Evidence of meeting #21 for Environment and Sustainable Development in the 39th Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was amendment.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Assistant Deputy Minister and Chief Financial Officer, Department of the Environment
Mr. Mokhtar?
Director General, Financial Services Directorate, Department of the Environment
At the Department of the Environment, I would say that the expenditures totalled approximately $40 million, more or less; I do not know the exact amount. There were some expenditures by other departments, for security measures, for example, but these were not expenses that we had to cover.
Director General, Financial Services Directorate, Department of the Environment
Yes. A little more than that.
Conservative
Luc Harvey Conservative Louis-Hébert, QC
All right. But at the Department of the Environment alone, it cost $40 million?
Director General, Financial Services Directorate, Department of the Environment
Roughly, more or less.
Conservative
Luc Harvey Conservative Louis-Hébert, QC
What did these expenditures include? How was the money spent?
Director General, Financial Services Directorate, Department of the Environment
There were expenditures, of course, on implementation, and on renting facilities. Amounts were given to non-profit groups, to environment NGOs, for their participation. We also gave a grant to the United Nations Secretariat, which was responsible for the conference. It was not our conference, but theirs: part of the amount paid to them was for administering the conference. There were contracts for procurement, security, that kind of spending, in other words everything needed to hold a conference on this scale.
Conservative
Luc Harvey Conservative Louis-Hébert, QC
Forty million dollars; is that a reasonable amount, according to you?
Director General, Financial Services Directorate, Department of the Environment
I am certain that it cost a little less than $40 million, but it was approximately that amount.
Conservative
Luc Harvey Conservative Louis-Hébert, QC
That was not my question. Do you feel that this is a reasonable amount? Is that what is usually spent on a conference of that kind?
Director General, Financial Services Directorate, Department of the Environment
I am not an expert in conferences, but I would say that there are conferences that cost a lot more than that.
Conservative
Liberal
Francis Scarpaleggia Liberal Lac-Saint-Louis, QC
Ms. Ruta, I know you're a financial person, but maybe you should be in communications. I like your slogan, “keen to be green”. You can take that back to your people.
Assistant Deputy Minister and Chief Financial Officer, Department of the Environment
Thank you.
Liberal
Francis Scarpaleggia Liberal Lac-Saint-Louis, QC
There's an interdepartmental committee—I'm not sure whether it's a Privy Council committee or not—a kind of coordinating body that's supposed to meet from time to time to see how we can get all departments working together for environmental objectives. Are you aware of this committee?
I'm told it's quite dormant. It's been in place for a long time, but if you're not...I imagine that's all right, because it's probably more at the level of the Privy Council. I raised it with the environment commissioner a couple of years ago, and she concurred that there needs to be more action in coordinating policies and strategies across departments.
You're not familiar with this, then?
Assistant Deputy Minister and Chief Financial Officer, Department of the Environment
I'm not sure I'm familiar with that particular one. But I could say this, that Environment Canada works in such a horizontal manner that we work very much on many different files horizontally with a number of organizations.
Liberal
Francis Scarpaleggia Liberal Lac-Saint-Louis, QC
I appreciate that, but sometimes when things are too horizontal there's no focal point. As we say in French, there's no point de chute; there's no anchor.
Going back to horizontal operations, you were mentioning that many of the programs that tackle environmental issues, especially the problem of climate change, are being run out of other departments, and I guess for the most part it's Natural Resources Canada, if you think of EnerGuide and so on. Also, there was another program funding an environmental research network in Canada that I guess was also being funded by Natural Resources Canada.
Going back to your comment that you're working horizontally with other departments, my question is this. To what extent do you interface with, say, NRCan over programs? What is the level of your input? Do you have a kind of veto power or approval power vis-à-vis these programs and what they should be? If so, what are the criteria you use?
A second question related to that first question is this. When the government announces drastic cuts like these to environmental programs that were tackling climate change, and I'm thinking of the EnerGuide program, the one-tonne challenge—I guess that was being run out of NRCan as well, although I'm not sure, and maybe you could clarify that—what role or say does Environment Canada have? Is it totally out of your hands? Are you working with NRCan? Are you working with PCO? And what criteria do you apply before you say this is a good program or this is a bad program, if you have some input.
Assistant Deputy Minister and Chief Financial Officer, Department of the Environment
I'll provide some contextual comments and then ask my colleague Mr. Manson to provide further details. Generally speaking, concerning your comment about whether we work together horizontally, I'd like to say that our policy branch chairs a committee that sets objectives for sustainable development. There's also a committee chaired by our deputy minister on sustainable development with I think colleagues at the DM level. It is really meant to bring an all-of-government perspective and it is quite active.
As to who has veto power or whatever, I would just say that deciding on particular programs is very much a policy orientation, so there's information to bring to bear. On the criteria and the general process, I'll defer to Mr. Manson to provide further explanations.
Acting Director General, Domestic Climate Change Policy, Department of the Environment
Thank you, Basia.
Environment Canada works very closely with other government departments on the climate change file. Organizations such as PCO are constantly seeking our advice on the types of programming that should be put in place. The decisions at the end of the day on that programming are made by cabinet, not by Environment Canada.
Liberal
Francis Scarpaleggia Liberal Lac-Saint-Louis, QC
But would your advice on EnerGuide have been solicited, for example?
Acting Director General, Domestic Climate Change Policy, Department of the Environment
Our advice on the EnerGuide program? No, not on—
Conservative
Liberal
Francis Scarpaleggia Liberal Lac-Saint-Louis, QC
Yes. I just find it odd that on an issue like EnerGuide, which attacks the problem of climate change, the environment department doesn't have very much of a say. I find that odd.
Thank you.
