Environment Committee on April 30th, 2008

[James Mitchell]

The goal is what you and my colleagues have referred to: integration. The more tax and environmental measures there are, and the better integrated those various tax and environmental measures are, the greater our opportunity to make the decisions that you described in your remarks. It's a process.

[Dr. James Meadowcroft]

Integration of environmental concerns with other social and economic issues must occur at several levels and through a lot of different mechanisms. There is no one mechanism that can solve all the problems. A sustainable development strategy is a mechanism. It's important. Strategic environmental assessment is another very important mechanism, but again, that can be done at different levels, and there are also instruments—such as taxes—that can foster linkages between economic decisions and environmental results. I believe what is needed is a multi-level vision and a number of different tools in order to attain that objective.

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

I have one last brief question for our witnesses from Statistics Canada. I can see that you are doing an excellent job, but on page 8, you also admit that there are gaps in the system. I see that those gaps often occur in areas of federal jurisdiction. I am thinking of water quality, ecosystems, and so on.

What kind of cooperation have you established with the Institut de la statistique du Québec, for example? Is there integration of data that has already been collected in Quebec? Are those data passed on to Statistics Canada? How does it work, in terms of ensuring consistency in the data?

[Robert Smith]

Thank you, Mr. Bigras.

The answer to that depends on the statistical area concerned. In the case of social and economic statistics, there is clearly very close cooperation between the Institut de la statistique du Québec, or ISQ, and Statistics Canada. There is practically ongoing data sharing between those two institutions.

However, our collaboration as regards environmental data is only just beginning. I have just signed with the ISQ—I believe it was last week—a data sharing agreement relating to one of our new surveys. The cooperative mechanisms that have been in place in the economic and social fields for a very long time are now starting to be applied to the environmental sector.

In terms of data sharing between the federal government and the provinces with respect to what I would call scientific data—for example, water quality, air quality, and so on—Environment Canada is really the department that enters into such agreements for the purpose of ensuring effective data sharing. To date, Statistics Canada has not been very involved in that. However, because we cooperate with Environment Canada and Health Canada through a project dealing with environmental sustainability indicators, we are now starting to get more involved. At the same time, these cooperative efforts between the federal government and the provinces are still within the purview of Environment Canada.

Does that answer your question?

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

Yes, it certainly does.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Mills]

Thank you, Mr. Bigras.

Mr. Cullen.

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

Thanks, Mr. Chair, and thank you to the witnesses.

I'll focus my questions on particularly trying to imagine this bill coming into force and what consequences it would have on the ground. I think sometimes our experiences in the past have been very heavy on the side of grand plans and bold statements about things sustainable and environmental. On the ground there isn't that proof of the politic that decisions are actually passing through an environmental lens and Canadians are seeing it out the other end.

What I'm interested in is trying to build in, if at all possible, any fail-safe measures into the bill, so that five years from now, if this bill were to be law, we would look back and say this was an important piece in making Canada a more sustainable country. I'm not yet convinced that all those fail-safes are there to protect as best we can.

Mr. Mitchell, I wonder if you could comment. What's been the biggest point of failure, to this point, in Canada's efforts to be sustainable, in that gap between the promise of environmental sustainability and the reality of Canada operating in a different way? If you could cite one or two things, what has been the most significant failure that's caused this gap to exist?

[James Mitchell]

Mr. Chair and Mr. Cullen, I would say the first is that it's been hard to close the gap between aspiration and reality. As you say, there is that gap. Everybody believes in doing the right thing; I think every government does, and they commit themselves to doing the right thing generally. But as you say, there's a gap between those declared aspirations and what governments actually do, for the multitude of reasons that governments act, often to address a whole complex range of problems and short-term issues that have to be dealt with, in their view, or political issues and so on.

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

To narrow in on the environment, is it mostly a financial consideration? Is it some fear that you've watched governments react and resist to making those environmental considerations? What is the thing that most holds us back from following through on doing the right thing?

[James Mitchell]

I would say that I don't think successive governments have yet managed to get Canadians to understand the magnitude of the changes that will be required, as my colleagues have just said. You're looking at very significant changes in how our economy works and how our society works, and in people's lifestyles, and how they transport themselves and how they use energy.

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

So the implication of the promise, then--is that what the gap has been?

[James Mitchell]

Yes, I think that's the biggest part of the gap. It's the major reason we haven't done more. A much less important reason, in my view, is finding the precise mechanism to do it. I realize this sounds like witnesses telling politicians that it's the fault of politicians, and I don't want to sound like that.

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

We've heard it before. It's okay if you come to that conclusion.

[James Mitchell]

In all seriousness, I think the larger challenge is the public and political one. It's much easier to find mechanisms when you can make progress on the broader public issue.

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

That's interesting. I suppose I'm trying to imagine, again if this bill were to come into existence.... In the past, the consequence of failure, outside of the political, a sustainable promise made and then not kept.... You can say there has been some political cost. Canadians lose faith with the party in government, or parties aren't making the promises in the lead-up to an election. There are some political costs.

But has either of you, Mr. Meadowcroft or Mr. Mitchell—because I think you deal with this most—seen any consequence to anybody within the civil service, up to the deputy minister level, from having failed in applying the directive from the government?

The government says they have an aspirational ambition to go forward on this: energy efficiency and getting Canadians to drive less. Here's the promise; the actual delivery is so much less. I'm wondering about accountability.

I've used this example with other witnesses in the region of finance, which is an interesting conversation about where to place the power of this. When governments have directed the Department of Finance to find cost savings, they've done it overwhelmingly and effectively, because there seems to be some consequence from failure—to one's career or one's paycheque or within the civil service—when it comes to the financial matters. Yet when we turn to environmental matters, I have yet to be able to find, from the Auditor General of Canada to anyone else, one case of anyone finding serious consequence to their career path or their ambitions working within....

Am I getting this wrong? Am I following the wrong path?

[James Mitchell]

To give a quick answer, Mr. Cullen, I believe the officials are doing what the government wants them to do, as a general rule, with the exception of very particular cases that you would have seen or that one could talk about. As a general rule, when officials find savings, it's because the government wants them to find savings and they do. When they fail to—

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

When they fail on greenhouse gas levels, that's because the politicians want them to do it?

[James Mitchell]

Well, the government doesn't want them to find the solution you're looking for.

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

Mr. Meadowcroft, would you agree?

[Dr. James Meadowcroft]

Yes. It's evident.

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

So what is the difference, then, with this piece of legislation? This legislation will say, go forth and do sustainable things. Are we simply admitting that the reality of the politic before this legislation will remain the reality of the politic afterwards and that failure will have the same nil consequence to officials?

[Dr. James Meadowcroft]

I think there's a dialectic between reform and innovation and structure, and on the other hand between political realities and public aspirations and political aspirations. I don't think you want to set the two apart. In other words, if a bill such as this passed, it would indicate that politicians are saying this is something important, and maybe we should give it more importance that it had in the past.

One of the things a sustainable development strategy might do is help in an educational and communicative function by communicating to stakeholders and business and civil society and the public that this is something important, that we're formulating these important goals and trying to work towards them, and so on. There's a back-and-forth between the politician as leader and educator and the politician as someone who executes what people want on the day to meet short-term needs.

I don't think you can oppose it and say there's no point in doing something like this, because we don't really want to change anyway, so it'll be politics as usual, and let's not bother. Rather, I think you have to say, if we think this is a step that will improve the situation, let's take it and try to do better than we've done in the past.

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

I want to bring this down to the ground and say to Canadians that the reason my party would support this bill is that it will help change the course of things. Of course politic will be politic, and people will make promises and not deliver.

With an issue something like “if we knew then what we know now” about the tar sands, if we had passed it through the lens of this bill, would there have been any consequence and change in the way we've rolled out that energy project? Would we have considered it differently? Or does it again just boil down to the politicians of the day deciding that it's of greater importance than an environmental commitment made beforehand?

[James Mitchell]

Mr. Cullen, I don't want to suggest that politicians have entirely failed or that you can't look to politicians for big solutions, because I believe you can. But I think that a bill, whether this one or another one, that tries to get inside government by calling on it to do this and this and this, thinking that this approach will solve the problem, is dramatically less useful than Parliament or individual members calling on the government to take action on the major issues you've identified; and holding the government to account for its failure to address those major issues; and perhaps passing legislation that sends broad statutory guidance to the government, but that doesn't try to get right inside the kitchen and say you have to do it this way, this way, this way.

Taking the issue seriously is a political matter, first of all, and I think that's very important for parliamentarians and the government. Having the right mechanism is partly politics and partly law and partly administration. So I think you're right there.

Then the question is, what do you want to do with that mechanism? What targets and goals are you setting? That's partly political, or partly for parliamentarians, partly for the public and newspapers, and so on—and of course it's for parliamentarians to hold the government to account for not reaching those goals.

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

This is what we're trying to sift through, because we've had the environment commissioner come before this committee time after time to show us audit after audit, after which the government, even when audited and shown to have been found wanting, claims or promises it will to do better. But when she or he returns to those audits, the government is still found wanting. So the urgency obviously isn't there.

I have a final question for Mr. Smith. Again, I'm trying to break this down to common practicalities. I want to understand where your agency intersects with Environment Canada. There was a submission to the agriculture committee on a very specific government policy, the biofuels policy. In their submission, the government talked about the environmental data not being robust—that was in the title of their deck—and how the numbers and impacts of this policy measure on the environment are not understood.

How does Statistics Canada work with Environment Canada to boost the government's awareness and intelligence of the implications of bills? Do you work independently of it? Does the government send you a question and say, we don't know enough about biofuels and their impacts as between corn and cellulosic biofuel, and can you help us out?

I ask you, would you be willing to do that? This was only a month ago and there's obviously some need.