Environment Committee on April 28th, 2008

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

Mr. Chairman, could someone draw up another calendar for us?

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Mills]

Yes. We will get you a calendar right away.

May is pretty much full at this point. We'll have to look at June and see where we're going to go. The steering committee can probably do that.

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

I'm just wondering about our process here. I mean, meetings like the Chinese one sound very interesting...but have consequence to the other things. It's difficult for committee members to take it in, absorb what it is, and then say, yes, go ahead.

I'm wondering whether the subcommittee might be a better way to go--when we're adjusting and then looking to June--rather than this process.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Mills]

Sure. Why don't we get the calendar out and then we can set up a meeting. We can go through it from there.

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

Perfect.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Mills]

Let's get started. Two of our three guests are here. I'm sure the third one will be here very soon.

I want to welcome you both. We've seen you before. Of course, we're looking at the scope of Bill C-474. That will be our focus today.

Following our usual procedure, I'd ask you to please try to keep it to ten minutes or less. Then we'll go around and all members will have an opportunity to ask the questions.

Pierre, I think you were here first, so let's start with you.

[Pierre Sadik, Senior Policy Advisor, Sustainability Specialist, David Suzuki Foundation]

Thank you.

I want to start by telling you how honoured and how excited I am about being here today to address this important piece of legislation.

This bill is based on a model national sustainability act that the Suzuki Foundation released in December 2006. When Dr. Thomas Gunton of Simon Fraser University and I co-authored this model, we could scarcely have hoped that it would receive such solid support and that we would find it before committee a scant 18 months after we released that report. For that and for enabling this bill to move forward again today, we have each and every one of you to thank.

Dr. Gunton and I drafted the proposed act because we asked ourselves why Canada is seemingly lurching from environmental crisis to environmental crisis of prairie droughts, record numbers of boil water advisories, devastating hurricanes and wind storms, forests ravaged by pine beetles, and ice storms. Why is the fabric of Canada's once pristine environment fraying at the edges? It is because our country does not have a national strategy to address the environment.

Canada made an international commitment to the UN in 1992 and another commitment in 2002 to introduce a national sustainable development strategy. While 20 of the world's top environmentally performing nations have already fulfilled the pledge they made at the UN, Canada is still not very much closer to fulfilling this promise.

I'm going to briefly offer a few specific observations regarding the purpose of a national sustainable development strategy and then briefly address just a couple of the key questions that were asked when the committee last considered this bill in March.

First--and I think this is obvious--the bill legislates only a process for obtaining a national sustainable development strategy. It does not in and of itself legislate even one ounce of reduced emissions or pollution prevention.

Second, a national sustainable development strategy is an evergreen policy. It will evolve. It will improve. It will be refined as governments and legislators gain experience with sustainable development policies. On that very issue, some might point to the Auditor General Act of 1995 and say that this bill represents a refinement of that act and the departmental sustainable development strategies that were brought in by that act.

Moving briefly to a couple of issues that were raised during the last session in March, there were a fair number of questions around how a national SD strategy would mesh with provincial jurisdiction and provincial SD plans. There are, of course, environmental issues that clearly fall within federal jurisdiction. There are other issues that involve overlapping federal-provincial jurisdiction, and there are areas, very clearly, that are exclusively within the jurisdiction and domain of the provinces.

A national SD strategy would apply to all areas that come within federal jurisdiction, but it would be designed in anticipation and hope that more provinces would introduce SDSs of their own and that the national strategy could dovetail with those provincial strategies. Quebec is an example of one of a few provinces that have adopted a provincial SDS, and as Ron Thompson told you when he was here in March, it is both conceivable and desirable that at some point down the road a federal and a Quebec environment commissioner could eventually cooperate in protecting the environment.

In areas of overlapping federal-provincial jurisdiction, I believe it would be desirable for the federal government to try to show leadership in those instances where the environment is being neglected. I would characterize the situation as one in which the national SD strategy would apply where necessary but not necessarily apply.

Ultimately, as is the case with CEPA, I would expect that, given the enormous public interest and the high stakes involved in protecting the environment, the two levels of government would be expected to engage in a team effort and cooperate on sustainable development.

There are, of course, those items that fall squarely within the provincial jurisdiction. Perhaps those items can be addressed nominally in the national SDS, but only with the explicit approval and cooperation of the provinces and the addition of wording such to that effect.

Finally, one component of the bill that is probably, or hopefully, beyond debate is the role that the national SDS would play in reporting to governments and Canadians on the state of our environment. Every three years the SD secretariat would report on the environment nationally and by region to give us a clear picture of the quality of our air and our water and the rest of our precious natural capital.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Mills]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Toner.

[Professor Glen Toner, Professor, Public Policy, Carleton University, As an Individual]

Thank you, Mr. Mills.

When I was before the committee last year, I made a substantive opening statement. I won't do that today. I'll just take a couple of minutes to share with the committee two quotes that help me maintain a sense of context and perspective when discussing institutional legal changes like the act before us today.

The first quote is by William Ruckelshaus, a former Republican head of the United States Environmental Protection Agency:

Can we move nations...in the direction of sustainability? Such a move would be a modification of society comparable in scale to only two other changes: the Agricultural Revolution of the late Neolithic, and the Industrial Revolution of the past two centuries. These revolutions were gradual, spontaneous, and largely unconscious. This one will have to be a fully conscious operation, guided by the best foresight science can provide. If we actually do it, the undertaking will be absolutely unique in humanity’s stay on earth.

The World Commission on Environment and Development, in Our Common Future, offered this profound insight:

...in the end, sustainable development is not a fixed state of harmony, but rather a process of change in which the exploitation of resources, the direction of investments, the orientation of technological development, and institutional change are made consistent with future as well as present needs. We do not pretend that the process is easy or straightforward.

Your inquiries on the Canadian institutional change process in this area prove that the change process, indeed, is neither easy nor straightforward. As a committee, you've received the 2006, 2007, and 2008 reports of the Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development. Ron Thompson has said to you that the fundamental tools of the Canadian experiment--sustainable development strategies, strategic environmental assessment, for example--are essentially broken and incomplete in the absence of an overarching federal sustainable development strategy.

The bill before us is therefore not just another piece of legislation, but is a positive historic step, part of the iterative, transformative institutional change process both Brundtland and Ruckelshaus refer to. Therefore, I submit it is crucial to get it right and make the act meaningful.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Mills]

Thank you very much, Mr. Toner.

Our other guest isn't here yet, but I forgot to get you to adopt the supplementary report that I'm going to submit.

All in favour?

(Motion agreed to) [See Minutes of Proceedings]

Now I can report it officially. Thank you.

Let's go to questions. I might interrupt when Mr. Newman comes. We simply thought we'd take a little bit longer than what we did.

We will begin with Mr. Godfrey.

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

By the way, I'm not anticipating exactly what Mr. Newman may say, but I suspect it may not be a lot. I would gather that he's here as a resource person.

I want to thank both of the witnesses for coming. You both have been associated with this for a long time. I'm assuming that both witnesses also saw the proposed amendments that I put forward to the bill, which tried to anticipate some of the comments that have been made, I think quite properly, by all members present and understand that those need to be rendered more concrete eventually by amendments that will come forward from individual parties.

I'd like to begin with the two of you and talk a little bit about the fact that there is a process that has been developed by the Canadian Council of Ministers of the Environment to develop Canadian environmental sustainability indicators and Canada-wide standards. I have some questions: How has that process gone? How is that process different from this bill we're looking at? Is there any way that we can, in the future, use the Canadian Council of Ministers of the Environment process to advance this bill?

Those are my three questions, and maybe Pierre would like to start.

[Pierre Sadik]

I'll take a shot at that one first.

The Canadian environmental sustainability indicators, also known as CESI--and I have a copy of the 2006 highlights here--are a start. It's a set of reports that I think are carried out by Statstics Canada, Environment Canada, and Health Canada. They gather information about the state of the Canadian environment in various contexts, be it different geographic contexts, with different indicators--certain aspects of air quality, water quality, and greenhouse gases--and report that annually.

It is a start, but it's just that. It is not giving Canadians or the government a comprehensive picture of the state of our environment. I believe this bill includes tools to offer Canadians and governments a far broader and deeper snapshot of where the environment is at a given point in time.

The second component of your question, Mr. Godfrey, I believe goes to the Canada-wide standards that are particularly tied to the CCME. Those standards, again, are just that. They're voluntary. They're not mandated. They're not regulations. They're not targets, as that is a term of art. So while they are built on good intentions, they haven't led to follow-through, because there are no consequences for failure to follow through. They maintain a relatively low public profile as well.

This bill is really a pulling together of the literally two dozen or so environmental initiatives out there around reporting, around standards--a thin slice of Canada's environmental problem. It pulls all those things together and compels our leaders--you people--to come up with a comprehensive strategy for Canada.

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

Thank you.

I don't know whether Mr. Toner has anything to add to that.

[Prof. Glen Toner]

Not really. Pierre certainly has described the CCME process to date, and its value. There are often cumbersome processes with the CCME, as you know.

When I think back to reporting, I think of the high-water mark in Canada, which was the state of the environment reports in the early 1990s--from the green plan days. We could aspire to those comprehensive documents looking across the board at the major ecosystems and major contaminants in the country and do a comprehensive assessment from coast to coast. That is a potential aspiration that perhaps could be met through this targeted assessment process.

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

If you go back to those earlier days, did that process involve collaboration between the provinces and the federal government to get the national portrait of where we were? Is that a precedent for what we're trying to do, a way of moving forward?

[Prof. Glen Toner]

It brought together the best scientific knowledge from everywhere, not just provincial and federal agencies, but also universities and elsewhere. They were authoritative; no one disputed them. That would be terrific if we could once again bring together all of the insight. All of it was peer-reviewed. None of it could be put in the state of the environment report until it was assessed by the scientific experts in the country--coast to coast.

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

So that's something to draw on.

[Prof. Glen Toner]

If possible, I would encourage the Library of Parliament staff to bring the 2000 or 2003 state of the environment reports to the committee. They were very impressive documents.

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

Perhaps we could circulate those for our next meeting.

To what extent do either of you think that the criticism by the Commissioner for the Environment about the sustainable development reports is...? First of all, to remind ourselves, that criticism was essentially that nobody took the exercise seriously, that there were no consequences, that departments went through pro-forma exercises. I know Mr. Warawa felt the same, and the previous environment minister felt the same.

In terms of federal performance, in what ways do you think this bill gives us some teeth so we can overcome those criticisms? Everybody has made them; Mr. Dion, Ms. Ambrose, Mr. Warawa, and the commissioners have made them.

[Prof. Glen Toner]

If you carefully read the commissioner's work over the years, I think you'll find he didn't say that no one took them seriously. Some departments put some real effort into these things. They put in good management practices. They put in timely reviews within the three-year process. They did a lot of good things.

What happened, though, was that there was a disaggregation process. They weren't feeding into anything. They weren't contributing to a federal sustainable development strategy. This is the big difference. With this act, the departmental sustainable development strategies will be contributing to a Canadian sustainable development strategy, and the expectations will be higher. It will be harder for public servants to avoid doing the heavy lifting.

Rather than dumbing down the strategies to the lowest possible denominator, the standards set by the leading departments will have to be addressed. The government, the secretariat, and the cabinet will be looking to each of these strategies to make a strong contribution to the national strategy. You'll get a very different dynamic from the one that existed without the chapeau, without the separate strategies fitting into something. It will become multidimensional rather than unidimensional and departmental only.

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

So you're satisfied that in the proposed structure, particularly in the amended version of the bill, the pieces fit in such a way that it would be hard not to....

[Prof. Glen Toner]

If I can find the clause that says....

[Pierre Sadik]

You mean the clause that says the departmental SDSs will feed into the bill?

[Prof. Glen Toner]

Yes, the ones that will feed in. There'll be some point to them.

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

That's clause 11.