Evidence of meeting #20 for Environment and Sustainable Development in the 39th Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was commissioner.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Conservative
Luc Harvey Conservative Louis-Hébert, QC
Mr. Godfrey, it is good to welcome you here as a witness today. I obviously would have much enjoyed being able to discuss not just sustainable development. I would have liked to have learned more about your experience with the Chrétien and Martin governments with regard to the evolution of the situation and the results obtained by your government given the 33% gap vis-à-vis the Kyoto targets for CO2 emissions.
I will nevertheless try to stay on topic. The aim of sustainable development is to think through the entire life of a product, in other words from its production to its use and then to its recycling, and to its eventual rehabilitation. That is really your position, as former government.
In December, a witness told us that you had granted 91 million tons of credits for HCFC-22, a product that, when it loses its hydrogen molecule, becomes CFC. Not only is it extremely toxic, but it contributes to the destruction of the ozone layer, etc. You nevertheless granted 91 million tons. What did that have to do with sustainable development?
Liberal
John Godfrey Liberal Don Valley West, ON
Are you talking about this in the context of the Kyoto Protocol?
Liberal
Conservative
Luc Harvey Conservative Louis-Hébert, QC
It is the Liberal government that granted these 91 million tons in credits.
Liberal
John Godfrey Liberal Don Valley West, ON
If I remember correctly, the problem with that element is that it is, I do not quite remember, but perhaps 150 times more powerful than CO2, am I right? These are products that emit very powerful greenhouse gases. We wanted to do all we could to eliminate the use of these elements, these coolants, because they are so strong and so destructive. We attempted, through the Kyoto Protocol, to have them eliminated worldwide. There was obviously the famous plant in China that was producing them, and we paid an awful lot of money for it to be shut down. Politically speaking, it makes sense to eliminate a source of such powerful greenhouse gases. That is perhaps an illustration of Mr. Park's second principle, given that this product does not occur naturally and that nature is incapable of integrating it, absorbing it, etc.
That is about all I am able to say in that regard.
Senior Sustainability Advisor, The Natural Step Canada
If I may,
I could tell you a little story.
A company in Sweden, called Electrolux, which makes refrigerators, was dealing with this very issue and worked with The Natural Step principles to solve it. They were challenged by pending legislation under which they were going to have to phase out CFCs, for obvious reasons. At that point, the only solution they had and knew was HCFCs, and they were on the verge of making a major corporate investment in that technology.
Conservative
Luc Harvey Conservative Louis-Hébert, QC
I have more questions to ask.
Audit after audit, the CESD raised serious concerns with regard to departmental sustainable development strategies when your party was in power. In your view, did the government react properly to these concerns?
Liberal
John Godfrey Liberal Don Valley West, ON
As happens with any government, there were good times and bad times, I admit. I believe that this bill could be used to try any government, anytime, and any minister. The point here is to try and improve the audit system that we had previously, which has nothing to do with the political make-up of a government.
Conservative
Luc Harvey Conservative Louis-Hébert, QC
Why did you wait until being in the opposition to table such a bill?
Liberal
John Godfrey Liberal Don Valley West, ON
I had another portfolio. As I indicated earlier to Mr. Martin, it is Mr. Dion who was minister at the time. He made very serious attempts at improving the sustainable development reporting system. You always need a government and, at the time, Mr. Dion tried to improve the situation for the welfare of Canadian citizens.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Bob Mills
Your time is up.
Thank you very much, Mr. Godfrey and Mr. Park, for being here. I think you've introduced a very interesting bill.
We'll now have the interim commissioner of the environment and Mr. Arseneault and Mr. McKenzie.
Let's begin. I believe, Mr. Thompson, that you're going to make a brief statement, and then we'll get to our rounds of questions.
Welcome again.
Ron Thompson Interim Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development, , Office of the Auditor General of Canada
Thank you for inviting me to appear before the Committee today to discuss Bill C-474. With your permission, I will make three brief comments.
First, while I had some concerns about the bill as originally drafted, for the most part, I am satisfied that the Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development, as presently constituted within the Office of the Auditor General of Canada, would be able to discharge the responsibilities assigned to the Commissioner by the amended wording.
Second, the responsibilities assigned to the commissioner by the amended version are consistent with the role of our office. Our role is to provide reliable and objective information to help Parliament hold the government to account for its management of environment and sustainable development issues.
Third, I am very pleased that the amended wording would put in place the type of overarching federal framework or plan for sustainable development that we have been recommending for some time, and would require sustainable development strategies of individual entities to demonstrate both compliance with the overarching plan and their contribution to it. This would provide a sense of direction and overall purpose for individual SDSs, which is now lacking.
That concludes my opening statement, Mr. Chairman. I would be pleased to answer questions that Committee members may have.
Conservative
Liberal
David McGuinty Liberal Ottawa South, ON
Thank you, Mr. Thompson.
Gentlemen, it's good to see you again.
Mr. Thompson, last week during the release of your report, your 14 chapters, some of us were there and having a good discussion about the merits of the chapters. I asked you at the time whether or not the kinds of improvements all of us would like to see happen were as a result of a lack of will. And I think you've said both in your press conference and in response to my question that where there's a will, there's a way.
And I put to you a different scenario, which was whether or not the reason we haven't been making the kind of progress we would like to see made is because we have some systemic and structural challenges. Chief among them, as I raised with you last week, is the whole question of whether the three central agencies--Finance Canada, PCO, and Treasury Board--are properly seized with these responsibilities. Can you help us understand if you share my thesis that there may be some systemic and structural challenges?
Can you share your views as to how the act would address this question of having the golf ball sit down--going back to my analogy of last week--particularly at PCO, which is the steering central agency? What's your thinking in terms of what this could do to buttress and support these issues so that they are not being marginalized, punted, sloughed off, and so on?
I don't want to categorize it as if this is all that's been happening. It's not true, of course. But I think all of us would like to see more traction. Could you help us understand?
Interim Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development, , Office of the Auditor General of Canada
Thank you, Mr. McGuinty.
There are areas of government activity--and the contaminated sites, chapter 3, which we tabled last week, was a good example--where central agencies have been involved in a rather forceful and so far quite effective way. So to say that central agencies aren't involved is not, I think, quite right.
We also reported last week, and we talked about it last October as well, that two fundamental tools that have been on the books for some time to move E and SD forward are broken. They need to be fixed; they're not working.
I guess what I see this proposed bill doing is putting in place something that is lacking right now. We talked about it last fall. We talked about it again last week. I talk about it every time I get a chance. And that is an overarching federal strategy, an overarching sense or plan of where the federal government wants to go with this file, and then having that backed up, in a practical way, in the departments and agencies of government that are best able to contribute to where the government wants to go.
So in a sense, there's no magic fix in life, I suppose, Mr. McGuinty. But I see this bill, in terms of what it's trying to do, as being a quite positive thing.
Liberal
David McGuinty Liberal Ottawa South, ON
Over the 20 years of debate around the notion of sustainable development, lots of wonderful theoretical work has been done and some great underpinnings have been produced. The Natural Step is a wonderful initiative. There are half a dozen such efforts or initiatives internationally.
Do you think the bill will really help corral things, Mr. Thompson, not just for your office but for the country, in a meaningful and measurable way? You cannot manage that which you cannot measure, for example. Do you think it will give us the kind of...?
I know that Mr. Godfrey has worked hard to give it the kind of traction, in practical terms, that allows the country to know where it has been, where it is, and where it is intending to get to in a measurable fashion. Do you think that will help?
Interim Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development, , Office of the Auditor General of Canada
Yes, I think it will.
I must say, again, I'm a strong believer in this overarching framework or plan that this bill would enshrine in law. But I think it's important, when putting something like that in place, to do it in a practical way, in an iterative way. Even if the overall plan had four or five clearly federal measures to start with, to back those up into departments would be a major step forward. Certainly, the way the bill is drafted now, it seems to me you could start small and over time add to it. That would probably be an approach that might make some sense.
So I think it could have quite an effect, Mr. McGuinty, and I'm very hopeful, if it were put into play, that it would.
Now, it would also give us as the commissioner's group another forum to scream bloody murder, if I can put it that way, if progress isn't being made on this file that concerns everybody in this room. So that's important too.
Liberal
David McGuinty Liberal Ottawa South, ON
This committee voted in the last Parliament--as you know, it's a sensitive and delicate issue--to make fully independent the Office of the Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development . You've just alluded to new tools open to you as the commissioner.
Is the act going to impose upon you new responsibilities, even though we have removed from the original draft the whole question of the independence of the commissioner?
Interim Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development, , Office of the Auditor General of Canada
Mr. McGuinty, we've had a very good look at this bill as it's been evolving, and have talked to Mr. Godfrey, of course, from time to time. I'm very confident that what we see here in this bill is something that the existing commissioner's group can do. I would go further and say that we are anxious to do it.