Evidence of meeting #29 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 statistics.
A recording is available from Parliament.
3:50 p.m.
Conservative
3:50 p.m.
Dr. James Meadowcroft Research Chair in Governance for Sustainable Development, Carleton University, As an Individual
Thank you for inviting me here today.
I'm going to make four or five opening points. I'm sorry I couldn't have a written presentation, but the time between my invitation and my appearance was too rapid to allow the production of a written document.
I'll start by saying a few things about myself, because this is the first time that I've met most of you.
My speciality is governance for sustainable development. In other words, how do you reform the structures and processes of government in order to promote environmental and sustainable development issues? I've a BA in political science from McGill, a PhD from Oxford. For many years I lived in the United Kingdom--20 years--where I was at the department of politics, in Sheffield, which is one of the top three or four political science schools in the U.K. I've been back in Canada for not quite four years, and I'm now at Carleton University, where I have a Canada research chair in governance for sustainable development. So the sorts of things that you're talking about here are exactly the kinds of things I write articles about and go to conferences about and so on.
Basically what I'm interested in particularly is advanced industrialized countries. Of course, sustainable development is also about developing countries, but I'm interested in the rich countries and how, over the past 20 years, the rich countries have begun to adjust governance structures and processes and policy in order to deal with a new set of emerging challenges. In particular, my work over the last few years has been concentrated around the sustainable energy policy and climate change. For instance, I'm working on an international project now on carbon capture and storage, where we're comparing the politics and policy of carbon capture and storage in about seven developed countries plus the European Union as a unit.
So that's me.
Now I just want to make a few general comments, but I hope that in the questions there'll be a chance to pursue some more details and so on with the matter that you have before you.
The first thing I want to say is that I think it's fairly clear that in the next few decades—three decades, four decades, five decades—we have to effect a fundamental transformation in the way the economies and societies interact in developed countries. Modern environmental policy dates from about 1968 to 1970. In those four decades since that time--just about four decades--an enormous amount has been accomplished in the developed countries. On the other hand, overall, the human burden placed on ecosystems continues to grow and many measures of global environmental equality are deteriorating, though there are specific improvements in specific places dealing with specific problems, particularly the problem of climate change.
The most recent estimates suggest that probably the rich countries have to reduce their emissions by something like 80% to 90% over the next four and a half decades. That means a significant industrial transformation. In that transformation government has an important role to play. Government isn't the whole story, but there are things governments can do to help facilitate the kind of change we need.
It's basically two decades since the Brundtland report first made the idea of sustainable development internationally known, if you want. At least since the Rio Earth Summit governments of most of the countries of the world have formally signed on to this as a good idea. Now, that in itself is remarkable, because new normative principles don't come on to the political agenda and get adopted all around the world very often. Human rights is one, and there's a long story in which human rights gradually became an accepted international norm, which doesn't mean everybody respects human rights. Sustainable development is another example of such an emerging norm.
Now, one key principle--not the only one--of sustainable development is this idea of integration: integrating environmental, social, and economic decision-making or, particularly in the rich countries, integrating the environment into economic decision-making. Everybody signs on to that, but in practice we have enormous difficulty in changing our institutions so that this actually takes place. That is to say we consider all these dimensions early on in the development process. Still, governments around the world are struggling with it, and some progress has been made. I'll just throw out two examples—which you probably all have heard of, but I think are worth mentioning—of institutions trying to move forward in this area of integration and institutionalizing sustainable development.
One, of course, is the recent U.K. climate change bill, where the proposal is to have five-year annual carbon budgets that look forward, basically, to mid-century in terms of the reductions, so there are both a long-term perspective and immediate objectives. Every five years these will be reviewed by Parliament, with an independent agency a bit like the idea of a central bank, though not quite so independent and important, but nevertheless reviewing progress and giving independent judgments.
Another example you've probably heard about is the Swedish national environmental objectives. They have this integrated set of 16 objectives that start out very broad—clean water for all Swedes—but then become very concrete in terms of particular concentrations of substances in different sorts of waters.These are disaggregated across the country, so that each municipality knows what it has to do for the next five or ten years in order to realize this objective.
Sustainable development strategies are another way of embedding this sort of integrative approach. There are lots of different international experiences, with varying degrees of success, with these sorts of sustainable development strategies. Here are just a few things they can accomplish, and you're probably aware of them already, but I think they're important to emphasize.
One is that they allow decision-makers to back off a little bit and look at things from the perspective of the longer term, not just four or five years, but 10, 15, 25 years, or beyond. They also allow the formulation of shared objectives, goals, and targets, so one can measure whether one is moving away or moving towards one's objective. One also can come back later and say, well, we picked the wrong goal, but it's better to do that explicitly and then draw lessons from it. Measurements and monitoring, which we heard about, are very important because they allow you to realize where you're going or not going.
Also sustainable development strategies allow the public to be involved to some extent, because the debates about them are in Parliament and in the press, and to regularly come up to speed and re-interrogate themselves on where we're going.
Finally, I'll mention the iterative character of these strategies. What's important, obviously, is not the strategy document, but a process where political institutions come back and think again about where we're headed and whether that is where we want to go.
For all these reasons, I think the bill you're considering is an important one, and in the questions I'd be happy to be drawn out more on various aspects of how this is exactly formulated.
I do want to add just one little caution, however, which is that although they can do a lot of things, sustainable development strategies are not the answer. It's not as if you get a really good sustainable development strategy process going and everything's going to then get sorted out. There are lots of reasons why this is so. One, of course, is that in a sense political leaders, and including people like you, have to actually take the issues up and care about them. It's quite possible to have a smoothly functioning formal process that is totally meaningless. It just churns out glossy pamphlets every few years, which everybody signs off on and is totally divorced from actually deciding what's important, what the goals are that we want to attain.
I think one other thing to say is that a sustainable development strategy, at least of all the kinds we've seen so far in the developed countries, is not a fully integrated, comprehensive planning process that absorbs all strategic decision-making about the environment. It can't do that. It is a process that goes on that allows faire le point, to draw the line under certain things, to focus on certain issues. But of course decision-making is also going on at various layers of government. It's going on with other issues such as climate change, on many specific issues that can eventually be integrated into this process, but they're not subsumed into it by political fiat.
Thank you.
4 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Bob Mills
Thank you very much.
We'll begin with Mr. McGuinty, please. You have 10 minutes.
4 p.m.
Liberal
David McGuinty Liberal Ottawa South, ON
Thanks, Mr. Chair.
Thank you very much, witnesses. It's good to see most of you again.
4 p.m.
An hon. member
It's good to see them all.
4 p.m.
Liberal
David McGuinty Liberal Ottawa South, ON
It's good to see all of you.
I'd like to get a better perspective--your perspectives, particularly, Professor Meadowcroft and Mr. Mitchell, to begin.
Mr. Mitchell, I think your introduction was far too modest. I've always understood you to be one of the leading authorities on the machinery of government in Canada. Welcome to this committee.
I think we would all recognize that the system as it is presently constituted is imperfect. It's a wonderful start. There has been a lot of investment. We've made great progress. We have a commissioner, for example; most countries don't. We have sustainable development strategies; the vast majority of countries don't. We've made considerable progress, I think, in the last decade or so. I think we also all recognize that there are lingering questions around the connection between the role of the commissioner and the role, for example in this case, of a central agency like the Privy Council Office.
If I could start with you, Mr. Mitchell, we're trying to get a better sense on this side of the table as to whether you believe that as it's presented.... I'm assuming everyone has read this bill thoroughly. I hope the amended version was presented to you. Just so you know, it's chiefly different because we have excised all those passages that call for an independent commissioner. I'm not sure what version was sent by the clerk to you, but--
4 p.m.
A witness
There were two versions.
4:05 p.m.
Founding Partner, Sussex Circle Inc.
Not to interrupt the member, but it would be great if we could have the very latest version. I know the one I printed off the web has the independent commissioner in it still. That's my own fault.
4:05 p.m.
Liberal
David McGuinty Liberal Ottawa South, ON
Well, there's still the role of the commissioner in the text you'll be getting here. So we'll proceed.
We're trying to get a better picture of this. We would all agree that the sustainable development strategies have not been perfect. And we've heard it repeatedly.
Mr. Mitchell, you have just had the privilege of performing a great service on the green ribbon panel.
As presented, i.e. this notion of a special committee at PCO, of landing this issue squarely in the Office of the Prime Minister of Canada, and how it then connects to the office of the commissioner and the related and ancillary duties of the commissioner to pick up and do better, can you give us your experienced judgment here? So many of us have felt that the SD reports haven't been grounded in real authority. For that matter, there have been a lot of questions about who's really in charge in the federal system. There has been great reluctance expressed by Environment Canada, for example, over the years about wanting to become the “enviro cop” and driving these issues, and whether it is better to elevate it in PCO, as presented by my colleague Mr. Godfrey.
So I'd like your first reactions, Mr. Mitchell and Professor Meadowcroft, on the structure as presented.
4:05 p.m.
Founding Partner, Sussex Circle Inc.
Mr. Chair, in responding to Mr. McGuinty's very good question, I want to say that although I'm not a political person I tend to be conservative in my views about how government works--small “c” conservative.
So I must say that in reading the bill--and I'm conscious that the author of the bill is a former minister--I was not keen on seeing a bill that would legislate a cabinet committee, to tell you the truth. Although I can certainly understand the intent of the bill and of course the importance of the issues, and I certainly agree with what Mr. McGuinty has just said about how the SDSs do not seem to be grounded in real authority--there seems to be a lack of a central authority there--I would not favour legislating that allocation of responsibility and that mechanism within the cabinet system to do that. I think that simply ties the hands of a Prime Minister too much, whoever that Prime Minister may be, on how to organize his or her government and how to have decisions taken on these very important matters.
So the short answer to your question, Mr. McGuinty, is that I didn't favour that. I didn't think that was the most effective way of grounding the SDSs in real authority.
4:05 p.m.
Liberal
David McGuinty Liberal Ottawa South, ON
I'd like to move to Professor Meadowcroft for a first response.
4:10 p.m.
Research Chair in Governance for Sustainable Development, Carleton University, As an Individual
Yes. I certainly think it's clear that someone in the central agencies needs to be looking after a sustainable development strategy and I think there could be some discussion about exactly where it fits. I think there are advantages in placing it somehow in PCO. The finance ministry might be another place you might put it as well. Treasury Board, I know, has been floated. I would be less enthusiastic about that, because it seems to me it's more post hoc rather than ex ante.
I'll just say a quick word on the weaknesses of the existing sustainable development strategies. In a word, they're a strategy process that exists in parallel to the real decision-making process of the ministries, and that's a big problem. In fact, the management plan of the ministry being run by the deputy minister should be dealing with sustainable development. In other words, integrate sustainable development into the real decision-making of the ministry rather than set up some kind of parallel thing.
At its most caricatural, and this isn't true in every case, what you get is a collection of young people who have been working for the government for two years who get stuck writing this strategy, with maybe a little senior person to look over them, and they run around and ask anybody if they have anything on their desk they can put in this strategy. Then they write this thing. And it's a strategy, and there is good stuff in there. I'm not saying it's pointless, but the basic ideas of integrating environment and economic and social issues in decision-making are not being done by the leading management board of the ministry.
4:10 p.m.
Liberal
David McGuinty Liberal Ottawa South, ON
May I follow up, then? Mr. Mitchell, I'm just going to abbreviate your reasoning for not compelling a mandatory committee. I think I can distill it to one word, which is flexibility for future prime ministers and so on.
When you look back at the history of sustainable development--I'm not going to call it a movement, I'm going to call it a transition--the sustainable development transition, when you go back to 1987, 1988, 1992, there was an understanding that if we, as nation states, were going to operationalize this concept in meaningful terms and in meaningful ways, there could only be, in the Canadian context for example, as we signed on to in 1992 under Mr. Mulroney in Rio, one minister with ultimate responsibility for this issue and that had to be the Prime Minister.
Now, if it's not this structure...because, Professor Meadowcroft, I was on the receiving end for five years of kids coming to see me in my office, when I was the president of the National Round Table, begging me to help coach them through their SDS drafting. I can tell you that I completely support what you're saying, and that's exactly where it is today, because I still get the calls.
The question is, if it's not going to be grounded in the central agency of the PCO, which steers and does not row, with ultimate accountability, where will it be grounded?
4:10 p.m.
Founding Partner, Sussex Circle Inc.
I think you could ground it in an obligation that you put on the government, which of course is headed by the Prime Minister, to produce a sustainable development strategy. You could have a statutory obligation to produce a sustainable development strategy.
What that should look like is something to be discussed. I must say I'm not sure I'm entirely in agreement with the kind of strategy that's set out here. But if you impose that obligation on the government, then I think Mr. McGuinty is right—ultimately you're going to have the Prime Minister dictating what it's going to look like and what it delivers, and you're also going to have the authority of the Prime Minister behind the departmental strategies that fit into it.
4:10 p.m.
Liberal
David McGuinty Liberal Ottawa South, ON
In Ontario recently, the government recognized that they just couldn't have a situation where everybody's job was going to be nobody's job. So they actually appointed a senior ADM in the premier's office, with responsibility for delivering on climate change commitments—in the centre, steering, not rowing, driving the different ministries.
If this doesn't end up with somebody in charge, everybody's job will become nobody's job. This is the most important 21st century challenge we face, right? National security issues will come and go; natural security issues are with us for centuries.
So why wouldn't we compel this kind of cabinet committee, overseen by the Prime Minister, to make damn sure that we're seriously integrating environmental, economic, and social concerns? If we had a general requirement that a government should produce a sustainable development strategy, I don't see where it would end up. As one member of Parliament said the other day on another issue, so what? Where does it take us if we don't have some place where the golf ball sits down?
Am I missing something, Professor Meadowcroft?
4:15 p.m.
Research Chair in Governance for Sustainable Development, Carleton University, As an Individual
No, I don't think so. The Norwegian or Swedish Prime Minister—I can't remember which—was asked about why they didn't have a sustainable development committee. “We do,” he said. “It's called the cabinet”. So in a sense I agree with you. I think responsibility for a national strategy, if it really means something, has to be assumed by the leader of the government. It has to go to PCO.
My one equivocation is that I think you could lodge it in Finance, because of the close way that Finance and....
4:15 p.m.
Founding Partner, Sussex Circle Inc.
I agree with Mr. Meadowcroft that the ultimate cabinet committee for sustainable development is the cabinet. It's chaired by the Prime Minister, and that's where you integrate all of the economic, social, and environmental issues. I simply don't think it's a good idea for Parliament to be legislating precisely how the Prime Minister does the business of the cabinet within that system. I think it loses the flexibility that you need to run the government.
4:15 p.m.
Bloc
Bernard Bigras Bloc Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would also like to thank the witnesses for being with us today.
Everyone agrees that we need to establish a sustainable development strategy, and that this strategy must come from the senior levels of government. Unless I am mistaken, 25 years ago, the Prime Minister's Office issued a directive which, in principle, forces departments to carry out a strategic environmental assessment. As far as I know, the directive starts at the top and it is supposed to filter down. You have worked with the Commissioner of the Environment and I still remember the tile of one of the chapters, which was: “Strategic Environmental Assessment”. The Department of Finance is dragging its feet. But, the fact is that this directive has been in place for 25 years now, and has been renewed two or three times.
There is a commitment at senior levels, but there is no implementation further down the ladder. So, the question is: we may well talk about a national sustainable development strategy that casts a wide net, but should we not be ensuring that strategic environmental assessment is a legal obligation? There has to be an obligation—not in the form of a directive, but in a form that can give it greater weight. Can you tell me whether, in some countries, such an approach has been favoured as a means of forcing departments to carry out a strategic environmental assessment? We may well talk about strategy, and departments can always develop them, but in actual fact, if there is no legal obligation, I am not convinced it will go very far.
4:15 p.m.
Founding Partner, Sussex Circle Inc.
Would you like me to respond?
First of all, Mr. Bigras, I don't know whether there are countries where such a legal obligation now exists. Also, I completely agree with you that a legal obligation carries a lot more weight. Finally, I agree with my colleague, Mr. Meadowcroft, when he says that there are two parallel systems. We run the risk of creating a system where departments, because they have an obligation to do something, will do something, albeit not necessarily on the basis of the planning document or the actual assessment. There is always the risk that they will fulfill their obligation formally, but in different ways.
4:15 p.m.
Bloc
4:15 p.m.
Research Chair in Governance for Sustainable Development, Carleton University, As an Individual
A legal foundation would be a significant improvement. With respect to strategic assessment, it is very uneven; it depends on the country. Countries may use the same terminology, but what happens in actual fact is completely different from one place to the next. I have even seen research on this and it isn't well developed. So, there is no clear answer to your question.
4:20 p.m.
Bloc
Bernard Bigras Bloc Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC
Do you believe that the environmental assessment process should also apply to the federal tax system? I am always fascinated to note that, as part of different budgets, we pass budget implementation bills that result in a considerable increase, for example, in tax incentives aimed at the oil industry in Canada. The depreciation allowance for pipeline construction has been increased, and these budget implementation bills continue to fall through the cracks, even though when a specific project comes forward in a municipality, environmental assessment is mandatory or almost mandatory. I have the feeling that, when it comes to sustainable development strategies, there is a double standard. Strategic environmental assessment should apply to small projects, but whenever we talk about government plans, policies and programs, it's a different situation altogether.
Do you not see an inconsistency there? That's the reason why we don't have a coherent sustainable development strategy.