Environment Committee on Nov. 20th, 2007

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

Mr. Chair, I'd like to continue along the same lines as Mr. Godfrey, but not with regard to the private bill. In June, the Auditor General directed a green ribbon panel to evaluate the future role of the Commissioner of the Environment.

Is that correct?

[Ron Thompson]

Almost.

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

The panel phoned me this summer to ask me what role the Commissioner of the Environment should play, how many reports there should be and whether they should be integrated.

Has the panel completed its work, and has it prepared a report?

[Ron Thompson]

Mr. Chairman, Mr. Bigras, yes, the panel, as I understand it, has virtually completed their work.

They had a very busy summer, as I understand it. I don't know whether you've appeared before them; I certainly have, and our group has. I don't know how many people they've interviewed in total. They're very close to completing their work. I haven't seen the final report yet, but I'm expecting it will be provided to Mrs. Fraser in the next few weeks.

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

If I understand correctly, the report has not yet been tabled. Can you assure us that, when it is, the committee is able to examine it first?

Second, you state in point 1.62 of this report that:

[...] we also did not find evidence that the departments had analyzed and considered the environmental, social, and economic consequences of their current or proposed policies, programs and activities when developing their strategies.

I find it hard to understand this sentence because I'm convinced that, when the government introduces a policy, plan or program, an economic assessment is submitted on the benefits of that policy. Did you mean to say instead that there had not been an environmental assessment equivalent to the economic assessment at the time government policies and plans were presented?

I'd like you to explain point 1.62 to me.

[Ron Thompson]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I will respond to those two questions from Mr. Bigras.

In terms of the green ribbon panel, certainly when the panel provides its report to Mrs. Fraser, she's going to spend some time studying it, I suspect, with people on the executive committee. She fully intends to make it public, sir, with an action plan to respond to whatever recommendations it may contain. At that time, I'm sure that when it's made public obviously it will come to all members of Parliament and more specifically this committee.

The panel was asked to look at how well we are implementing the mandate we have, as opposed to seeing what other kind of mandate we might have. That's the primary focus of the panel's work. They may well have heard other things as well, which they might put in the report; I don't know. They were basically asked whether the commissioner has carried out the mandate given to him or to her over the past decade as well as they might, so that's what we'll find in the report.

In terms of how we see SDSs, as we point out in the opening statement and in the chapter, they were put in play a decade ago to really help departments--to coerce departments, if I can put it that way--to green their operations. They were expected to consider environmental protection alongside economic prosperity and major social issues such as health as they did a couple of things: as they carried out and managed programs of the day, and more particularly as they looked ahead to consider programs and proposals for programs of the future.

Now, in terms of changing management's behaviour in the way these SDSs were designed to do, we can't see any evidence that management's behaviour has been changed. That's the point we're making in the chapter, and that's what we think needs to be re-examined.

In terms of evaluation of programs coming through, you may be referring, Mr. Bigras, to strategic environmental assessments and that sort of thing. We didn't really get into that in this chapter, but if you can hold on until February, we have a major follow-up chapter in February that deals with just that.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Mills]

Yes, Mr. Lussier.

[Marcel Lussier, Bloc, Brossard—La Prairie, QC]

Mr. Thompson, discussing current issues is one of the responsibilities of your office. Will the 14 chapters that are published in February address current issues?

[Ron Thompson]

Mr. Chairman, Mr. Lussier, I certainly hope so.

Let me explain what we've done to select these 14 chapters. We've looked back over the history of this office, and we've tried to select some of the key recommendations we've made to Parliament and to the government over that period of time and the key audit observations we've made. We haven't looked at them all. We've selected those that we think are of relevance today and will be of relevance for some time into the future. We have audited those to determine whether the government has taken adequate action to address either the recommendations we have made or the observations we have made.

I'm hoping, sir, that what you will see will be quite relevant to today.

[Marcel Lussier, Bloc, Brossard—La Prairie, QC]

I'm going to restate my question. In the 14 chapters, are you going to discuss blue algea?

[Ron Thompson]

No.

[Marcel Lussier, Bloc, Brossard—La Prairie, QC]

Not at all?

[Ron Thompson]

No.

[Marcel Lussier, Bloc, Brossard—La Prairie, QC]

In your opinion, do the 14 chapters address current issues from an environmental standpoint? Are they currently relevant for the public?

[Ron Thompson]

Mr. Chairman, perhaps Mr. Arseneault could reply.

[Richard Arseneault, Principal, Office of the Auditor General of Canada]

I'll give you an idea of the content of those chapters. Three chapters will address chemical substances, and one of those will focus on an assessment of chemical substances in accordance with the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act. We've been very critical of the government's performance in this area in the past, and we have therefore a follow-up to see whether matters have improved.

We've also done a follow-up on an audit we did in 2003 on the federal government's management, evaluation and approval of pesticides, and we will be reporting on our findings.

We've also prepared another chapter that will provide follow-up to our 2002 chapter on contaminated sites and abandoned mines in the North. At the time, we were highly critical of the government, and we will be able to reveal what we've found out about the government's performance since 2002.

Four chapters respectively address four living systems: federal protection areas, species at risk, invasive aquatic species and areas of concerns in the Great Lakes.

We then look at three institutional tools the government has acquired for managing environmental issues. We also examine the international environmental agreements signed by the government to determine whether the information concerning those agreements is being transmitted to Canadians.

We also have a chapter on strategic environmental assessments, an issue of major concern for this committee since it is often brought to our attention. We've done a follow-up. It will be remembered that, in 2004, when we did the work, the government's performance was not very good. We will now see where it stands.

We also have a chapter on the greening of government operations. In particular, we look at green purchasing issues and the guidelines the government has put in place to enable departments to check compliance.

We've also done four follow-ups to responses to petitions. In the past, we conducted audits on environmental petitions because ministers' responses to petitioners contained commitments.

We've conducted audits and we're now doing follow-ups in four areas: insurance for nuclear facility operators, guidelines that the Minister of the Environment undertook to develop for deciding not to include certain species at risk, contaminated military sites, genetically modified fish and, lastly, research and systems put in place to ensure that those fish do not contaminate the environment.

We're really covering a fairly broad range of substances.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Mills]

Mr. Lussier, your time is actually up, so very quickly....

[Marcel Lussier, Bloc, Brossard—La Prairie, QC]

I would like us to table these 14—

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Mills]

Mr. Cullen, please.

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

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you to our witnesses today.

From listening to the initial testimony and the questions since, I think there is a need for translation for Canadians, in some sense, not from one official language to the other but of the implications of your report, of what it means. “Sustainable development” is a very exclusive term, I would suggest; people don't necessarily know what it means. Your section as to why this is important, when I read it here, is talking about the lens that government attempts to put in front of all of its programs and spending to consider the environment.

Is that essentially the crux of what it is to attempt to put these strategies into practice?

[Ron Thompson]

Mr. Cullen, the short answer, I think, sir, is yes. Let me embellish that a bit, from the viewpoint of how we see it.

It seems to us that sustainable development is about a lot of things, but one of the things it's about is getting ahead of the curve a bit. It's encouraging the government to look down the road and to try to anticipate problems—for example, problems that might be involved in protecting the environment, problems that might come up based on an individual department's activities—and to think through ways of mitigating them before they could become really serious. It's about looking down the road, most particularly, and trying to think about opportunities that may present themselves that could be exploited; for example, innovation opportunities.

It's not just about managing the programs of the day, although it's certainly about that too. It's about protecting the environment in relation to issues that have arisen in the past, but it's about looking down the road to try to get a little ahead of the curve.

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

I know this doesn't fall within your immediate purview, but I assume the government does this around taxation policy, does it around immigration policy. It has some knowledge or makes some attempt to understand what's coming when designing the policies of today, because many of these policies last over a number of years and have implications.

The conclusion that the government has, in your words, provided a major disappointment with respect to looking down the road for our environment seems to me to encapsulate the very problem we're dealing with right now in climate change: that this, by its nature, is an issue that requires the government to look down the road, to plan ahead, and to apply a green filter in front of the programs, the policies, and the spending that government does. The failure to do so has consequences.

I'm trying to understand, because we've had four plans in twelve years. This is the tenth audit. Governments have said mea culpa time and again. The auditor's office has slapped their wrists and chastised them properly.

I'm wondering what consequences there are. Have you been able to determine that anybody anywhere within the government has ever been docked pay, has ever received a letter of reprimand? Has there been any consequence for the failure to look ahead and protect the environment in implementing government policies?

[Ron Thompson]

Mr. Chairman, Mr. Cullen has two questions. Let me address them sequentially.

In terms of climate change illustrating what we mean by sustainable development...it's a very good illustration, I think. If the government puts forward a government-wide climate change plan, that's one thing. The next step is to back that plan up into the departments that are going to be able to contribute to achieving the goals in that plan.

That's where the individual SDSs come into play. Clearly, not every government department will have a role to play in combating climate change; some will more than others. The SDSs are the vehicles that departments that have a role to play can use to strut their stuff, if I may put it that way.

Really, climate change is a good example of how sustainable development could work and we believe should work within the federal government, starting with an overall plan, an overall set of goals, and backing those goals down into departments.

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

I will just stop you there for a moment. With a failure of the attempt to have a consistent approach to sustainable development, the ability to apply a government's overall climate change plan, which this government and previous governments have announced, seems to me impossible. If you don't have a structure within government—in Transport, in Health, in Industry—in which they can apply a green lens, if you will, then how can governments make any type of climate change announcements with any confidence whatsoever of them actually coming to fruition? Or is it just another attempt at rhetoric?

I'll stay away from the politics, but if the function isn't there, if there simply isn't the mechanism to produce the results the government wishes on greenhouse gas reduction, then I don't know how any minister can stand up with any confidence after a report like this and say, “Oh no, we have it figured out. We have the ability to function this and make it real.”

[Ron Thompson]

There's a need, Mr. Chairman, Mr. Cullen, to put in place an overarching plan. That's clear. The government agrees with that. We've agreed with that. We're hoping this review will flesh that out.

There are a number of programs now in place within the government that look at climate change. What we're talking about is trying to encourage the government to do something at the top, at the government-wide level, that would permit a reasonable coordination of programs now in place and a reasonable orientation towards achieving specific goals. I don't think that's impossible, sir. I think that's entirely possible and it needs to be put in place.