Mobilizing theory - Governing Transboundary Waters: Canada, the United States, and Indigenous Communities - page 29

concepts such as latitudinal lines (e.g. the 45th and 49th parallel) that have little
or no reference to major water sources. For those interested in water governance,
this transition is of importance as it places the resources (including water) inside
the purview of these boundaries and requires negotiations with “foreign neighbors”
to determine water rights and uses.
For the Canada-U.S. border, the demarcation of the border consists of a
patchwork of treaties and agreements that roll out through various wars and
negotiations, which I briefly outline in Textbox 2.1. Although the short history
of “how the international border came to be” may seem like an interesting series
of events that passively occurred over time, something largely unconsidered in the
transboundary water governance literature is that this series of events paved the
way for Western expansionism and ultimately carved the landscape into two nations,
which has had everlasting - and often devastating - impacts on the original
inhabitants of the region. Even with mechanisms such as The Treaty of Amity,
Commerce, and Navigation, Between His Britannic Majesty and the United States
of America, 1794 (or the “Jay Treaty”), which included a mechanism to assure
Indigenous communities “free movement and free trade between nations”, history
tells us otherwise. Article 3 of the Treaty states:
It is agreed, that it shall at all times be free to His Majesty's subjects, and to
the citizens of the United States, and also to the Indians dwelling on either
side of the said boundary line, freely to pass and repass, by land or inland
navigation into the respective territories and countries of the two parties on
the continent of America, (the country within the limits of the Hudson Bay
company only excepted).
Because of the Treaty, the U.S. Embassy is guided under the premise that: “Native
Indians born in Canada are therefore entitled to enter the United States for the
purpose of employment, study, retirement, investing, and/or immigration”. And
Hele (2005) deftly reflects that this clause is responsible for most of the Indian
claims. Despite this powerful Treaty, experiences show that the impacts of
colonization (and b/ordering) run deep. As this topic explores, this b/ordering, in
turn, impacts how water and marine resources are governed.
What is water?
A fundamental question, as it relates to worldviews, is “what is water?” For
environmental governance, this question is multilayered and includes the material
itself - is water a resource? Is it measurable and divisible among people? Is it a
human right? Is it a responsibility? Or is it a gift from the Creator? A starting point
in this conversation may very well be in the question that geographer Jamie Linton
asks in his thought-provoking book, What is water: the history of a modern abstraction
(2010). Linton examines the social construction of water and how humans'
relationship to water has changed over time. The application of this question, for
the purpose of this topic, is how has water changed from a natural right or gift to