Environment Committee on June 4th, 2013

[Anne Minh-Thu Quach, NDP, Beauharnois—Salaberry, QC]

Yes, it is important, because three years have already been spent on this.

I will come back to you, Mr. Sawyer.

Several witnesses have told us that the time has come to work on the protection of wetlands, to transition toward renewable energy in order to minimize the effects of pollution and do some site restoration work.

Can you give us some examples of countries who have already implemented these measures successfully and who are deriving economic advantages from this? You in fact mentioned a link with the economy.

[David Sawyer]

I think we could look to Canada for all kinds of interesting examples of cases in which we have used innovative ways to protect wetlands.

In Ontario there has been phosphorus trading. Work on Lake Winnipeg is going on right now around the bioeconomy, basically helping with eutrophication, sort of baseline environmental quality stuff to reduce the impact and stresses on ecosystems.

There are lots of innovative ways to deal with this. Generally the approach to dealing with an environmental challenge is to use regulations. You can use economic instruments. Information is always a complement. In different thematic areas, under different environmental impacts, you have to look at the institutional context. You have to look at who the constituents are. Then you have to cobble together a program to address the issue. There really is no one-size-fits-all package of policies to address an issue.

If you look at climate change, for example, it is a really complex issue. A simple instrument cannot address pollution. You need complementary instruments.

[Anne Minh-Thu Quach, NDP, Beauharnois—Salaberry, QC]

In light of the fact that several initiatives have already been undertaken, would you say in this case that there is a lack of coordination among the provinces?

[David Sawyer]

Coordination with the provinces is a difficult one given jurisdiction and shared jurisdiction.

Certainly on the climate file right now, with the federal government moving towards equivalency and basically working with the provinces to recognize existing programs, there is a coordination issue, there's no doubt, and that needs to be worked out.

One could go all the way down. For enforcement officers, under the Fisheries Act, working on watersheds in P.E.I, for example, there are harmonization and coordination issues.

It is a complex jurisdiction we live in. Harmonization and coordination with the provinces are challenges.

[Anne Minh-Thu Quach, NDP, Beauharnois—Salaberry, QC]

I would like to go back to one of the questions put by my colleague, Mr. Choquette.

Several institutions are talking about setting a price on carbon. The federal government has chosen, rather, to go with a sector by sector approach.

Do you have any comparative studies of these two types of tools to fight greenhouse gas emissions?

[The Chair, Conservative, Harold Albrecht]

Who is your question directed to, Madame Quach?

[Anne Minh-Thu Quach, NDP, Beauharnois—Salaberry, QC]

It's for Mr. Sawyer.

[David Sawyer]

I'm sorry, I thought it was for someone else.

[The Chair, Conservative, Harold Albrecht]

You have a very short time for an answer.

[David Sawyer]

Yes, I have a really quick answer.

A World Bank report just came out which said that 60 countries are pursuing carbon pricing globally. Within Canada, some provinces are pursuing carbon pricing. There are elements of compliance flexibility in the current federal regulations that look a lot like some of the core elements of market-based instruments. Again, I refer to my previous comment that you need flexibility for people to make decisions to comply and at low cost. Again, you look globally and a lot is going on in all kinds of instrument areas.

[The Chair, Conservative, Harold Albrecht]

Thank you, Madame Quach.

We'll move to Mr. Woodworth for the last four minutes.

[Stephen Woodworth, Conservative, Kitchener Centre, ON]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair, and thank you to the witnesses for attending today.

I will mention just briefly, Dr. Sharpe, that I'm a big fan of SDTC. I don't have any questions for you this morning but it's not for lack of interest; I am very aware of the good things you do.

I do have some questions for Mr. Maxwell regarding the issue of clarity of reporting, because I know that auditors always require clarity of reporting. I understand that the federal sustainable development strategy has two elements within it that are intended to work in that direction. One is the use of what we refer to as the SMART approach—specific, measurable, achievable, results-oriented, time-bound indicators. The other is the expenditure management system, which helps to bring clarity to the cost of these measures.

I wonder if you are familiar with those two approaches, if you've looked at them in the context of the federal sustainable development strategy, and if you feel they offer hope to achieve that clarity of reporting to which you have referred.

[Neil Maxwell]

Thank you for that question. That's an auditor's dream question.

Yes, those five attributes captured in that acronym, SMART, are ones which the government is using in its strategy, and we know from our discussions in Environment Canada that this is what they're working toward. We use that same framework when we assess, as we are required under the act, whether there's sufficient clarity or not. I'll be providing that kind of feedback to the minister in less than two weeks. Absolutely, we certainly see some progress from the first cycle in terms of the SMART goal.

In terms of the second aspect, the integration with the expenditure management system, this too is something that as the Office of the Auditor General we're very strong proponents of. This gets to the point that I made in my opening statement, Chair, that probably the single most important thing would be to try to bring some of that expenditure information right into the strategy. Anyone could now take any of these targets and try to find in the estimates process where the associated money was. We're trained auditors and that would take us a long time. I think anyone else, any other Canadian, would find it virtually impossible to try to figure out from the expenditure management system, the estimates that come to Parliament, exactly where the money lies. Again, this is a relatively easy thing to improve.

[Stephen Woodworth, Conservative, Kitchener Centre, ON]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Sawyer, I was interested in your observations about the 32 jurisdictions you studied where sustainable development strategies have been in place. I know that each one is different and it's hard to compare, but is there one jurisdiction that is most advanced, and how long have they been at it?

[David Sawyer]

Again, I prefer to defer or look within Canada for some good best practices first, and both Quebec's and Manitoba's SD strategies are interesting because they do, first and foremost, take this broad view on SD and they look into where they're going and why.

Globally, we found a lot of good practice is going on at the OECD level, and it was really hard to find results. Canada is not alone in having a hard time demonstrating results. In the end, we found that some of our analysts who are doing the work would defer to high-level observations about how a country is doing in a certain area. We're not alone, I think, in some of these observations.

[The Chair, Conservative, Harold Albrecht]

Thank you, Mr. Sawyer.

The bells are ringing, so the votes have been called.

I want to thank our witnesses for being with us today and for their input.

With that, the meeting is adjourned.