Environment Committee on March 12th, 2008

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Mills]

Good. Thank you very much.

Mr. Cullen, please.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you for joining us again, Mr. Thompson.

I have to say that every time I open these green books, it's quite depressing. I suppose that as opposition members we should be excited when there are reports from the Auditor General's office, the commissioner's office, that show government failure. It's meant to be something that we should excite ourselves about in opposition, but the implications of this.... It's not so much the failures that have happened, but I'm trying to understand—and this is what I'll get to in the heart of my questions—the fundamental changes that need to be made within government in terms of accountability and consequence. That's the lead-off from the last question you answered: what is the consequence?

Canadians need to know there is a consequence for somebody somewhere for not doing what government has committed to do. The public are suspicious enough already. Unfortunately, I think reports like this—and I know this is not your intention—support that suspicion of what government commitments actually mean in the real world.

When we've had department heads come before us—if that is what the committee has sought to do—we've had this occur before at the environment committee. They have the ability to produce a great deal of paper and reports that would counter any argument that things aren't well. They can show that things are extraordinarily well. On top of that, they will then give us commitments and reports about how they're strengthening the accountability lines.

If there were a question you could put in terms of framing this and pinning it down to the level of departmental accountability that would leave you feeling some assurance, what would it be?

[Ron Thompson]

If I may, Mr. Cullen, let me make a comment and then answer the question.

In no case, when we did these 14 chapters and where we found that there's been unsatisfactory progress, did we have an argument on that from the departmental officials. They quite agree that commitments made in the past haven't been met, so they're not arguing that everything is rosy. They know very well things aren't rosy in these various areas.

Now, in terms of the question that I might be inclined to ask anybody sitting here, I would say if you agree that there's a problem, what are you going to do in your ministry to fix it if you're responsible for it? The reason I mention it quite that way is that in a lot of these chapters.... There are nine chapters in total where we make recommendations. We don't make them in all, but in nine of them we've made recommendations. In each of those chapters, the departments responsible for the issues we've raised have committed to do things.

Now, I think that's the forward-looking slant to this report that might be helpful, and I think it would be worth exploring with these deputy heads. You make these new commitments in good faith; how are we to understand that you're going to meet these commitments when ones made previously haven't been met?

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

You've introduced a new term. I'm not familiar with audit practice, but this is a re-audit.

[Ron Thompson]

Yes, it is.

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

This is an audit of an audit in which commitments were already made.

[Ron Thompson]

Yes, that's right.

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

I'm taking this counsel under strong advisement. Essentially the question is, why should we believe them now? I have government responses to the first set of audits, saying they made a mistake. They made commitments that they didn't follow through on. They're going to go forward and change things.

We have the re-audit, nine out of 14 chapters not having met their own commitments to the first failure. Their answer will have to be very good because the implications of this...and this leads to my next set of questions.

Was there a department taking a look at species at risk, for example, that looked at the economic implications of their failure on a certain thing? For example, a Conservative member raised this last time during your initial briefing of the committee--he's not here now--about Cultus Lake and other salmon species that have been identified. The government was faced with this conundrum because of the mismanagement of species at risk. A species had eventually been identified. In order to protect it, they would have had to shut down the entire west coast fishery completely.

Is there any assessment of economic impacts to the failure of implementing government policy? Do departments do that kind of thing?

[Ron Thompson]

I'll ask Mr. Ferguson to address that in just one moment, but may I go back to your first question, Mr. Cullen?

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

Sure.

[Ron Thompson]

I may have been a bit flippant.

I would ask two questions of the deputies sitting here. Why were you not able to meet the commitment you made previously? That's important to know too. And how are you going to assure yourself, initially, and us as a committee that you're going to be able to meet these new commitments? I think it's important to know both.

I'd like to know, for example, on aquatics, why they're coming in faster than DFO can deal with them. I don't know. Is it funding? Is it scientific capacity? What is it? I think that would be helpful to know, and that then would be the basis for saying, “All right, if this is what you're going to do looking ahead, then let's talk about how sure you are that you're going to be able to do this.” These issues, as you quite rightly point out, are important to all Canadians.

As to the economic side of this, Andrew, would you care to comment on that?

[Andrew Ferguson]

Sure. In this audit we looked at whether the government itself understood what it was trying to manage with respect to species at risk, that is, the abundance and distribution of the 389 species at risk on federal lands.

We looked at our previous audit. We had concluded the government didn't know the abundance and distribution of these species on its own land in order to manage them effectively, so we recommended they get a handle on that and create an inventory of species at risk on federal lands. We found they have yet to do that.

We also looked at where they were in relation to the Species at Risk Act, which requires the government to have produced 228 recovery strategies, as at the end of our audit, and they had only produced 55 of those 228.

We were looking at a much more fundamental level. Do they know what they're trying to manage, first of all?

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

The question is about economic impacts. You can't even get to that question if there are only...did you say 58?

[Andrew Ferguson]

I think that's a reasonable conclusion.

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

It's important for many of us. There is some connection between the economy and the species we happen to be talking about.

A question that I couldn't find specifically in these chapters has to do with public access to government recommendations and information. We were faced with an internal Environment Canada memo talking about waste water treatment recently. The recommendation that came forward at about $10 billion to $20 billion was internal. The government has since responded with some hundreds of millions of dollars, so in terms of scale...not there.

Did your office look at the availability to the public, to stakeholders, of analysis done by government? This study was done by Environment Canada on behalf of the Canadian people, using taxpayers' money. To get at the study is almost impossible, and the conclusions have some political consequence to the government of the day.

[Ron Thompson]

Oh, for sure.

Mr. Cullen, in the work we did and reported last week, no, we didn't look at that.

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

Do you mind if I...? You've given me some advice.

I'd encourage you to look in that direction, because at a fundamental level the government can only manage based on good advice. Canadians can only have assurance knowing that government is following at least their own advice.

The example I've given you today about waste water treatment is important to a lot of people. The scale and scope of what's required is also important. Governments like to get out and make announcements about the positive. In the context of what they're not doing, we don't know, because the study isn't being released.

I want to follow through on having this overarching plan, whether it's sustainable development strategies or whatnot. Based upon what you've seen of the government's ability to integrate or inability to integrate.... The climate change file, which has been a great topic for this committee and for this government and previous governments, is a broad-reaching file. It does not rest just with the minister. It simply can't.

What assurance can we offer Canadians that whatever plan is presented, whether it's a good plan or a bad plan, it will be integrated across the required departments, based upon the conclusions that you folks found in this audit about interdepartmental cooperation?

[Ron Thompson]

I'll perhaps have my colleague, Mr. Arseneault, add a word or two after a minute. But from what I can see, Mr. Cullen, there doesn't seem to be any kind of mechanism within the federal government to look at issues like climate change, and many other issues that are part of the environmental file, in a coordinated way over time.

I find that surprising. This is a huge entity that is being managed in many areas very well. But in this area, these individual departments that are being tasked to do various elements of environmental protection, including climate change, don't seem to be working together. They seem to be almost flying blind, to a certain extent.

What we're calling for is something that isn't here, as you know, which is an overall plan, or a sense, from the government's perspective, from the government as a whole, of what we are trying to achieve over time. Who is going to contribute to that? Which departments are going to have a say and are going to be able to carry out activities and programs to contribute to that, whether it be climate change or other things, and then get on with it and measure that?

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

In the absence of that mechanism, and I think this is important for us to understand, I'm almost imagining someone pulling up to a gas station and deciding what type of gas to put in the car when there are no wheels on the car at all. Debating the plan and the measures and targets, without government having any ability to actually perform a plan of any kind--good, bad, or otherwise--seems to be a first step that the government hasn't.... I'm confused as to why. It's not as if this is a new concept you're putting across to us: there's a silo effect; branches aren't talking to each other. There isn't an ability to put gas in this car and make it go anywhere.

Why do you think, after so many years and so many iterations of climate change plans, we're still at that fundamental place?

[Ron Thompson]

I'm not really sure. I know that in terms of “A Guide to Green Government” years ago, they were calling in that document for an overarching plan. I think government departments over the intervening 10 to 12 years have from time to time called for that as well, and of course we're calling for it as well.

One of the reasons we're particularly keen to put that on the table just now is because I think there is.... I'm always very optimistic about the federal government being able to address a variety of these issues. There's a lot of goodwill within the government. There are a lot of very capable people. They want to get on with the task.

I felt it awkward to bring this status report to Parliament and to this committee with 14 new issues in it. People are going to say to me, well, wait a minute now, we have climate change, which is a huge issue, and now you're ladling on 14 more. Well, that's true, but it's not so much of a problem if you could sort of see where they fit into the government's overall plan.

Nobody is expecting--I'm sure you're not--all of this to be done at once. But I think it would be helpful for this committee, for Parliament, and for the Canadian people to understand that the federal government actually has a plan for all these issues, or many of them, and that they're going to be sequenced into operation in a reasonable way.

That's one of the reasons we got into calling for an overarching plan, and we believe in it strongly. As to why it hasn't been put in place, to me, it would just be good management practice. We're auditing the quality of management in the federal government; in this case, it's the environmental file. In that sense, I think it belongs, and it isn't there.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Mills]

Thank you, Mr. Cullen.

We'll go to Mr. Warawa.

[Mark Warawa, Conservative, Langley, BC]

Thank you, Chair. I'll be splitting my time with Mr. Watson, so if you could, stop me at five minutes.

Mr. Thompson, thank you for being here with your colleagues.

The timeframe for the audit is not just two years. We're looking at a substantial amount of time, are we not?

[Ron Thompson]

Yes, Mr. Warawa, we are. We're going back, in some cases, to 1998. But mainly, it's over the past decade.

The audits, the 14 re-audits, as we called them a minute ago, have been directed at issues, but they have not been directed at any one government or any one parliament.

[Mark Warawa, Conservative, Langley, BC]

Correct, and I appreciate that. I think it's a good challenge to be able to look back at a trend, and the trend is that we have a lot of work to do yet on the environment. I appreciate those challenges.

You have 14 chapters. You have a chapter covering the main points. Of the 14 chapters, there were nine where there was unsatisfactory action by past governments and the present government and five satisfactory. Is that correct?

[Ron Thompson]

That's correct.