2. End Game

In mid-May 1963, after a two-day meeting with President Kennedy in Hyannis Port, Massachusetts, Prime Minister Pearson indicated that his government would ask only for “adjustments and clarifications” to the treaty – not a new agreement.1 Pearson left a memo with Kennedy outlining five aspects of the treaty that had caused domestic criticism. Two were of particular concern: in the 1961 agreement, Canada had given up all of its right to divert the upper Kootenay River; it had also neglected to clarify the extent of Canadian responsibility for US flood control after the first 60 years of the treaty.2

On July 8, 1963, Canadian federal leaders finally signed an agreement with BC Premier Bennett to set the terms for how the dams would be financed: a lump-sum sale of downstream benefits for a fixed time. Under the terms of this accord, BC was to be sole agent for fulfilling treaty obligations with regard to dam construction. BC taxpayers would be responsible for cost overruns, and BC Hydro would assume responsibility for construction and relocation. Still to be worked out precisely was the issue over how much monetary value to give to the limited sale of downstream benefits, though the concept of attaching a protocol to the treaty concerning the sale seemed to be a near-certainty.3

All that remained was for the US and Canada to set a price for the 30-year purchase and to itemize the specific changes to the 1961 treaty that would smooth the way to Canadian ratification. In early August, just after formal talks with the US in Ottawa, Liberal finance minister Paul Martin flew west to Portland, Oregon, to meet with Charles Luce, head of the US Bonneville Power Administration. Media reports of his discussions with the American entity responsible for marketing Columbia River power hinted at the Canadian government’s new focus on the lump-sum sale. On August 8, Martin told the Ottawa Citizen that “the price must be high enough from the Canadian point of view to make its share of the Columbia projects self-liquidating.”4 Bennett’s vision had been realized. The fervent nationalism of McNaughton and his wish for Canada to receive downstream benefits annually in power only as a Canadian Entitlement had slipped downstream. For the time being.

Ratification of the treaty was within sight.

In spring of 1964, the government presented the CRT with its new protocols to the External Affairs Committee in the Canadian Parliament, distinguishing itself almost immediately from Diefenbaker’s government in its circulation of a good deal of information that had been kept behind closed doors during negotiation and more than two years of controversy.5 The hearings took place over six weeks and involved nearly 50 witnesses, including General McNaughton and Richard Deane.

Despite the new government’s efforts to act with greater transparency, however, the committee hearings still exposed an uneven ground when it came to information. The technical staff had so entirely tested the cost-benefit legitimacy of the CRT during the two years of Canadian controversy that their argument for the CRT projects was nearly unassailable on economic terms. Those representing more values-based perspectives, such as water sovereignty or preservation of agricultural land, could not penetrate the tightly defended technical and strictly economic justification, much of which now hinged on the sale of the downstream benefits for a 30-year term. The hearings made obvious both the enormous complexity of the technical data and the great disadvantage of anyone testifying without significant technical support for their position.

Those who understood the finer engineering and economic points ended up controlling the debate and therefore appeared in possession of the best choice.6

The Columbia River Treaty was approved by Parliament on June 5 by a vote of 108 to 16, with less than half of its members present. The Senate also approved it easily on June 10. Less than half an hour later, the chair of BC Hydro signed the first major construction contract for Duncan Dam. The race to complete the projects was on.


1 Spokane Spokesman-Review, July 11, 1963.

2 The other three items were: a specific agreement that allowed downstream benefit sales to be lumped together for the first 30 years of the treaty only; a request for a waiver of stand-by transmission charges in the event of a sale; and a request for some degree of coordination where possible and without disadvantage to the US between operation of Libby and downstream Canadian plants. (Swainson, 409, note 4.)

3 Swainson, 253–57.

4 Statements such as this one contributed to a perception that the sole purpose of the downstream benefits was to finance the CRT projects, rather than the benefits being established first as a principle of fairness, and only second, through political events, becoming an expedient and temporary form of financing for the dams.

5 Swainson, 273–74.

6 For more on this dynamic, see Swainson, 275–77.