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Finance committee My name is Lawrence Hanson. I'm the director general of strategic policy for Environment Canada. I'm joined by my colleague Maxime Lessard-Lachance. The decision to dissolve the National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy was a product of decision-making under the d
May 28th, 2012Committee meeting
Lawrence Hanson
Finance committee There are, I believe, two remaining reports to come forward from the round table. The first has to do with a reference from the Minister of the Environment asking the round table to examine provincial and territorial approaches to reducing greenhouse gas emissions. The second is
May 28th, 2012Committee meeting
Lawrence Hanson
Finance committee As the minister has indicated, it has always welcomed the historic work of the round table on a wide variety of issues. The reality is that the exact kind of analysis of trying to bring together sustainable development—i.e., the marriage of meeting economic and environmental goal
May 28th, 2012Committee meeting
Lawrence Hanson
Finance committee The department continues to do significant analysis and work on a wide variety of environmental issues and continues to promote the concept of sustainable development under the Federal Sustainable Development Act, under the federal sustainable development strategies, etc., and th
May 28th, 2012Committee meeting
Lawrence Hanson
Finance committee Obviously, different groups are focusing on different issues. If I were to look, for example, at the issue of climate change and energy, I think the Pembina Institute would be an example of that. The David Suzuki Foundation has done work, and the International Institute for Susta
May 28th, 2012Committee meeting
Lawrence Hanson
Finance committee I am not personally aware of comments made by these other organizations. That's not to say they haven't made such comments; I'm just not personally aware of public statements they have made on them. I'm sure that if there were some, we could track them down.
May 28th, 2012Committee meeting
Lawrence Hanson
Finance committee Yes, certainly there are more sources of advice and analysis on our environment now than there was at the time the round table was created.
May 28th, 2012Committee meeting
Lawrence Hanson
Finance committee I would say yes. I'll concede I'm less familiar with probably some of the earlier years of the round table, but I'm sure there would be lots of instances where they were proposing either policy directions that the government of the day was not necessarily pursuing or recommendati
May 28th, 2012Committee meeting
Lawrence Hanson
Finance committee A lot of their assets are going to be very basic things. Frankly, they're not going to have a lot of significant assets. It's really just going to be classic things that they have to run the organization, such as computers, technology, photocopiers, their rental agreements on off
May 28th, 2012Committee meeting
Lawrence Hanson
Finance committee Yes, I think it is. What we've seen in the environmental community has replicated itself across universities. This is obviously going to be multidisciplinary in terms of environmental issues and environmental economics, and the bridge between the two.
May 28th, 2012Committee meeting
Lawrence Hanson
Finance committee I'll speak to the issue of the kind of work these organizations do. I think it is safe to say that we in the policy world examine their work, analyze it, take note of it, and take note of it to ministers, etc., as appropriate. We meet with these organizations on a variety of issu
May 28th, 2012Committee meeting
Lawrence Hanson
Finance committee I believe it was 1988.
May 28th, 2012Committee meeting
Lawrence Hanson
Finance committee I think the issue is that if you look at the range of organizations, some will try to factor economic issues into their overall work. I think Pembina strives to do that. I think a lot of these organizations that are focused on sustainable development try to build that in, for exa
May 28th, 2012Committee meeting
Lawrence Hanson
Finance committee I suppose it does get into terminology questions of “advisory group” versus “think tank” versus “environmental organization”. But I think at the end of the day, the reality is that the kind of work the round table did was often to speak to various participants in the system, to d
May 28th, 2012Committee meeting
Lawrence Hanson
Finance committee Again, I would note there continues to be a regular and open dialogue with many of these groups and that analysis is taken seriously. We look at the work that is done by these organizations. We meet with these organizations. For example, there are very valuable work and analyses
May 28th, 2012Committee meeting
Lawrence Hanson