Environment Committee on Feb. 25th, 2008

[Ian Morton]

The minister had a very busy schedule. I concur with all of Pierre Marc's comments.

The one incident that I think got reported by news media here in Canada was an event Pierre Marc referred to. Canada was actually one of only 30 countries that were part of the Friends of the Chair, and the 30 was short-listed to 20. He went to attend a briefing session and was advised once he arrived that he wasn't able to participate. I think it was reported that he wasn't going to the session and negotiating on Canada's behalf, but in fact the friends, at least for that session, had been shortened from 30 to 20, so Canada couldn't participate in that discussion.

I saw the minister work extremely hard, and I was fortunate to participate in a series of bilateral meetings. I attended his face-to-face session with Ban Ki-moon, the UN Secretary General. As Pierre Marc said, we had an opportunity to meet with him almost every day at breakfast around seven o'clock, to review the itinerary and provide some thoughts. Obviously each of us brought in different perspectives and expertise. He listened and he considered. There would be opportunities throughout the day when we'd be called on short notice and he would solicit our advice on different subject matters and different issues that he needed to work through along with some of our senior negotiators. I think in some circumstances that advice was taken.

I would say that he generally made himself available to us. If we were hearing things, either in some of the breakout sessions or in external events, he was extremely receptive. He worked extremely hard over the week, I think, to represent Canada's interests.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Mills]

Thank you, Mr. Warawa.

I've been pretty lenient in terms of the time for every single person on this first round. We're now going into the second round, the five-minutes round. I ask you to keep it at five minutes, and I ask our guests if they could try to keep it as brief as possible so everybody gets an opportunity to ask questions.

Mr. Scarpaleggia, please.

[Francis Scarpaleggia, Liberal, Lac-Saint-Louis, QC]

Thank you, Chair.

Welcome, Mr. Johnson.

I notice from your biography that you were chair of the foreign policy committee of the National Round Table on the Environment and Economy from 1990 to 1997, so you were obviously appointed by the previous Conservative government.

[Pierre Marc Johnson]

I was appointed by Mr. Mulroney, but I also was reappointed by Mr. Chrétien for two years.

[Francis Scarpaleggia, Liberal, Lac-Saint-Louis, QC]

I'm sure that was a very good decision on his part.

Would you have advised Mr. Chrétien to sign the Kyoto Protocol?

[Pierre Marc Johnson]

Probably not, in the form of the level of commitment that was taken then.

[Francis Scarpaleggia, Liberal, Lac-Saint-Louis, QC]

So you did not advise him that Canada should sign on?

[Pierre Marc Johnson]

No, because we were at the round table then.

[Francis Scarpaleggia, Liberal, Lac-Saint-Louis, QC]

So even back then, when Kyoto was—

[Pierre Marc Johnson]

We were not asked by the Prime Minister if he should sign on or not and how we would elaborate the 6%. We had not, to my knowledge, done in-depth studies of what that would have meant.

[Francis Scarpaleggia, Liberal, Lac-Saint-Louis, QC]

I'm just trying to understand what the role of this foreign policy committee was, if not to advise the Prime Minister who reappointed you as to what he should do with respect to the only international instrument that really existed at the time.

Anyway, that's fine. You didn't advise him on it, and I take that.

[Pierre Marc Johnson]

Well, for the simple reason that foreign policy issues that relate to sustainable development are extraordinarily various and numerous, and the concept of addressing the issue of energy in Canada is one that is politically extraordinarily charged.

The round table is a neutral body, and precisely because it's neutral it's aware that it has to be careful in not throwing wrenches in the face of the Prime Minister.

[Francis Scarpaleggia, Liberal, Lac-Saint-Louis, QC]

I understand.

If I could get back to your role in Bali, I am questioning why you were invited. I think I know why you were invited, because of your enormous credibility on the issue, and I think I know why Mary Simon was invited, because of her enormous credibility on the issue, and Elizabeth Dowdeswell, and Mr. Morton. But it sounds almost like you were all just observers there.

I understand that you don't want to tell us exactly what kind of advice you gave Mr. Baird. And by the way, I don't doubt that Mr. Baird has a lot of energy; the opposition doesn't question that. But could you give us an idea of what kinds of advice you gave, generically speaking? In terms of Canada's decision to commit or to become part of the Bali consensus, that happened on the last day, when you were all on your way back. You said he was extremely well briefed by the officials who were there from Environment Canada, implying that there was no need for you to give additional advice, and so on and so forth. So I'm just trying to get an idea of what kind of generic advice you would give Mr. Baird on these issues.

[Pierre Marc Johnson]

I understand exactly your question, and I'm not surprised by it.

The first thing is that I think the minister recognized that he had not participated in many international conferences before, and it was useful for him to have around him not only officials.... And that's what the officials told us. They were actually happy to see, among others, Elizabeth and I there, because we'd been in the Rio process for many years.

[Francis Scarpaleggia, Liberal, Lac-Saint-Louis, QC]

And how did he benefit from your presence?

[Pierre Marc Johnson]

In practice, this allows advice on the process a lot, on timing, on energy well spent, on maybe it's not time to speak to the French—

[Francis Scarpaleggia, Liberal, Lac-Saint-Louis, QC]

You're being very vague, Mr. Johnson.

[Pierre Marc Johnson]

—maybe it's better to wait for tomorrow because of what they said.

[Francis Scarpaleggia, Liberal, Lac-Saint-Louis, QC]

That's very vague. Your trip was paid for by the taxpayers of Canada, and I'm not leaving here knowing any more about your role than when I read about it in The Globe and Mail.

[Pierre Marc Johnson]

I'd appreciate it if you'd let me answer.

That was on process. Secondly, on substance, for instance, Bali is considered a fairly positive contribution to the climate change process in the international community. Why? Because a major decision had to be taken on whether we go on two tracks, and what are on these two tracks to get to Copenhagen in 2009?

That's an evaluation that can be made by officials, and usually is, but it is also a place where one can exercise some political judgment, and I would say the advisers had a role, not in the partisan sense but in the sense of whether this is opportune for ministers to talk with each other rather than leave it to their officials.

These decisions are not simple to make in international conferences, and I think the presence of some of us around the minister facilitated some of that. But I won't say he wouldn't have done it if we'd not been there. It's very difficult to evaluate that impact. It's for him to say.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Mills]

Good. Thank you.

Mr. Watson, please.

[Jeff Watson, Conservative, Essex, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to our witnesses for appearing today.

I'm picking up where we left off. From what I understand, Mr. Morton and Mr. Johnson, the importance of your presence there was to depoliticize what's become a very heavily politicized issue. Particularly if you're in the room here today, you can feel that this can be a very politicized issue with a lot of rhetoric around it. Many would read in the newspaper about Canada's obstructionism at Bali, and about the minister being absent, not present. We've heard the NGOs testify saying that this was it, even though they weren't involved in a very direct way.

Your presence there sort of depoliticizes. What I'm hearing today is very different from what was reported as hearsay by some of the other folks who were around Bali but not really involved in the manner that you were. So your presence here today is very important.

Mr. Johnson, you said you went to one of the side events, including Mr. Dion's. Mr. Dion, the Liberal leader, the leader of the official opposition, was in Bali publicly criticizing the government as being obstructionist. We've already heard you say that you didn't think that was a fair criticism. Was it helpful to have the leader of the official opposition criticizing a government there? Was it counterproductive? What kind of a dynamic did that introduce to your efforts alongside the minister's to move this issue forward in a productive way?

[Pierre Marc Johnson]

I did attend Mr. Dion's presentation in one of the side events, which was called “From Montreal to Copenhage”, at which there were about 75 people coming from various areas. He did make a very substantive contribution to the debate within that context. I didn't follow Mr. Dion when he was giving interviews destined for the Canadian public, which I guess might have been a little different.

I did hear one day from a journalist who felt that Mr. Dion was a specialist in that area, and I heard someone else saying “Yes, but maybe he also has another agenda”. I guess Mr. Dion indeed had both hats when he went there. In Bali in the formal meetings he did not clobber the Canadian government, but I understand he did a lot on TV.

[Jeff Watson, Conservative, Essex, ON]

More to the point, I just want to follow that through a little bit further. I think it comes back again to the rationale of why you and others were brought along on a trip like this. You're bringing up the very politicization, I think, that strikes at the core of why you guys and ladies were on this trip as advisers to the minister, and there was an effort to do that.

I think our colleague across the way, Mr. Scarpaleggia, asked what kind of advice you could bring, and I commented across the table to him that it was probably better advice than opposition critics could have brought to the table.

[Francis Scarpaleggia, Liberal, Lac-Saint-Louis, QC]

Point of order.