Environment Committee on Feb. 12th, 2007

[Luc Harvey, Conservative, Louis-Hébert, QC]

I'm going to share my time with my friend Mark because he isn't very generous: he doesn't leave me very much.

You talked about the independence of the Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development, but isn't his current role independent? No one interferes with what he decides or anything whatever.

Even more, last week, Ms. Fraser was here and explained to us that, if ever the position of Commissioner of the Environment were separated from her office, a Commissioner of the Environment or environmental auditor position, whatever the case may be, would have to be recreated. She nevertheless said that she needed that position within her office.

If ever we had two commissioners of the environment and they did not agree, what would happen? I have a lot of questions and, ultimately, not a lot of time. So I will leave you with that.

[Glen Toner]

I don't think you'd have to have two environmental auditors. It is true that if the majority of environment and sustainable development performance audits and the continuing work on the sustainable development strategies were done by the separate office, then the AG's office would continue to look at environmental issues that impact on all the other government activities and programs it audits in an ongoing way.

I don't see that being problematic. Two offices can work together and share out the work in that way, with one being focused on specific environment, sustainable development issues, and the other one looking at where there are environmental issues in transportation, or fisheries, or northern development, or other program areas.

[L. Denis Desautels]

Mr. Chair, the term “independence” of the Commissioner is used, but, as I said earlier, the Office of the Auditor General is very independent, and as a result, the Commissioner should be independent from the rest of the machinery of government.

We especially talk about the Commissioner's independence from the Auditor General and from the Auditor General's organization. I think we can ask ourselves certain questions on that subject here today.

You could explore with the Auditor General ways of giving the Commissioner of the Environment the greatest possible independence with regard to the reports prepared by the Commissioner. That person would essentially be responsible for them and would prepare separate reports, apart from those produced by the Auditor General.

So if the Commissioner remains within the office, he or she can be given powers like that in order to have greater independence than currently exists.

[Luc Harvey, Conservative, Louis-Hébert, QC]

When I take...

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Mills]

Very briefly, please, Mr. Harvey. Your time is up.

[Luc Harvey, Conservative, Louis-Hébert, QC]

The fear I have about reinforcing the role, or the desire of certain persons to do so, is that it might give the Commissioner a political role. The opposition's role is the opposition's role. As Mr. Bigras said earlier, when they received reports from Ms. Fraser, they read them and they were work instruments. It was up to them to do the work of critics.

Is it up to the Commissioner or the person responsible for the environment to play that role?

[Glen Toner]

I don't see where you get this being a political role. What the political parties do with the information once it comes out is up to them. It's up to you what you do with it. The government can use it as well, if they want, to see what has worked and what hasn't, and to take that and to strengthen their programs.

No, I don't think you'd say any of the other commissioners are political, and certainly not the Auditor General, so why would the commissioner's role be a politicized role?

[Luc Harvey, Conservative, Louis-Hébert, QC]

I'm talking about the change we want to make to the role.

[Glen Toner]

He or she is an independent officer of Parliament, answerable through the two Speakers to all parliamentarians, no more or less politicized than any other commissioner.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Mills]

Let's just move on.

Mr. Regan and Mr. Rota, please.

[Geoff Regan, Liberal, Halifax West, NS]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I think Mr. Desautels has very clearly stated the question with regard to independence. It isn't a matter of independence from Parliament or from the government; it's a matter of independence from the Auditor General.

Do you agree that the Auditor General's priorities won't be the same as those of the Commissioner of the Environment?

[L. Denis Desautels]

Mr. Chair, it might be that the two don't have the same agenda, depending on the audits they've conducted in one year or another. However, I don't think that's as big a problem.

Based on my experience, when I was Auditor General, we had good discussions, of course. Ultimately, I wanted the Commissioner of the Environment to be the only Commissioner of the Environment. I didn't want an Auditor General to be the de facto Commissioner of the Environment. So I always wanted to give the Commissioner as much independence as possible in choosing his subjects and drafting his reports.

I think it's quite important to continue in that direction, not only for the Commissioner of the Environment himself or herself, but for parliamentarians who would like to have an official who takes care of them and who is dedicated solely to that subject, in order to meet their needs.

[Geoff Regan, Liberal, Halifax West, NS]

I agree that this is an important issue, but today we're not drafting or studying a bill. We're considering a resolution that we will be presenting to the government. Of course, it's possible that we may draft a bill on this matter in future.

In that case, if Parliament decided to create an independent Office of the Commissioner of the Environment, is there anything that would prevent the human resources of the Office of the Auditor General from dealing with that of the Commissioner of the Environment, as was done, for example, in the case of the staff of the Department of Justice?

[L. Denis Desautels]

Mr. Chair, I believe that, if Parliament decided to create an independent Office of the Commissioner of the Environment, it would be relatively easy to transfer certain experts permanently from the present office to the new structure. It would also be possible to enter into certain service agreements so that the one could occasionally do work for the other.

I think these are operating methods that are entirely possible. The important problem that will remain to be solved will be to see how far such a commissioner can go in promoting new policies. I think that's where the entire issue lies.

[Geoff Regan, Liberal, Halifax West, NS]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Mills]

Mr. Rota, the story is never to go second. You have about three-quarters of a minute, so make it one quick question.

[Anthony Rota, Liberal, Nipissing—Timiskaming, ON]

The argument that's coming up very often today is on being independent. I see that as only part of the issue. I guess it's the function that really comes into play, and that is the real argument.

When I think of an auditor, I think of someone who performs a perspective on historic operations, and I don't think there's any argument on that. When I think of an advocate or a commissioner, I think of someone who looks to the future or helps us plan for the future and build a vision.

Years ago I used to teach finance at a community college, and one of the things we looked at is when you're driving down the road you have a windshield in front of you and that's where you're going; that's where you want to go. The auditor's position is very important. We have a wonderful Auditor General, but that's the rear-view mirror. You cannot go forward by concentrating on the rear-view mirror. That's a very important part. You have to know what was behind you and what you went by.

So my question is, can you comment on and differentiate between the role of an auditor and that of an advocate or a commissioner? If we were to leave the commissioner's position in the Auditor General's office, how would that influence their work, and how would that limit them or how would that free them?

[Glen Toner]

Let me answer those in reverse. This also goes back to the previous question.

With respect to the autonomy of the commissioner within the Office of the Auditor General, the reality is that the commissioner is sort of a second level official there, as part of the Auditor General's team. There's a real requirement for team play and being a team player.

Sometimes if you're a commissioner you're going to have to be a lone wolf. You're going to have to be out in front of what everybody else is doing and thinking. In fact, that's one of the commissioner's functions.

You've asked what they would be. They're things like getting out ahead of the policy function or policy debate by deepening the knowledge base in society, feeding into policy through advice to Parliament, enriching and advancing the thinking on what the policy construct needs to be in the future, responding to parliamentarians to do forward-looking work, and playing a valuable educational role in society, because the commissioner wouldn't be caught up in being moulded by the political mood of the day—the way parliamentarians themselves are.

So there are a number of sort of forward-looking functions that a commissioner could play, but not in the current arrangement. This simply could not happen, and no one says it could.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Mills]

Mr. Calkins.

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Wetaskiwin, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I'm going to go back to the line of questioning the last time we had witnesses here. When you look at the text of the motion that's been proposed by Mr. McGuinty, some of the bulleted points are: “making the Commissioner a full and independent Agent of Parliament”, “clearly affirming and appropriately circumscribing the duty of the Office of the Commissioner to advocate”, “requiring that the appointment of a Commissioner be approved by both the House and the Senate”, and so on.

If you went to look at the mandate of the national round table on the environment, you would think that the author of this motion basically went back and looked at the points, which were brought up, and the points in the act, which started the round table back in 1988.

I'm wondering if you can differentiate for me, because the national round table maintains a secretariat, so it receives some funding at arm's length from the government. If you take a look at the advocacy point in this motion, the NRT acts as an advocate for positive change and raising awareness among Canadians. If you look at the independence, it says the NRT is structured as a round table in order to facilitate the unfettered exchange of ideas.

It seems there's a lot of duplication going on here, and I'm wondering if you could establish and clarify for me what the difference is. Maybe we're just talking about amending the role of the national round table to make it more effective or efficient. It also talks in here about bringing together all parties: aboriginal people, with their experience and mandates; the scientific community; business leaders; and so on.

It seems to me that if you have a consensus-building organization, such as the NRT, it would lead to what I consider much better policy advocacy than a sole person operating in complete independence from anybody else. If they've got a particular bee in their bonnet, they can pretty much do whatever they want.

Could you please differentiate what you think this motion would do, compared to what the NRT is currently doing?

[Glen Toner]

I think I can. I've worked a lot with the round table over the years, and it is accountability.

The initial round table idea came out of something called the National Task Force on the Environment and the Economy. That was when the Brundtland Commission, the World Commission on Environment and Development, came to Canada in the mid-1980s. The Canadian Minister of the Environment set up a round table, or a multi-stakeholder group, made up of people from industry, environmental groups, universities, and ministers. They enjoyed working together so much they said let's institutionalize this process and report to the Prime Minister.

That's the big difference. The round table does its work on behalf of the executive. It responds to requests from the Prime Minister; it's doing that right now. It's doing some very good work on long-term emissions reductions into the middle part of this century. But it's working on behalf of the government; it's part of the government. It's at arm's length, but it responds and answers directly to the round table.

Does it do good consensus-building work? I've worked with them on a number of projects over the years, and they bring together people from all the different groups, put them around the table, and try to find the common ground. Based on that, they come up with sort of a state of the play: Where are we at? Where can we go? What can we recommend to the Prime Minister on this?

I think a mistake was made, because this Prime Minister downgraded the reporting to the Minister of the Environment instead of to the Prime Minister—but that's just my point of view.

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Wetaskiwin, AB]

But you would agree that there's a lot of duplication in the work and the knowledge base. Part of your testimony, Mr. Toner, when you came here was that we need to create a central body of all this information. The information is held in the academic institutions from coast to coast to coast, which are part of this national round table. Would it be logical to change the mandate of the national round table, then, so that it reports to Parliament rather than to the executive of the government, and leave the audit capabilities alone for the Office of the Auditor General?

[Glen Toner]

It would be a very different round table, I think. I suppose it would be possible.

I don't know how you'd make it accountable or answerable to Parliament. I'm not sure how that would work.

The other question is, could an independent commissioner also have these sorts of outreach opportunities that could allow them to gain these points of view from different players in the policy community?

That's what the U.K. commission does, but the U.K. Sustainable Development Commission came out of the round table in the U.K. It reports, again, directly to the Prime Minister and to the ministers. So there's more of a two-way relationship there between the executive leadership of the government and people who are doing research in those areas.

I don't see that there would necessarily be a lot of overlap, particularly if the two entities were noticing what each other was doing and presumably would choose to focus on different things or work collaboratively on some projects in terms of doing forward research.

[L. Denis Desautels]

Mr. Chairman, a lot of the debate in 1995 was around that, and we made the point quite clearly that if we were to assume the role of commissioner, we would not be able to get into the policy area and be proactive on the policy front, and other organizations would have to be put in place to play that role. The national round table was seen, at the time, as maybe fulfilling that need to exercise pressure on government and on parliamentarians to take certain policy directions on the environment.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Mills]

Thank you, Mr. Calkins.

Mr. Lussier, are you okay, or do you have one tiny question?