Environment Committee on March 10th, 2008

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

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

I am not opposed to the principle behind the bill put forward by Mr. Godfrey, but I believe that several elements will have to be changed in order for it to allow good relations between the provinces and the federal government. There is, among other things, the schedule that sets out the goals and sub-goals flowing from the bill. There is also mention of municipal waste and recycling rates. Quebec has adopted a waste matter policy, but the Canada knows best attitude would have us believe that if it comes from above, from the federal government, then it is better.

I wonder how a sustainable development strategy involving mainly federal responsibilities could be put in place. And I also wonder why, Mr. Godfrey, you have not integrated strategic environmental assessment, which has been around for over 25 years in the federal government. Furthermore, this is a directive from the Prime Minister which should apply to all departments, be it Transport Canada, Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, or Health Canada. As a matter of fact, the latest report of the Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development states that Health Canada does not apply strategic environmental assessment.

Rather than have the Environment Commissioner audit the policies which in principle come under the provinces, why have you not required, as some countries do, that the federal government and departments be bound by the law to carry out such an assessment every time they table a plan, policy or program? We have today been presented with regulatory measures. Have they been subject to strategic environmental assessment? Must all departments comply? It seems to me that it would have been preferable to include in the bill a coercive, compulsory, legislative and regulatory approach, rather than calling upon the Commissioner of the Environment to verify if the provinces are fulfilling the requirements of the bill.

I am not saying that I will be voting against the bill. It provides the following:

(e) Canadian cities should become vibrant, clean, livable, prosperous, safe and sustainable;

I have nothing against that, but as far as I know, towns and cities are creatures of the provinces and not of the federal government. How can we, in a federal bill, tell Canadian cities to become vibrant, clean and prosperous? I am not saying that this should not be accomplished, but is this not already being done in certain provinces where waste matter policies are already in place? It seems to me that there is a jurisdictional problem here.

[John Godfrey, Liberal, Don Valley West, ON]

Those are two good questions, Mr. Chairman.

The first one involves the respective responsibilities of the provinces and of the federal government. We have proposed amendments in this regard. We are still at the draft stage, but this would allow for changes at sections 5 and 8. We say, for example, “[...] while recognizing the respective roles and responsibilities of the federal government and the provinces and territories;“.

Obviously, we want to do two things at once. The environment does not recognize borders, be they international, national or municipal. The idea is to work in collaboration with all levels of government while respecting the jurisdiction of the provinces. As a former minister of State responsible for infrastructure and communities, I am very aware of the fact that by virtue of the Constitution cities fall under the responsibility of the provinces. However, the federal government must make the sustainable development of the country's cities and provinces a priority. We must not be going in opposite directions.

In my opinion, we must recognize that what is required is team work involving the provinces, the federal government, the territories, the municipalities and the private sector. The approach for the future must be one of cooperation. It is not possible to separate responsibilities in certain situations given the fact, for example, that the air we breathe circulates between provinces, crosses over national borders, etc.

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

What I understand from your policy is that it is up to Ottawa to set targets.

[John Godfrey, Liberal, Don Valley West, ON]

No. What we have proposed, in particular... In the new version that I sent you this morning, we have amended subsection 5(2). It is not very well written, but here is what it says:

5(2) The government of Canada therefore, working with the provinces and territories and recognizing their respective roles and responsibilities, adopts the following goals for Canada with respect to sustainable development:

This is done cooperatively and all the while respecting constitutional jurisdictions. There is no imposition. The federal government can impose nothing in areas falling under provincial jurisdiction, but we must work together.

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

With regard to the appropriateness of policies and acts, do you believe that it is the Commissioner of the Environment of Canada who should be verifying and evaluating the effect of the policies, laws and actions of the provinces with regard to these objectives?

In Quebec, there is an environment commissioner. He has a job to do and verifies if the policies implemented by the government of Quebec with regard to sustainable development are fulfilled. The commissioner verifies if the objectives have been reached. I would invite you to read the latest, very critical, report of Mr. Harvey Mead, Quebec commissioner of the environment, a real pioneer. He is very critical of the government.

Do you believe it should be up to the government, to the Commissioner of the Environment of Canada, to ensure that the provinces, following upon their cooperation with the federal government, have reached the objectives set out in the bill?

[John Godfrey, Liberal, Don Valley West, ON]

Not at all. What I see is a conversation between the commissioner of Quebec and the federal commissioner, Mr. Thompson, to see if they might set up a system covering the entire country, including the provinces. The auditor general works with her provincial counterparts to examine an entire system, for example that of health care, where there are provincial elements as well as a federal component. It is by working together that we will be able to have an audit system country-wide.

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

Would you be open to an amendment that would make strategic environmental assessment compulsory, and I am speaking here of the 1994 directive that the departments have refused? I remember a report of the Commissioner of the Environment stating that the Finance Department of Canada was dragging its feet. Would you be prepared to include in your bill an amendment that would make strategic environmental assessments compulsory for all federal government departments?

[John Godfrey, Liberal, Don Valley West, ON]

That is a very interesting idea. When it is Mr. Thompson's turn to appear, I would very much like to hear his comments with regard to the failure of that process. We are putting this bill forward out of frustration. The other process has not worked for 25 years. This is why we are tabling another bill, in the hope that things will be better. It could be interesting to hear Mr. Thompson's thoughts.

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

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Mills]

Good. Thank you.

Mr. Martin.

[Tony Martin, NDP, Sault Ste. Marie, ON]

Mr. Park, you said one of the principles--trying to put two of them together--was that when you take something out of the earth and there's the potential that it will go into the atmosphere, you should try to capture it.

How does the whole notion of carbon sequestration being put out there now fit into the set of principles you've outlined for us here today?

[Chad Park]

In theory, I think it's consistent with the first principle. The problem in that case is that we're taking up carbon that has been stored in the earth's crust for a long time, using it, burning it, and it's accumulating in the atmosphere. If we could find a way to capture the carbon, then in theory it would be consistent with that principle.

I think the question then becomes the most cost-effective way of coming into alignment with that principle. That's a different discussion, because you can evaluate different technologies and so on in that context. The important use of the principles is evaluating potential technologies for their potential to bring us into alignment.

I don't think there's any silver bullet, in the sense of one technology that's going to bring our whole energy system into alignment with the first principle, but certainly that would be among the options to consider. Without knowing more about it than we do right now, you could make a case for it being consistent with that principle.

[Tony Martin, NDP, Sault Ste. Marie, ON]

Okay.

Mr. Godfrey, I'm new to this--with the weather, Nathan is trying to get back to Ottawa today, as many of us were earlier--but what confidence might we have in this bill, given the track record of government, where we've brought in sustainability plans since the early to mid-1990s, and each time the commissioner of the environment finds us in non-compliance, wags a finger, there's this great hue and cry, and then we go back to doing what we've always done.

In my quick review, it seems you've actually removed some of what might have been put in place to actually.... You need some vehicles to actually challenge those who pollute or those who would not be acting in terms of the sustainability principles.

We've talked about an environmental commissioner. They have one in Ontario. I was part of the government, in the early nineties, that brought that in. Mr. Miller, of North Bay, Ontario, not only has the ability to hear from citizens where things are being done wrong, but to actually lay fines and challenge industry and others who would affect the environment that way.

What's in this bill that would give us any confidence that it won't be another of those feel-good kinds of “we'll put a sustainability act in place” but will not get us where we want to go?

[John Godfrey, Liberal, Don Valley West, ON]

What we've tried to do, first of all, is to not go beyond the scope of a private member's bill. That's why we removed the reference to a new independent office, simply because that would create a new budget, which would require expenditures, which we couldn't do. What we've also tried to do is work very closely with the commissioner so he's not responsible for anything in this bill, and with his predecessor, to understand where we've gone wrong previously, and also to understand how we can avoid the kind of vagueness to which you refer, which has been everybody's frustration.

You will want to confirm this when Mr. Thompson's up to bat, but the general advice we got was, first of all, you have to force the responsibility for developing these plans and being held accountable for their monitoring in the first instance to the agencies and the government itself, but you need to take it, as this bill does, to a whole other level. That's why we've proposed this cabinet secretariat, which would provide that coordinating function that has been absent.

Right now, and again you'll want to ask Mr. Thompson this, the current plan has individual departments putting things forward in a fairly haphazard fashion--I think that would be a generous way of describing it. Nobody at the top is responsible for pulling all this together or being held accountable for why they're not getting anywhere. There's no incentive for producing a really good sustainability plan; nothing there would reward a deputy minister who did a great job.

The first principle was not to have passive resistance by government departments--I think I'm being a bit harsh here to the current notion of sustainable development plans--but to say no, we have to have a cabinet committee, a cabinet secretariat that organizes this activity and is responsible for reporting every three years and making sure the individual departments report in a coherent fashion to them every three years and then have all of that, in turn, monitored by the commissioner.

This is an attempt to meet the criticism of why it didn't work the previous time. Again, Mr. Bigras was very forceful in pointing out how easy it is to pass legislation that people ignore, which is really not good, so how can we create a line of responsibility and a set of principles that are tough enough and accountability mechanisms that will force people to do this? They haven't been doing it to date.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Mills]

Thank you, Mr. Martin.

Mr. Warawa.

[Mark Warawa, Conservative, Langley, BC]

Thank you, Chair.

I'll be splitting my time with Mr. Harvey, so could you let me know when my five minutes are up?

Mr. Park, thank you for being here. I appreciated your testimony, but I'm going to be focusing my questions on Mr. Godfrey.

Mr. Godfrey, thank you for the amendments you've presented to us where you've deleted a number of clauses. I do have a question for you, and it's the relevance of timing.

I read the famous Liberal red book back in 1993.

[John Godfrey, Liberal, Don Valley West, ON]

How embarrassing. I wrote part of it.

[Mark Warawa, Conservative, Langley, BC]

You were a minister, a well-respected minister within the Chrétien and Martin governments, as was Mr. Reagan, who's also served on this committee.

[Geoff Regan, Liberal, Halifax West, NS]

Mr. Reagan's not here.

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

[Mark Warawa, Conservative, Langley, BC]

Regan--sorry.

Mr. McGuinty was also on the national round table.

This is not a new issue. Yes, the David Suzuki Foundation has provided a good report. We've heard year after year from the commissioner that this has been a long-term problem. From 1993 to now, 15 years later, when I've asked why it didn't happen, please don't say you were just about ready to do that. What kept the previous Liberal governments, both Chrétien and Martin governments, from moving forward on this? Again, I've acknowledged that we support the work you've done. We support it as a government; we support it with some amendments. You've provided a number of amendments already. So why didn't it happen previously?

[John Godfrey, Liberal, Don Valley West, ON]

The idea of departments having sustainable development plans that would ultimately be reported on by the commissioner is an idea that goes back roughly ten years. I guess there was an initial period of shakedown. In fact, you might want to direct this to the commissioner when he's up to bat, as to the somewhat unsteady progress over the years. That is to say—and this will not come as a surprise to any one at the table—at times when there's political will and there's focus by a government on a set of objectives, more things are likely to happen. Then there are the times when priorities shift and people back off and they kind of forget about it.

And don't forget the reporting cycle. I think it's usually been a three-year period, as we come around on these and see how the departments are doing. I don't think it can be any faster than that. And again, Mr. Thompson will give you some understanding of why it can't be faster than every three years. So what happens is that if it comes out during an election or when the government's priorities are focused elsewhere, then it doesn't get the attention.

I know that when Mr. Dion was minister, he was very frustrated by these reports, just as Ms. Ambrose was frustrated by the reports and you were frustrated by the reports that this isn't working. But that's why we're putting forward the bill, frankly. It is an attempt to recognize that this hasn't worked and we're trying to find a solution, and we're trying to find it, by the way, in a way in which all of us who believe in transparency and accountability will be happy.

[Mark Warawa, Conservative, Langley, BC]

Thank you.

I think what you were saying is that you just didn't sense the political will in the previous governments and you're sensing that in this government. I thank you for that.

I do have a question for you. In clause 14 you said that “the commissioner shall examine this report to...assess the fairness of the information contained in the report...”. I want to get your definition of fairness, because we've heard from the commissioner how important it is that commissioners don't create policy and then do an audit on a policy they've created, because that would be a clear conflict. What do you mean by fairness?

[John Godfrey, Liberal, Don Valley West, ON]

We've been actually playing around with this. I don't want to punt everything over to the commissioner, but I think what we're really trying to say here—and fairness may have a rather precise meaning for the commissioner—is that we're really trying to talk about the quality of the information. In other words, it's not like fair play; it's asking whether a reasonable person would be able to establish these conclusions with that quality of information. I think that's what it's about. It's really not an attempt to editorialize on whether this is good policy or not; it's an attempt to understand how good the information is that's contained in the report. Would a reasonable person allow you to come to these conclusions? But again, I think that's a really good question, yet another really good question for Mr. Thompson.

[Mark Warawa, Conservative, Langley, BC]

Thank you, John.