Environment Committee on March 10th, 2008

[Ron Thompson]

Just imagine that we are sitting here six years down the road. The commissioner has come out with a report on the second one of these strategies and the related departmental or entity strategies. Let's suppose we've found that there were three or four goals set up for the government to accomplish, and these various departments that were supposed to be contributing to those goals did nothing or very little.

I suggest to this table that such a hearing would be quite something. We'd be sitting here with the departmental officials who were obliged by law to contribute to the overall plan and failed to do so. That provides to me a sense of government-wide emphasis, importance, and urgency to the work of the individual department that isn't here now.

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

Allow me to challenge you on that. Last week we sat at the table upstairs and looked through nine out of fourteen chapters in a report showing government failures. While there was some news to it and comment from the various sides and interests, I can't imagine that anyone out there in civil service land is packing up their desk right now. There are no consequences to a report on failures.

When you walked me through that scenario of imagining us six years from now, my immediate instinct was that we would be having the same conversation. When Mr. Tonks visited our committee some time ago, he said, “Look, you're having the same conversation as when I was here as chair.” It was funny, but it was also very discouraging.

[Ron Thompson]

Mr. Cullen, thank you for sharpening that point a little bit. Let's not worry about six years down the road; let's worry about next week or three weeks hence. We have fourteen chapters on the table with you right now, and many of them don't tell a very pretty picture.

I was trying to encourage this committee—and I'll encourage other committees to do the same thing—to hold the departments that haven't performed well to account, and hold them to account for what they're going to do to perform better in the future. Obviously it's the future where this is going to get better, not the past. This committee and other committees of the House that are interested in, concerned with, and legislatively responsible for various departments of the House can really hold departmental officials' feet to the fire for failing to perform in these various areas. That will make a difference in their careers.

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

You see, I guess this is my question, going back to this particular piece of legislation. I see performance contracts and the like. I believe--and I'll be making petitions to this committee--that we need to strengthen that, because we have called department officials to task and account, and they come and wring their hands and they're properly sorry for what happened. Yet when we seek out accountability, as you would in the private sector, if money had been stolen or product lines had failed or what not, you would want to know who did it. Politicians come and go, but it seems to me that the civil servants have a great vested interest in making sure that this accountability loop to the commitments made by the politicians doesn't actually necessarily deviate.

I'll direct the questioning for a moment towards this, because much of the power is held and the direction is given to the Minister of the Environment under this piece of legislation. It's been my growing suspicion for a while now that as the ministry is constructed in the power dynamic that is Ottawa, it is one of the weak kids on the block, if you will. Is there a need for a higher order to be brought in? Is the Ministry of the Environment powerful enough to actually direct these other ministries to “thou shalt” and all the rest?

[Ron Thompson]

Well, Mr. Cullen, it seems to me it would depend on how this bill is implemented. Certainly the bill as presently drafted doesn't just speak to Environment Canada; it deals in Privy Council Office, as you know, and that sort of thing. So I don't think it would just be Environment Canada that would be required to make this work. If it was only Environment Canada, you might worry a bit.

But certainly it can work, I think, the way it's constituted. Perhaps you have amendments, sir, that would make it stronger, but I like the way it's presently constituted.

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

Your department has looked over previous iterations and previous plans. How much of a concern was fiscal capacity in carrying out those plans throughout and across departments? How much money was brought forward to you as one of the barriers to why something was or wasn't happening?

[Ron Thompson]

Mr. Cullen, are you speaking of the sustainable development strategies of individual entities or about the failure to live up to commitments?

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

The second.

[Ron Thompson]

The latter. It was brought up to us a bit--chapter 4 on protected areas. I think I mentioned last week that the department said quite candidly that they simply hadn't allocated enough resources to this. On another occasion, though--chapter 5--we looked at the amount of money that was announced over five, six, or seven years for that purpose--species at risk--and it seemed to be quite generous. Now, whether it all ended up being spent for that purpose I don't know.

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

Based upon previous experience, it's unlikely. We found with the previous Auditor General report that announcement spending in some cases was quadruple what the actual dispensation was.

The reason I bring it up is it's a broader question and a concern that many have. The implications of a piece of legislation like this in terms of where government will have to spend money and allocate resources can be significant. To achieve some of these goals the number is not known. It can't be known until the government hands down a directive. As the current federal government has been restricting and pulling back more and more of its ability to collect revenue, there's a growing and I think legitimate concern about being able to fiscally face the next challenges that come for the federal government. In a sense, the government is in the position right now of hampering itself quite intentionally to make sure that government becomes smaller and less effective.

As a final question, it seems that as we've gone through the number of plans and iterations from government, time and again, the ambitions are occasionally lofty, sometimes not even lofty, but the follow-through is not. The feeling within the bureaucrats--and we deal with them both here at this table and on other issues--is that there is no immediate impact on requirement.

I would suggest to the committee and to Mr. Godfrey that the one- or two-line references in here to the consequence side of things is not nearly sufficient, considering that the preponderance of evidence has said that it is the consequences and the follow-through that have been the problem. They haven't been the lofty goals. They haven't been the announcements and the ribbon-cutting--that's been well taken care of by the politics. It's been the sense of responsibility by those who are actually going to carry it out.

[Ron Thompson]

Mr. Cullen, certainly I couldn't agree more. We said last week and we'll say again that in looking at the chapters we had last week, where progress wasn't satisfactory, for many of them there have been far too many words used and far too little action expended.

One of the things this bill would put in place, obviously, is the overarching plan we've been talking about for quite a little while. But that, in turn, should help a government prioritize when it's going to look at these various issues—many of them that we raised last week—and assign money to fixing them over time, because, clearly, no government could address all these issues at one time with the same intensity. So I think that's another benefit from putting in place some kind of an overall plan, some kind of an overarching strategy.

In terms of following through on commitments made, it's our job to help you do that, and we intend to continue doing that. We'll do it in the strongest possible way. We'll bring to this table, to this committee and other committees, our candid comments on how well government is performing, in terms of the quality of management it's exercising, and we'll work with you in any way we can to hold people to account who haven't performed well.

As to whether there could be more consequences in the bill, I presume there could, Mr. Cullen. I wouldn't want to comment further on that, other than the fact that we talked last fall about not being able to find, from an audit sense, whether anybody cared whether the SDS process was working well or not. We found the same thing with the SEA process, and it's not a very good state of affairs.

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

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Mills]

Thank you, Mr. Cullen.

Mr. Watson.

[Jeff Watson, Conservative, Essex, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Just picking up where Mr. Cullen was talking about penalties, maybe it would be instructive for the committee, if we're going to delve into that, that we should have PSAC appear, to get their opinion on what to do with collective bargaining agreements and civil servants who are in a situation of non-performance or non-compliance. It might be instructive for Mr. Cullen to ask those questions of them.

To our witnesses, thank you for your return to the committee to testify today. Of course, we are looking at Bill C-474. Shall I say it's another opposition bill presented to this committee that's had to have substantial amendments performed on it?

Listening to your testimony, Mr. Thompson, I just want to raise a couple of questions out of curiosity I'd like to satisfy first, and then I'll probably delve into the main line of my questioning. It's about the familiarity with which you've been consulted with respect to the crafting of this legislation.

I just want to establish, for curiosity's sake, whether the Office of the Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development has ever been involved in the consultation or the advising on the crafting of legislation. Is that a normal sort of process? Just a comment on that. It's a matter of curiosity for me, I guess.

[Ron Thompson]

Mr. Watson, yes, we have, and the Office of the Auditor General has been. We're consulted, sir, when the provisions of a proposed act would affect the work we do. And as I mentioned earlier, this certainly does, so we were consulted in that capacity, and we would be pleased to be consulted any other time in the future under similar circumstances.

What we don't want to do, and won't do, is get involved in proposing legislation, in talking about elements of legislation that don't have anything to do with the work we do, but rather how the government itself is organized, that sort of thing.

[Jeff Watson, Conservative, Essex, ON]

Okay. I appreciate the separation in terms of where you should be involved and shouldn't be involved.

Here's just a question further down the line, then, in light of being consulted. How many times were you consulted on the crafting of this particular legislation? Were there any recommendations you made, either in previous reports or in the consultation on the crafting of this bill, that didn't make it into the newly amended thing? In other words, is there some advice you've given that's still left to follow, either in consultation or in reports, that the committee should be looking at or that didn't show up in the amended bill?

[Ron Thompson]

Well, Mr. Watson, really, substantively, no. We were consulted, I think three or four times, perhaps—three, I guess—and then we've had phone conversations with some of Mr. Godfrey's colleagues.

All the issues we put on the table are reflected in here. Now, I say again that the devil's in the detail, because once this goes through legislative drafting, if it goes that far and all of that sort of thing, the words will change. From our point of view, in terms of how this bill would impact on us, we'll want to watch it all the way through. But in terms of a moving target and where it is today, this reflects our best advice to Mr. Godfrey.

[Jeff Watson, Conservative, Essex, ON]

This brings me to the next question. I'll remind the committee that a review is underway, and a report of that review will be made, I believe, in October of this year. Last year when you appeared before the committee—I think it was in the fall—I believe you stated that you were quite happy that this review of sustainable development practices is being undertaken by the government.

Does this bill prejudge this process in any way, either substantially or not substantially? Is there anything left for the review to turn up? You said you were quite pleased with this particular bill, but I guess I need to know how far your being pleased with it goes. Is there still more for the review to turn up? Are we duplicating efforts here? I just want to get your opinion.

[Ron Thompson]

Mr. Watson, no, I don't think it's a duplication. In the review that was started back in, I guess, November last year—I think we tabled at the end of October, so the government committed to doing the review over the current year and then reporting back in October of this year—there were a lot of elements that we were hoping it would include, and this is one of them: looking at the concept of an overarching strategy. We also suggested in our recommendation and in the text surrounding the recommendation that Environment Canada or whoever does the review should also look at other issues, such as rewards and sanctions and that sort of thing.

That group doing the review hasn't been back here yet. I've had one meeting with officials from Environment Canada. We're going to talk, I guess tomorrow, Mr. Mills, but I think somewhere along the line, if I may suggest this—and I hope I'm not being presumptuous in doing so—it would be good, I think, for Environment Canada and the colleagues with whom they're working on this review to come back to this committee and to tell the committee what it's doing. I'd be delighted to be here with you when that's going on.

In an ideal world, having the people doing the review here just as they've finished the planning would be helpful, so that if they're getting off-base in the plan, we'd know and you'd know; secondly, mid-way through the review, to see what they're finding, what's coming out, what's emerging; and then, of course, when the review is completed, to consult fully with this committee and others on the recommendations they might be making and then have this committee and other committees get behind those recommendations.

I don't think there's any inconsistency; I think they dovetail together quite well. But it's probably time to have Environment Canada and the other colleagues with whom they're working sit down with you to talk about what they're doing.

[Jeff Watson, Conservative, Essex, ON]

I appreciate the advice. I'm sure it will be considered by the government.

Moving to some of the specifics in the proposed bill—a question around the regulatory timeframes in clause 10 furnishes one example—in your view, are such regulatory time limits realistic and transparent, or will they trump any good-faith effort at genuine consultation? These are pretty tight regulatory timeframes we're setting here. Is some of the work to fulfill that requirement going to be presumptive and therefore trump any good-faith effort at genuine consultation?

Do you understand where I'm going with this?

[Ron Thompson]

I do, yes.

I would hope not, sir, because 120 days is not an inconsequential amount of time for consultation. There are two consultations in this. The other stakeholders, beyond the commissioner's office, would have a lot to be consulted on. We would be consulted solely on whether or not what's in the plan is something whose fairness we could at the end of the day assess—which is fair ball: it keeps us out of policy. I think it should be all right.

In the overall architecture, too, of what's being proposed in this—that you would have every three years a national report supported by entity reports, and that they would integrate one with the other—the timing for it makes a lot of sense. You can argue about what three-year period should be followed and that sort of thing, but I think we should be all right.

You may be referring, sir, to the 30 days.

[Jeff Watson, Conservative, Essex, ON]

Yes.

[Ron Thompson]

That's a bit tight, but it's probably something that could be looked at.

[Jeff Watson, Conservative, Essex, ON]

Actually, the second half of your answer presumed the next question I was going to ask, so you're good on clairvoyance, sir.

Do you have any other suggestions, in terms of amendments, perhaps, that the committee should be considering for this bill?

[Ron Thompson]

Not really at this point.

I'm so darned pleased that this bill is being discussed by the committee today, in the sense, as I say, that it puts into a tangible way the kind of overarching plan that we've been calling for over several months. There are many ways to put an overall plan in place, and this is certainly one of them. It's before us, and I think that's a very good thing.