Environment Committee on Oct. 3rd, 2006

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

So those requests were made. When did you close the books on this? What date?

[Johanne Gélinas]

I cannot tell you the date, but mid-June 2006.

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

So in 2006 you closed the assessment of this. The government was unable to provide spending from 2004 to 2006.

[Richard Arseneault]

They did provide the information related to the parliamentary question. A parliamentary question was asked by a member of this committee, actually. Given that Treasury Board was already engaged and was collecting information from all departments...the problem with this is that departments were reporting information in different ways; they had different definitions. They needed to clarify how we were going to be collecting this information. Some of it was rejected. Anyway, Treasury Board did answer this question, but when we tried to reconcile the information from the Treasury Board--we looked into their system--we couldn't really reconcile the numbers.

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

Let's go right to that. There's some double accounting of $250 million. Where is it? Is it simply reported twice? Is it simply spent twice? Are we missing $250 million? Did we spend $250 million more than we said we would?

[Richard Arseneault]

There's no indication that there was any fraud, but the problem is that with the systems in place, they are not functional enough or complete enough or mature enough to produce the kind of information you need to find out what's going on for management purposes and for reporting purposes. It's an indication, if you want.

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

It's an indication that's worrisome to many, given the previous government's tendency, in some instances, to pass money without accountability, and where that money ends up....

You were not able to find evidence of fraud. Were you able to find evidence that there was no fraud perpetrated?

[Richard Arseneault]

There is no evidence of fraud or no fraud, but what we know is that when we look at individual programs, such as in chapter 3, we are able to track the money. It's complicated, because, again, departments do not capture the information in a way that is user friendly. Things are not coded the right way, and what is climate change and what is something else--sometimes it's not obvious. They call things different things. But we were still able to get to the amount of money spent on those programs.

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

On the money disbursed to foundations and not-for-profit organizations, what was your capacity as an audit to be able to track all those dollars and to look at their effectiveness?

[Richard Arseneault]

We did look at one foundation, Sustainable Development Technology Canada, because the authority was given to the Office of the Auditor General to go in and look at this. The issue there was more...because they haven't spent a lot of money. They're just starting to assess projects.

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

I'm trying to understand this--and I asked you this question during the last committee hearing. Who is in charge? What minister was in charge of climate change in Canada?

[Johanne Gélinas]

We asked that question ourselves, and we tried to find out who was responsible for what. The way we understand it, Environment Canada is the lead, and I will choose my words here. “Responsible” is different from being the “lead” department. Environment Canada is the lead department with respect to policies, developing the policies. NRCan is responsible for delivering on programs related to energy--alternative energy, efficiency, you name it. They have had, so far, the biggest part of the pot in terms of money.

With respect to areas like adaptation, it's still unclear, really. I will say that they are condemned to work with each other. Who has the lead still, it's not totally clear, even though I would tend to say it's, as we speak now, Environment Canada.

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

So on all of these plans--four or five plans over the years--Canadians would assume that there was a minister in charge. Are they wrong in that assumption? There was nobody in charge.

[Johanne Gélinas]

There were some ministers in charge for a specific aspect of it, but what I just gave you in terms of information is the latest information available. If you would have asked me two years ago who was responsible for what, it was a different set-up.

The last thing you need to know is that even though Treasury Board now is working on this framework--and you will remember that Treasury Board came here and talked about the RMAF, the framework for the pilot on climate change, to develop this framework on horizontal issues. The reality is still that even though the Treasury Board has committed to develop the framework, it's unclear who will take over when the framework is finalized. And this is still a question mark. With respect to spending, who will report publicly on spending and results is still unclear as we speak.

So if you're looking for the long term and who will report to parliamentarians on this and that, I suggest that you ask the question to the ministers or the deputy ministers of the department, because the answers are not always that clear.

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

You made a comment that there was no initial assessment made by the government when we set our targets, in terms of cost. Is that correct? You were able to find no analysis or assessment by the federal government as to what the costs would be or what the impacts would be of our initial...?

[Richard Arseneault]

There was some economic analysis, but it was not detailed. We couldn't find any social, environmental, and risk analysis linked to this. Climate change is not only about the environment, it's also about sustainable development; it's about our way of living, because it's linked to energy. So we would expect that kind of analysis to be done. Again, it was a negotiation, and in negotiation things sometimes happen.

[Johanne Gélinas]

Perhaps I may add one thing, Mr. Chair.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Mario Silva]

Sorry, we have to stop it there. We'll go to Mr. Warawa. Then you can go on a second round, and you can answer the question.

Mr. Warawa.

[Mark Warawa, Conservative, Langley, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair. In the spirit of giving everyone an opportunity to ask questions, I'm going to be splitting my time--five and five on this side, anyway.

Again, Commissioner, thank you for being here. We appreciate your report. It's a very good report.

I have a quick question to start out. In your chapter 5, I believe it is, on environmental petitions, you said that “Since 2001, climate change and air quality issues have been referenced increasingly in environmental petitions received by the Auditor General of Canada.” So those are the issues that have been expressed as being very important to Canadians. They are both climate change, which affects the environment globally, and pollution levels, air quality levels, which are affecting the health of Canadians, and actually many deaths in Canada are attributed to that.

I really do appreciate this report...challenging government to take climate change as a high priority, which we do.

On the issue of air quality, when would we be looking for a report on that?

[Johanne Gélinas]

My colleague was saying earlier that we will revisit the smog issue for next year's report. We have looked here and there at some air quality issues, but not as we did for climate change, with one focus and covering the broader aspects of it. But as Richard is involved in the production of the 2007 report already, he can give you a few details about how we will look at this air quality issue.

[Mark Warawa, Conservative, Langley, BC]

I appreciate that.

Could we pass on, then, to the climate change issue?

I just wanted a general answer. But that is coming.

[Johanne Gélinas]

Yes.

[Mark Warawa, Conservative, Langley, BC]

Thank you.

You began your comments, both in your report and this morning, by saying that it has become more and more obvious that Canada cannot meet its Kyoto Protocol commitments to reduce greenhouse gases. You alluded to the lack of targets and the lack of planning. My question is related to governance and accountability.

In your overview on page 15 you alluded to the importance of good governance:

Planning, management, and performance go hand in hand. A good plan is important, but so is taking action and assuring results. Effective governance and accountability are fundamental in all policy areas and are especially crucial elements of complex, horizontal, long-term files like climate change.

You then have bullet points:

establishing clear roles, responsibilities, and authority for all federal departments and agencies;

designing and putting in place mechanisms to co-ordinate federal activities across departments and agencies;

tracking expenditures...and;

monitoring, on an ongoing basis, the performance of all programs...

My colleagues across the way did highlight the annual reporting. We agree with those recommendations. Recommendation 288, of course, takes us back not to annual reporting but to a system that for 13 years was not successful. We have a plan that we believe very strongly will have achievable results that will deal with the issue of climate change.

You've gone into the next paragraph for the final word. You've said that reducing our greenhouse gas emissions and adapting to present and future effects of climate change is a challenging task. It's a long journey, and there may be blind alleys and false starts along the way. Canadians should be able to expect the federal government to stay on course until lasting solutions are found. It's in our best interests. You've said we're at a crossroads, and I agree with those comments.

Do you believe that the lack of analysis done when we set our initial targets for Kyoto was a mistake? I'm assuming from what you've said that the answer is yes, but I just want to confirm that it's important that you have a plan that's well thought out, through consultation and proper analysis--social, environmental--and that is real and achievable and that the government then takes action on it.

[Johanne Gélinas]

Let me start by saying that the past is the past. But when we looked at where this 6% below 1990 levels came from, it was obvious that there was no sound analysis to support that. We have said that in the report. The federal government picked that number based on what the U.S. was going for. So that's clear. There's no doubt about it.

I have made it clear in chapter zero that if the targets are unrealistic the government has to come up with new targets, make sure we have learned from past experience, and come with sound analysis and some key measures to get us to wherever the government decides to put the targets.

You have referred to governance and accountability. I also want to raise that these problems are still there. So whatever targets and measures are put in place, if the governance and accountability aspects are not looked at seriously, I will probably be here again five years from now and have an almost cut-and-paste copy of this section.

I also would like to remind you that in 1998 we looked at climate change and almost said the same thing. So things have not evolved that much in terms of good governance and accountability.

Mr. Cullen was asking who was responsible for what, and I can still not tell who is responsible for what. So as long as the government doesn't come clear about who is responsible for what, five years from now we will probably be in a position to say that roles and responsibilities should be clear, were not clear, and we are still facing some of the weaknesses we have identified in this report and the previous one.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Mario Silva]

Thank you, Mr. Warawa.

Mr. Watson.