I looked into this last night some more, here's the results after talking to two certified electricians.
I printed off some of the stuff below from a website of FAQ's and had these electricians verify the integrity of the explanations.
I have pasted these explanations below and do not want to take any credit for explaining the two systems.

Bonding and Grounding end up in the same place but perform different functions as i have stated above, the function performed depends on what is happening electrically speaking.

Bonding explained - off web:

All "metallic systems" in a home that are capable of being
energized are required to be bonded to the grounding system.
This is usually taken to mean: metallic water supply, metallic
drain-waste-vent pipe, metal ducting, gas lines, and sometimes
metallic structural elements (eg: metal framing systems).

The rationale for this is simple: if somehow a hot conductor contacts
a water pipe, say, you don't want every plumbing fixture in your
home to become live. The bonding attempts to ensure that you have
a low resistance path to the ground system at the panel, and thence
to the neutral - ensuring that this ground fault is stopped by
a breaker or fuse tripping. Remember that this is independent of
the grounding electrode system's conductivity.

Normally the bonding of most of these systems are done by the
equipment involved. Furnace ducting is grounded by the furnace
connection. Gas line grounding is done by the gas man ;-)
So we'll mainly talk about water line grounding here.

The NEC appears to insist that each electrically isolated section
of metallic water pipe must be jumpered together. Take particular
note that you are required to provide a jumper wire that bypasses the
main water meter (especially if you're using the water supply line
as a grounding electrode), and a jumper between hot and cold if the
water heater is an electrical insulator. The CEC, for example,
also requires that the frame of your clothes washer is bonded to the
cold water supply pipe.

Here (clothes washer) you can already see the CEC is a little tougher on rules.

LOW RESISTANCE path means a conductor such as a wire.

Grounding explained - off web:

The grounding electrode system is a method by which the neutral
and grounding conductors are connected to the common "earth"
reference. The connection from the electrical system to the
grounding system is made in only one place to avoid ground
loops.

The grounding electrode system is not_intended to carry much
current. Ground faults (Ie: hot to grounded case short) are
conducted down the ground wire to where it is interconnected
with the neutral and hopefully the breaker/fuse trips. The
grounding electrode does not participate in such a situation.
While the conductors involved in this are relatively large, they're
sized for lightning strikes and other extremely short duration
events. The grounding electrode system is specifically not
expected to have enough conductivity to trip a 15A breaker.

The grounding electrode often has a moderately high
resistance. For example, according to the NEC, an acceptable
ground electrode system may have 25 ohms of resistance - only
5A at 120V, not enough to trip a 15A breaker.



So, judging by the explanations above, one can determine that:

This ensure that if you have a circuit in your electrical system short against a BONDED metallic system, the breaker will trip and if you have a lightning strike (external to your electrical system) hit your metallic system, that this lightning strike (low current, high voltage) will be safely carried to actual ground.

So, what it boils down to is the actual wire size running between your metallic systems and the panel - since bonding needs a LOW RESISTANCE PATH that is capable of carrying 110/220V with 15A of current, this can be done with a #12 wire, BUT, the same can be achieved using a #6 wire which would actually have LESS resistance than the #12.

For the grounding system, because of the high VOLTAGE that can be incurred, a larger wire (#8 or #6) is required since a #12 would melt instantaneously. Since the Ground electrode (actual ground rod outside the house) provides the resistance necessary to "automatically" differentiate between the two scenarios (grounding and bonding), the lower resistance of a #6 wire does not affect the functionality of the system.

Since most metallic systems are WITHIN your home, they will likely NEVER be hit by lightning, however, your Pool is OUTSIDE the home and thus has a higher risk of receiving a lightning hit associated with it.

So, in conclusion, to satisfy both scenarios at once, (killing two birds with one stone) use a minimum of #8 wire to tie back to the panel from pool bonding.
Use a #12 wire if you're not concerned about lightning stikes.

Both electricians I spoke to told me that the CEC takes the "two birds with one stone" approach, but could not verify the reasoning behind the #12 that is required by the NEC other than that they are NOT taking extenal high voltages into account.

It's nice to have friends in the right places who can shed some light on this type of stuff.

I hope the above information is useful to some of you trying to get a handle on this stuff, remember that code requirements are a MINIMUM and it is your choice if you want to go above and beyond these minimums, however, you do NOT have a choice to go BELOW these minimums.
In this case, personally, I would go ABOVE the minimum NEC requirements and go with CEC requirements.
Another couple of things I found out that were quite interesting - AG pools - being non permanent structures, do not require any of the above - doesn't mean you can't do it, but it's not required - fancy that!
On an IG pool, some type of electrode is required to ground/bond the water in your pool, this can be done by bonding a metallic pipe that carries the pool water, hoever, if your plumbing is Plastic, then you must have another electrode either inside the Plastic pipe, or have an electrode protrude into the pool low enough to accomodate the lowest water level normally incurred.


PHEW!!!! I need a beer!