal was not finalized despite a push from top officials in both countries to complete the talks before the Trump administration took office in January.

Earlier this month, Dix said the United States had paused negotiations on the treaty as the Trump White House was “conducting a broad review of its international engagement.”

Trade tensions between Canada and the United States have escalated rapidly since Trump took office, with the U.S. president repeatedly issuing tariff threats and comments about annexation.

The Globe and Mail newspaper has reported that, during a call with then-prime minister Justin Trudeau in February, Trump called the deal unfair to the United States.

Trump had claimed last September, before he took office, that Canada had “essentially, a very large faucet” that was sending water into the Pacific Ocean – and that it could be turned around to send water “right into Los Angeles.”

Experts have said no such infrastructure exists that would transport water directly from Canada to California, although there are systems for diverting water back and forth between the two countries.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published March 25, 2025.

Darryl Greer, Chuck Chiang, The Canadian Press