Environment Committee on Feb. 10th, 2009

[Scott Vaughan]

Of course, there are doubts about the two measures we examined in this report, the Trust Fund and the tax credit. In both cases, there is no system that makes it possible to determine whether there are real reductions in greenhouse gases. As for the government's other measures, I think there are 19 of them, but in this report we only looked at two. If there are reductions in the south, are there real reductions?

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

Chapter 2 talks about the management of severe weather warnings. You say that the department is unable to verify the accuracy or the effectiveness of these warnings, that there is no automatic public warning system, that there is no strategy for facing the challenges in the monitoring system and that Environment Canada should create a management plan.

Some years ago, a number of Meteorological Service of Canada offices were closed. There were many layoffs. In Quebec, for example, the Rimouski office was closed and everything was centralized in Quebec City and Montreal. Are these cuts in financial and human resources reflected in your audit? Are these cuts partially responsible for the poor state of the verification system in the Meteorological Service of Canada?

[Scott Vaughan]

We found that in terms of the overall network, Environment Canada had proposed several cuts, as you've said, to several weather stations, and many of them are automated. There has been a backlog then on how many of those have been closed, and because of that backlog the department is unable to reallocate the resources in order to provide a robust system for the network. There is a question on some of the delay in some of the closures. I think what you're asking is on the stations where there are meteorologists at the regional level. In our report we have not looked at whether that contributed to the overall problems of the network.

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

In terms of a policy of adapting to climate change, do you think that the lack of an automatic alert system is a significant failing? This may be more of a yellow light than a red light with respect to the effectiveness, timeliness or accuracy of severe weather warnings. Is it an important shortfall in terms of a policy for adapting to climate change?

[Scott Vaughan]

I think there were two things.

In terms of the efficacy of the system, it's extremely important that the warnings are issued on time and are accurate, but also that Canadians understand them and the warnings reach them. Our understanding now is that the CRTC has said that broadcasters need to move forward urgently to do a voluntary agreement, and if not, they would actually mandate broadcasters to issue mandatory warnings so that it actually goes on the airwaves.

More generally, on the question of climate adaptation, what we have said is that based on analysis from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, from the government's own analysis from a report from 2007 issued in 2008, climate change will increase the severity and frequency of severe weather episodes. Therefore, the onus on looking at preparing for that and adapting to that becomes extremely urgent.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

Merci beaucoup.

Ms. Duncan, the floor is yours.

[Linda Duncan, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Thank you.

Commissioner Vaughan and your colleagues, I want to commend you on a well-done and cogent report. It is one of the best I have reviewed. The report raises widespread failures to monitor, report, or be held accountable for departmental spending and mandate performance. What I found most interesting was the inadequacy of the Department of the Environment and the Department of Finance. Is this a question of a lack of analytical tools, or poor use of these tools in, for example, Finance's transit issue, or is it a question of the department simply not applying the information provided?

[Scott Vaughan]

I think it was a little of both. We looked at the analysis that the Department of Finance provided. In 2006, in their strategic environmental assessment, they had done some analysis on probable reductions because of a tax credit. They put it at around 110,000 tonnes. Environment Canada then did a second analysis, and they raised it to 220,000 tonnes. We went back and tried to understand it. We tried to retrace it and then do our own analysis, based on what they had done, and we were unable to do it. Part of that was because the team could not get access to some of Finance Canada's analysis because it was protected under cabinet confidence. So we were not able to determine how robust the analysis of Environment Canada was, because we did not have access to it in the audit.

[Linda Duncan, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Rather than getting into the details of the specific initiatives—whether it was a regulation, a pollution prevention plan, or a voluntary initiative—your report seems to demonstrate a general lack of capacity or interest in delivering the program, particularly at the enforcement and compliance levels. I'm wondering if, in addition to the new Federal Sustainable Development Act, your office might see a need to revisit the legislation and incorporate provisions that require departments and agencies to be held accountable for meeting targets and reporting on them.

[Scott Vaughan]

I wouldn't be able to comment generally. We looked at three regulations and made recommendations on them. In respect of the regulations we looked at, we suggested that Environment Canada needed to reconsider their overall approach to regulatory compliance and promotion. They accepted those recommendations.

More generally, I think the purpose of the Federal Sustainable Development Act is to look at how these programs link up in the light of environmental, economic, and social issues. It's an act of Parliament, an opportunity to provide an overarching framework on how the different approaches fit together.

[Linda Duncan, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

It's my understanding that the Federal Sustainable Development Act provides an overview of how we're doing, whether we are moving towards a more sustainable future, while Environment Canada and other agencies such as Agriculture Canada have legislated mandates and targets that they have to deliver on.

I've noticed in my review of U.S. laws that it's a common practice to give environmental officials specific timelines for issuing regulations and for reporting on regulatory compliance. Based on what your report showed about the lack of commitment to monitor, verify, or even enforce laws, I wonder if it might be useful to move to a more accountable system in our legislation.

[Scott Vaughan]

What we found in the regulations and across the board was not an issue of implementation itself. Rather, we found an inability at Environment Canada and other departments to measure the results. Do they know the results of their interventions? If you don't know the results of your interventions, it's difficult to know if the problem is getting worse, getting better, or remaining the same. In this situation, it's hard to know how to deploy your interventions and how to apply scarce resources to them.

On two of the regulations, we found that the level of compliance, according to Environment Canada, was actually quite high. The question is, high against what? Do we know the sufficiency? Do we know what we need to do? There was a gap there. With respect to the third regulation, there was almost no enforcement, but it was not a priority of the department. From these three examples, it's difficult to say whether this pattern exists in all regulatory approaches. What we saw, however, at both Agriculture and Environment, was a systematic inability to measure the results of programs. And there's a lot of money at stake in this deficiency.

[Linda Duncan, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Commissioner, as I mentioned in the lock-up on the document, Environment Canada has participated in North American reviews of more effective indicators of enforcement and compliance. I'm wondering if you think it might be useful for our committee to examine, perhaps with the department, whether or not they're pursuing those innovative approaches being attempted by other jurisdictions.

[Scott Vaughan]

I think there's a lot of really interesting work under way in the legal profession, as well as others, on how you measure effective enforcement and how you actually know indicators of looking at effective enforcement. I think this is something that, based on the recommendations, you may want to ask the department. But I think this is absolutely a worthwhile endeavour to know how you're doing. It would build in the question of whether you actually have the means of figuring out what you're track record is.

[Linda Duncan, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

One of the things you raise in the report, which is of great concern to me, is the reliance on a trust fund. It's been a general shift in the federal government to move more towards downloading to the provinces or giving up jurisdiction.

I'm wondering if you think there may be a need to now have measures to verify whether or not reliance on mechanisms such as the harmonization accord might require revisiting to see if we're actually delivering our federal mandate.

[Scott Vaughan]

This would be up to Parliament. The Auditor General did a study on overall trust funds. I think the outlier with the trust fund we looked at for the climate and clean air was that the anomaly with this is that there is a target, and because there is a target there has to be a way of asking whether you are getting closer or further away from the target. To repeat myself on this one, because the provinces have no obligation to report, Parliament is left not knowing.

More generally on what the overall nature of trust funds is, I wouldn't be able to comment. We've looked at that specific example.

[Linda Duncan, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

Your time has expired.

Mr. Warawa.

[Mark Warawa, Conservative, Langley, BC]

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Commissioner Vaughan and department people, for being here.

The issues we hear today and that we heard last Wednesday in the report are similar critiques to those we've heard from the office of the commissioner under previous governments and also this government. I want to thank you for making sure governments today, and also in the past, are accountable. As your report highlights, there have been successes and there have been some concerns, and the government does support your recommendations.

In the summary document, the main points covered, under page 5, it highlights the test for success, and it says:

The test of any environmental law, regulation, program or tool is whether it leads to either reductions in the rate of environmental degradation, and/or measurable improvements in environmental quality.

I think that is the salient point. That's the point you keep on bringing up, and I think it's a good point. Are there successes?

Now the question of the climate change trust fund came up, and actually there have been some quite outrageous comments made in the media. On the $1.5 billion that has gone from the federal government to the provinces, Mr. McGuinty was quoted as calling it “eco fraud”.

On the $586 million that went to the Province of Ontario to help the province clean up and shut down those coal-fired generating plants, there was clear discussion between the federal and provincial governments. When we became government, of course, there was a call to do things quickly. There had been 13 years of neglect by the previous government, so there was a call for us to move quickly. So there was $586 million that went to the Province of Ontario to help them with their environmental programs; there was $350 million that went to the Province of Quebec; there was $200 million that went to the Province of British Columbia; $156 million went to Alberta; $53.8 million went to Manitoba; $44 million went to Saskatchewan; and on and on.

Making sure there are achievables, I agree, the government agrees with your recommendations. But my question is this. Should there be a degree of trust and working together with the provinces, helping them, the federal government partnering? Is it important that there's a degree of trust with the provinces? Would you agree with the comment of it being an “eco fraud”?

[Scott Vaughan]

Thank you for the question.

When we looked at the audit, obviously, each province has its own climate policies and climate change policies. They're serious: the provinces are taking action. Our mandate from the Office of the Auditor General is to look at it from the federal side. So under our mandate we are not able to look at what the provinces will or will not be doing with those moneys, and I think that's appropriate. There are auditors general at the provincial level and they have their accountability to those mechanisms.

We are constrained in how we work to look only at what the obligation was on the federal side—and within that. So we reported that we were unable to say what the results would be, because there are no mechanisms for the provinces to report back on the programs they're actually doing with those moneys. We don't know the figures you just mentioned to us, but I think there are programs that will be put in place.

But the point from our side is, if the federal government sets up a target on the federal side, are we able to measure the results? Our answer is no, because there's no mechanism to report back.

[Mark Warawa, Conservative, Langley, BC]

Good. Thank you for that answer.

Back to the test of success, the test of any environmental law, regulation, program, or tools is whether it leads to either reductions in the rate of environmental degradation and/or measurable improvements in the environmental quality. I think it's premature to judge whether or not the federal money that went to the provinces will be used to improve the environment. I trust the provinces and I trust we are going to see some positive results and that the test of it will be successful.

I want to focus on the program for petitions. I touched on it briefly when we met last Wednesday. It's a program that started, I believe, in 1995. It's a good program. It provides Canadians an opportunity to ask questions, and also to hold some ministers to account.

My question again is whether, according to the test of success, this program for petitions is effective. Do you have a dollar figure of what it's costing, including administrative costs for all the different ministers, say, over your reporting period of the last year?

[Scott Vaughan]

We can get that information. I don't have it with me right now, but I promise to get back to you whether we do.

We would know our costs for administering the petitions process, but I don't think we would have an idea of what the costs would be for each of the departments and their mechanisms for replying and preparing the ministers' responses, but I'll double-check that, sir.

[Mark Warawa, Conservative, Langley, BC]

But, again, the goal of any program is to make sure we're improving the quality of the environment. That is the ultimate goal. Is that correct?

[Scott Vaughan]

Well, the purpose of the petitions process is to give Canadians a tool to ask questions about programs and policies at the federal level. That may be to look at measurable reductions in pollution or it may go to other matters. I think it's looking at the full gamut of the federal responsibilities on environment and sustainable development and for them to pose questions and to get answers from the minister.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

Thank you.