Subcommittee on Agenda and Procedure Committee on March 8th, 2016

[The Chair, Liberal, Deb Schulte]

We have quite a few witnesses who weren't able to make it on March 10. We can continue with the list that was presented with witnesses for March 22. At the end of the 22nd, we will have another meeting like this, because we are planning to do them every Tuesday after the meeting. At that point, I will have sat down with Tim and Penny, and we will put forward the themes and try to focus the effort a bit more. We won't necessarily have that in place for the 22nd, because we have to start calling people now. We already have called some, and some people may be available.

We'll keep going with the list we started with. If you have some other people you didn't let us know about, please let us know, and we'll see if we can pull four more witnesses in on the CEPA review. We will do that on the 22nd.

After the 22nd, we will discuss something that we've put together, how we might go ahead with the CEPA review in a theme-based approach. Is that right? Is that what I am hearing?

[John Aldag, Liberal, Cloverdale—Langley City, BC]

Could we get a list with all the names that have been submitted? I don't think I have seen that. It would be useful to see who has been put forward, so we can identify possible gaps in witnesses.

[The Chair, Liberal, Deb Schulte]

Sure. We don't really have our theme strategy, so it is hard to know whom to call. We have made quick calls to everybody to see who is available. We will pull in whomever we can on the 22nd. Then we'll start fitting it into themes after our next subcommittee.

We will send the names around, but I just want to give you what we have, John. We will send that out.

That puts us into April. We now have the responsibility to review the sustainable development strategy. We had it as third on our list. We can leave it, but we were supposed to get back by June. I thought it would be helpful to get started with it. It doesn't necessarily need to be huge, but I want to tell you what I have in mind.

The strategy is one thing, and the act is another. As we are listening to some of the witnesses talk about the strategy, I am sure some things about the act are going to come up in those discussions, in terms of its effectiveness and how it might be monitored. If we are going to do the strategy anyway, do we just tack on any improvements we might make to the act and get it done? That's what I was thinking.

I am opening the floor for discussion.

Mr. Cullen.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Madam Chair, could you refresh my memory on the committee's responsibility and where this responsibility came from? Is it that the minister has asked us to look at the strategy and wants us to report back?

[The Chair, Liberal, Deb Schulte]

We have the Canadian Environmental Protection Act that we agreed we were going to look at. We were going to look at federally protected areas. We were going to try to do those in parallel.

Then we had an assessment of the Federal Sustainable Development Act, with a view to improving the effectiveness and implementation of the legislation to ensure environmental accountability of federal institutions. That was the third one we had identified.

Last week, the minister referred this report to our committee. We knew it was coming; we didn't know when it was coming. It's the 2016 to 2019 strategy, and it is a consultation. We have to get back with any input by June 24.

Rather than doing this and then going to the Federal Sustainable Development Act later, I thought we might combine the two.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

I'll lay out my concerns.

One is that it's fine that the government wants input from us, but they also have this up on their website and are asking for input from Canadians, for some broad input on the federal sustainable development strategy. This is a heavily bureaucratic exercise. There's a general mandate given to each of the federal departments to have a green lens on their policies. What we've already heard from the different departments is that they're working on that. My concern is that there are way too many meetings spent on this. For the most part, it's entirely an internal exercise.

My second concern is about the collegially adopted motion where we put all of these things together. We incorporated Mr. Fast's motion into mine and the Liberals then incorporated my motion into Mr. Amos's motion, so we have this one motion. My concern is that, under this calendar, the piece around clean technology and climate change is not until the fall, so I would make a secondary suggestion for discussion here. Obviously, we have to hear from the commissioner, which will be very important. For the minister and the estimates, it's a combined meeting. Is that right, Chair?

[The Chair, Liberal, Deb Schulte]

Yes.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

We've allocated five meetings for CEPA, which seems appropriate, and then five on protected areas or conservation areas. I'm not sure which exact term we're going to use for that one broad category.

I'm going to suggest two on the FSDS. One of the options we've done in the past—it's mostly departments that will be testifying, I assume, or maybe there will be some others who care—is that sometimes we've done three-hour meetings, where you have two sets of five witnesses each half-hour. The idea that there would be more than 20 witnesses for this thing is a bit beyond me. The FSDS is not a strategy that many at this table had even heard of before a couple of months ago. Maybe I'm wrong and everybody is intimately familiar with the federal sustainable development strategy.

Then we do five on the clean tech and climate change piece. That brings us to 19 meetings until the summer recess. I'm trying to find some balance in that compromise piece that the government talked about in terms of trying to get all objectives onto the table.

I'll run through it again just so everyone has the map: one with the environment commissioner; one with the minister and the estimates; five on CEPA; five on protected areas; five on clean tech and climate; two on FSDS, with the option that if it's mostly department officials, we do what we've done in the past, which is a three-hour meeting split into an hour and a half for each part, and with five witnesses for each one, which would give us 20 witnesses if needed.

On the surface of it, I think getting into the act itself would be tempting. There's also the real potential of a rabbit hole, because it's about very broad governmental directives on having sustainable development strategies based in each and every department. I'm sure Health Canada has a fascinating report they want to give us, and I'm sure Transport does, and Justice, and all the way down the line. It just doesn't feel like the gripping issue, especially when we're comparing that to climate change, which is the central issue for the government right now, and to the clean tech issue, which Mr. Fast and others on all sides of the table are very curious about.

[The Chair, Liberal, Deb Schulte]

I'm not sure I'm completely agreeing with you. Let's open the document.

I understand how you're viewing it, but the very first goal is to take action on climate change, and it says, “In order to mitigate the effects of climate change, reduce GHG emissions and levels, and build resilience...”. It then says:

Targets that contribute to this goal focus on meeting Canada's international commitment to reduce GHG emissions; helping other jurisdictions, communities and individual Canadians become more resilient to climate change impacts; working with provinces and territories to advance the Canadian Energy Strategy; and increasing the use of clean technologies in federal government operations.

I'm sorry, but I don't see it as so distinct. I think there's a contributory piece of this that helps with what you were bringing forward, which is looking at technologies to try to make a difference. I know that we're not looking at the technologies in this. We're just trying to make sure that we have the right strategies in place to get us to where we need to go. I'm not totally seeing them as distinct. There are elements of both.

If we're going to actually implement things that we're going to come up with in the technology, we want to make sure we have a strategy that's going to do that. I'm hearing you, but let me see if there's anyone else around the table who wants to comment.

Mr. Eglinski.

[Jim Eglinski, Conservative, Yellowhead, AB]

I'm afraid I have to concur with Nathan here. I think we need to break things up. We did agree on the three topics, and I think we should be reasonably fair on each one of them and try to get them done during this session. Leaving one out completely until the fall, which I think we all had some concerns about, is not really appropriate. I wrote down his breakdown. It seems reasonably acceptable to me. I think it would be acceptable to our side.

[The Chair, Liberal, Deb Schulte]

Are you thinking that we're going to get everything done on CEPA in that number of meetings?

Do you think we're going to complete our CEPA review in four or five meetings?

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Well, it's one less than what the committee has suggested.

[The Chair, Liberal, Deb Schulte]

No, you have to understand. Maybe this isn't clear. I am not making a plan for completion of each of these projects. What I was trying to do is make a plan on how we were going to proceed with them over this number of months, right? I did not expect that CEPA would be completed and that we would have a report all ready to go back. The only report that is completed and ready to go back would be the one relating to the federal sustainability development strategy, because we have a requirement to do that and it has been referred. We could ignore it, but we do have a request to respond to it and get back to the minister. I would like for us to do that as a committee.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

If the pressure is off CEPA, and we go to the fall before we get to a report and our recommendations, and do a thorough job of CEPA, that's great. That takes the pressure off the spring, frankly, in terms of how many CEPA meetings we have, because right now there are at least six categorized for a non time-pressured event.

My question would be, why?

To your point, Chair, about climate change being a goal within the sustainable development strategy, it is one of many goals. We could be talking about aquaculture with DFO, clean technology, jobs and innovation—but not really. We could talk about waste water management in the federal operations. We could be talking about national parks' protected areas and ecosystems. If you wanted to make an argument you could say, “Everything environmental is in this so why don't we just study this?” Yet if this were the solution, they would have figured it out already. Clearly it's not, because it's been around in various forms for 30 years and we're not doing a great job when it comes to climate change.

[The Chair, Liberal, Deb Schulte]

That's exactly my point. I don't think it has been as effective.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

No, and I would suggest that investing time into it will be great, but this is not a climate change study. It is not a clean tech study. It is an everything study, which I would argue has a real risk of being very general and very heavily bureaucratic. Who are we going to hear from in doing this? Most of the industry groups and environmental groups that we engage with don't engage with this thing because they don't find it effective. It is the mechanism and the machination of government, which is fine. I am downgrading it a bit simply because it's been around for so long and doesn't get used by most departments at all.

So could it be the tool? Potentially, but of all the advocates we want to hear from on things like clean technology and climate change, none of them refer to this, ever. So do we then say that we believe this is the answer? It's part of it.

[The Chair, Liberal, Deb Schulte]

Fair enough. I do think that it has potential more than it has garnered in the past. It isn't effective. It doesn't have teeth. I was wondering if we couldn't work on giving it some teeth and giving it some real purpose. It sets the targets. It sets a plan, but it is not happening.

I was hopeful that we could try to give better governance, good governance, and accountable governance, and this would be a tool to do it.

If you don't believe in it, I understand.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

No, it's not that. We'll reverse the thinking.

If you said that climate change is today the most important and pressing issue facing this country and the globe, we need to look at that. This is one of the tools within that study and we need to look at it. But if we reversed it and said that, starting with this tool we have here and have generally not used for 30 years, we are now going to put a lot of emphasis on and hope in solving one aspect of what this tool is, which is climate change, we would not be able to limit it because it deals with so many different things across the breadth and scope of government.

It would be a very broad study about the sustainability of the federal government. That is great, but if the hope is to address the greatest crisis facing the globe today through this study, I would be very doubtful, just because anybody can take us in any direction they want while we're studying this thing, and it's all valid.

Do you see what I mean? When you're starting a study, if it's too broad, you get those answers. If climate change is important, which both sides of the table say it is, then let's tackle that. That's my suggestion. Let's put some time into the FSDS. I'm not saying we should get rid of it, but let's just balance it out.

That's the proposal. I wouldn't have a lot of faith that at the end of four or five meetings on FSDS we're going to have any notion at all as to what Canada's potential strategy and potential opportunities are on climate change. There is no way, because we could spend an entire meeting on human health, well-being, and quality of life, which is a huge part of the FSDS strategy not at all related to climate change.

We could go on to chemicals management. It goes on and on. This is a very broad strategy. I want to focus right now. This is where my orientation is.

[The Chair, Liberal, Deb Schulte]

Mr. Eglinski.

[Jim Eglinski, Conservative, Yellowhead, AB]

I just want to add, Madam Chair, that we have a six-month time frame here, and it's pretty time-sensitive. I think what Mr. Cullen was saying is that it's important that we deal with it.

[The Chair, Liberal, Deb Schulte]

Absolutely. There was an email earlier from Mr. Cullen, saying that you haven't got this other piece in it. What I'm trying to do is make sure that we are effective on this committee and that we actually get things done. If you throw too many balls up in the air, and we're trying to do too much in parallel, we're not going to get there; we're going to be very distracted and unfocused.

I'm trying to find a schedule that will give us chunks that we can focus on in a period of time and get things done. Recognizing that CEPA is huge and that we're not going to get that done, I believe, in this six months, how much can we get done? I know we all had an interest in the green lands, conservation, and parks. We all talked about that, so I wanted to give us a chunk of time, and I've done that. I've put a very large chunk of time in May that will focus on that, to see if we can make some progress on that one while CEPA chugs away in the background.

It also gives Penny and Tim a chance to put a report together from whatever we've come up with in sustainable development. If you want to cut the time down on a federal sustainable development strategy, I hear you. I was just thinking that it's an opportunity to try to get some teeth in the act. It's very broad, I get it, but can we put some teeth in here that will help us get some more accountability in making progress?

Right now, you're right. People do not pay attention to it. We heard that from the commissioner. She audited, and very few people have paid any attention, so how do we get attention on it? I think that it is a determining factor of success for the government and for the country if we can get people to pay attention to this thing.

[Darren Fisher, Liberal, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS]

[Inaudible--Editor] between CEPA and the sustainability report?

[The Chair, Liberal, Deb Schulte]

What I said was if CEPA is churning away, as we're turning away from it, I'm trying to give chunks of focus to the committee so that we don't have all of the balls up in the air, and everything's going on. What are we doing today? My mind's still on the one from last week.

I'm trying to give chunks of time. I'm trying to give a good chunk of time to the parks and conservation lands, because I think we all agreed that we wanted to try to move that, and we want to move it in conjunction with CEPA. CEPA will be going along. We won't finish it in the spring term. We will try to see if we can get some significant progress made on the green lands and conservation areas.

We've been asked by the minister to look at the federal sustainability development strategy, and I thought if we're going to have to do that, we had a third. We have to move it up, so why don't we try to do it, finish it, and get it off our plate, so that we can do the strategy, give her what she's looking for, and look at putting some teeth into it, so that it can be a viable tool for us to move some of this agenda in Canada forward?

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

I think we have the same concern, which is having too many balls up in the air. My very point on this federal sustainable development strategy is that it's every ball up in the air. It's all of government.

The question that you're asking, I think, is the only one that we need to answer, which is why aren't you using it? That's not six meetings. That's a meeting. It is Privy Council and PMO.

[The Chair, Liberal, Deb Schulte]

I don't have six meetings, let's be clear. I have four meetings, and then we have the report that's coming back to review what we're going to submit.