Environment Committee on Feb. 12th, 2007

[Bernard Bigras, Bloc, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Mills]

Thank you.

Mr. Cullen.

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

Thank you, Chair.

Thanks to our witnesses.

I want to start with the broader picture and then narrow it down to the specific policy recommendations that this committee is seeking to make to government.

The current issue that I think many of us around this table and much of the Canadian public are most seized with is on climate change, on a government and a society response to what is a long-term and difficult initiative but yet is critical in terms of our response.

Mr. Toner, could you comment on a general question? How are we as a nation doing with respect to our obligations and commitments to climate change efforts?

[Glen Toner]

I didn't prepare extensive notes or thoughts on that today, but we're obviously not doing well. There was a report last week out of the Munk Centre, at the University of Toronto, that placed us last.

It's actually indicative of a broader problem. I hate to say this, but for most of the comparative studies that are being done on our performance across the board these days, I've been involved in a few of them, and, frankly, it was easier to make the case for Canada back in the nineties than it is now. When we get involved in these comparative ones, we just don't look good.

I'm talking about the OECD, not only academics but organizations that are comparing and contrasting Canada's performance across the board. One of the reasons is that we don't have an institution in this country doing independent, forward-looking, foresight types of work.

Look at the title of this document from the Commissioner in New Zealand, “Creating Our Future: Sustainable Development for New Zealand”. Unconstrained, it gets ahead of the policy debates and creates a space for Canadians to talk about climate change within a broader perspective. Climate change is not only an environmental issue. As you well know, it's a transportation issue, it's an energy issue, and it's a resource development issue. It's a whole bunch of other issues as well, such as housing, the design of cities, etc.

One of the reasons we're slipping in the competitiveness game is because we don't have anyone making the space to have these debates in this country. Perhaps an independent commissioner could do that.

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

I think there's an assumption in your comment, because there are think tanks and various lobbyists and groups around the country, but perhaps they don't occupy that space of legitimacy or independence or non-partisanship.

[Glen Toner]

This function is outside of the executive branch of government. This reports only to parliamentarians and to Canadians through parliamentarians. They're not mixed up in the day-to-day politics

To do my research, yesterday I called up Morgan Williams, the commissioner from New Zealand, and I talked to him. I asked him what makes it work for them there, what lessons we could learn from them.

He said one of the things is that credibility flows from the quality of the work they do in reporting to the parliamentary committee. They can do audits, but they work in conjunction with the Auditor General's Office and help the Auditor General's Office scope its environmental work. He said they did work on invasive species and the biological security of New Zealand. He said the commissioner's functions are to get out ahead of the policy debates, and that you can play a valuable educational role in society by not being moulded by the political mood of the day.

That's a bit different from a lot of the other think tanks that have taken an advocating position of some kind out there. It stands above that sort of partisan dispute and creates a space to do the forward-looking thinking.

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

That's why I started with the question on the overall effectiveness of programming to this point.

I have a question for you, sir. Under classical auditing terms, would one take up the issue of comparing a government's promises to the programs it's laid out to meet those promises? The government says we will achieve X and lays out a series of programs that only achieve half of X. Under classical auditing guidelines, would that be a situation on which the auditor would comment?

[L. Denis Desautels]

My answer to that, Mr. Chairman, is that yes, because you're talking here about how well a government has been delivering---

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

Maybe I should make my point more explicitly. Take the issue of climate change. The government says we promise to reduce by 100,000. It releases a plan that's laid out over a number of months, and it has a number of different components, without anyone really watching all of the components. Would an auditor take up all of those promised announcements and say they actually only add up to 50,000 and not 100,000?

[L. Denis Desautels]

I think you're bringing in another dimension. If you're saying that as the government is making an announcement or laying out plans of what it's going to do down the road, I don't think it would be proper for an auditor or, I would say, even a stand-alone commissioner to get involved in the middle of the debate between members of Parliament at that point. So certainly we would not do that.

We will certainly do it, though, once a program has been approved and it's working, to see whether or not the government actually delivers what it said it would deliver with that program. That's fair game. It's the same with other key questions. One example I could use is the gun registry. You would not have wanted the Auditor General or another agent of Parliament to get involved in that debate at the time about whether or not it was a good thing to do. I think once the program is in place, whether or not it's achieving what it was supposed to achieve is a subject of a legitimate audit.

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

I will agree on your first condition. I'll disagree with you on your second, because when it comes to climate change, the whole point has been the planning. Ineffective plans have led to the results we have right now. I don't say this for partisan reasons. I'm looking as objectively as I can at the case as it was made to Canadians in signing Kyoto and then in laying out some plans to achieve Kyoto. It was not until two or three years after the fact that we as parliamentarians from all parties were able to go through the audit of the programs and say, my goodness, I think we're off track. Now we're so drastically off track that the debate is just by how much as opposed to whether we can get back on.

I'd like to make a point about the costs. If you look at the costs of creating a separate, stand-alone office, Ms. Fraser's testimony would probably show that at the time costs were against that. My staff has pulled up some of the actuals, and we're talking about $5 million or $6 million, as we've heard from Ms. Fraser and from others as a cost estimate. Compare that to the multi-billion-dollar mistakes available.

The effectiveness of the commissioner's office must be improved. I disagree with Ms. Fraser's comment on the policy options available to this point, and that it should be housed in her office and should file a report four times a year. That is the suggestion at this point, and I fundamentally disagree with that.

It seems to me when we talk about the autonomy of the office--Mr. McGuinty alluded to it at the very end of questioning--there's a distaste in my mouth, and I think in many Canadians', as to what exactly happened with the Commissioner of the Environment's office in the last month. We don't know.

As a former Auditor General before a parliamentary committee, you answer, I assume, almost every question given. You were an officer of Parliament when you were functioning in that role?

[L. Denis Desautels]

Yes.

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

You were answerable to the committee members, who posed questions of some reasonableness to you.

We were left without answers to a basic question. We asked about the effectiveness of the Commissioner of the Environment. We were given answers that maybe there wasn't enough media attention when the commissioner delivered reports--there weren't enough reporters in the room--or perhaps the government hadn't made enough corrections in its course.

I am left with an unsettling reality that something happened in terms of the Commissioner of the Environment, which I don't know the answer to yet. I am left with no assurances that things will improve under the current recommendations put forward by the auditor.

I have a question for Mr. Toner.

In terms of governments' responses--I'm drawing on the U.K. and New Zealand experiences, which have been more effective than we have when dealing with their own climate change challenges--how critical is it in these uncertain times, when it comes to the environment and climate change, to have an effective Commissioner of the Environment?

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Mills]

Be very brief, Mr. Toner, please.

[Glen Toner]

That's a hard question to answer--absolutely. There is no question that they can be proactive, thinking, engaged organizations that can hopefully move the country forward and make some changes that are required. But they don't make policy. They encourage and do research and try to convince governments to act, but you can't draw a direct line to their functions and performance of governments necessarily.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Mills]

Thank you.

Mr. Warawa.

[Mark Warawa, Conservative, Langley, BC]

Thank you, Chair.

I'll be sharing my time with Mr. Harvey.

Thank you, witnesses, for being here today.

Mr. McGuinty and Mr. Cullen have made comments expressing concern regarding Madam Gélinas not being the commissioner anymore. This appears to have spurred the discussion we're having today. I don't know if that's accurate, but those comments have been made at more than one meeting.

When Madam Fraser was here on the 8th, she said the office has become a world leader in environmental auditing, that auditors from around the world have requested our advice, and that many of them have taken courses on environmental auditing that we have developed in Canada.

After your testimony and the questioning is done, this committee will be faced with the task of deciding what direction we will recommend to the government. We have had you, the Auditor General, and Mr. Thompson, the new acting commissioner. Each of you is providing the committee with a different recommendation.

My first question is this. Do you agree with the comment of the Auditor General that we are world leaders and that countries are seeking our advice about structure?

[Glen Toner]

She is right. I said in my testimony that we do very good environmental auditing. The office does very good work.

An organization called INTOSAI has a working group on environmental audit. The Canadian team from the commissioner's group within the OAG has been instrumental in growing that group. In fact, one of the principals and one of the assistant auditors general are in South Africa as we speak at one of those meetings.

If the committee wants very good environmental auditing--looking at what government has done and criticizing and commenting on that--then we have very good capability of doing that with the current machinery. There is no question.

[Mark Warawa, Conservative, Langley, BC]

Mr. Desautels, would you agree, then, with the comments of the Auditor General that we are world leaders and that what we have right now is working?

[L. Denis Desautels]

Mr. Chairman, yes, I agree. I've been gone from the office for five or six years. When I left, Canada was very much at the front end of environmental auditing, worldwide. And I believe this position has just been reconfirmed and reaffirmed.

I would like to make one other little comment, picking up on what Mr. Toner said, that this is all excellent auditing, but it's always looking backwards. As a former auditor, I resent a bit being pictured that way, always looking backwards. I think if auditing is properly carried out, it does offer a lot of good information as to which way you should go forward. I think a better understanding of what's worked and what has not worked is very good input for good policy and good management in terms of avoiding errors in the future. So it's not just looking backwards. In my view, there's a forward-looking element to this that's quite important.

[Mark Warawa, Conservative, Langley, BC]

So if the two of you were to audit the performance of this committee in making a wise decision, have we had adequate testimony here to make this decision, considering that if we are world leaders and we're talking about changing structure...? As I said, my first comments were that there have been questions why Madam Gélinas is no longer the commissioner. Is that a good motivator to rush into a change?

[L. Denis Desautels]

Mr. Chairman, as I said in my opening comments, I think you'll be making a very important decision, and I think once you make it, it's going to have an impact for years to come. It has to be taken with all the right information, and I'm not sure you have it yet. As I said, certain countries, certain jurisdictions, have adopted a different model, where the commissioner is more independent and is expected to comment more on policy. You should look at those and see whether or not it has produced what you would hope would be achieved in those circumstances and compare that against what this system has generated. I think we may be a little hard on the current system and what it's produced, because I think it's produced some really good work.

And I think in answer to Mr. Cullen's question earlier, as to where Canada stands, if you look at some of the commissioner's own reports, I think it will answer some of those questions. It needs to be thoroughly analyzed and compared to what you've been getting so far, against what these other jurisdictions are producing and where you would want to be. So I think it's a very important decision.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Mills]

Mr. Toner.

[Glen Toner]

Yes, absolutely, it is a very important decision. My audit advice to the committee would be to think seriously about this. It seems to me this is an historic opportunity, just as it was 10 years ago. A certain path was taken then. I think we've come up against the limits of that path, just the structural limits.

There are three options, it seems to me. One is the continuation of that historic path, which has some real strengths. I've tried to make that clear--some real strengths. Another one is to create a commissioner, a forward-looking position that could do all those other things we've talked about but leave the environmental audit function to the Auditor General. That's the one the Auditor General herself has said could be a possibility. The other one you saw from my oral presentation is my argument to create a fully formed commissioner who can do both forward-looking work and performance audits. You need to have them in the same shop.

This is an historic moment, so I don't think you should rush into it. I think it would be good to hear from some of these other commissioners in these other countries who've struggled with these same issues. And maybe you'd want to have some of the other people who've been involved.

We've both been involved in various ways--for 10 years I worked very closely with these people, and Mr. Desautels, of course, was the boss of the first two commissioners. So we're only part of the story. If you really want to have a full assessment, I think you would have to have more people in.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Mills]

Mr. Harvey.