Thank you, Chair.
Thank you, Mr. Keenan and Ms. Weber, for being here.
I find this a very interesting discussion, actually. I had the pleasure of working with my colleague--a Liberal colleague, but a colleague--who had a passion for the environment. That was Mr. John Godfrey. There was the initial proposal that he had--his private member's bill, the Federal Sustainable Development Act--and then over the months, a couple of years ago, we came up with a position where it was amended, the committee dealt with it, and we had unanimous support around this table.
How quickly those two years have gone by. Now we are faced with continuing on that good work. We have each received this consultation paper, which I found very helpful, and I am sure we are all happy to be able to provide some input.
Page 1 makes it very clear that the goals in here are aspirational, but they also provide a long-term focus. On page 1 of this consultation paper, reference is made to the OECD study. It says:An OECD study has found that, where governments have attempted to move too quickly and on too many simultaneous fronts to achieve sustainable development, governance systems have become overloaded and paralyzed, and little progress has been made.
You referred to that study on pages 4 and 5 of your speech.
I don't think the problem with the Liberals was that they tried to do too much in too little time. I think it was quite the opposite. The commissioner at the time said there was a lack of leadership, but those days have changed. It was the decade of darkness, as it was referred to. Anyway, we have moved on, and here we are working together on sustainable development.
Sustainable development in this reference paper is also referred to as “development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs”. That is good.
You also refer to Minister Ambrose. I've had the pleasure of working with Minister Ambrose, Minister Baird, and now Minister Prentice, all of them very capable and committed people. I think Mr. McGuinty referred to the number of ministers. My understanding is that during those years when not much happened, there were five Liberal ministers; we have had three in the time I've been able to represent the government as a parliamentary secretary. They have been years of getting a lot of things done, and again we have before us this discussion paper.
My question refers to a statement Minister Ambrose made just after we became government in 2006. She said that she would be looking at a range of options, including legislation around national sustainable development and reviewing global best practices as Canada makes further progress toward putting sustainability at the heart of the government's activities.
Can you tell us how the government has kept that promise?