Evidence of meeting #31 for Environment and Sustainable Development in the 41st Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was report.
A recording is available from Parliament.
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Conservative
The Chair Conservative Harold Albrecht
Ms. Ambler, it will have to be very, very highlight, because we're going to have to move on.
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Conservative
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Conservative
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Liberal
John McKay Liberal Scarborough—Guildwood, ON
I want to get to those highlights.
Mr. Forbes, the commissioner states, “In our view, the lack of a clear plan and an effective planning process is a particularly significant gap given that Canada is currently projected to miss its 2020 emission reduction target.”
Do you agree with that statement?
5:05 p.m.
Assistant Deputy Minister, Strategic Policy Branch and Regional Directors General Offices, Department of the Environment
I started this comment, I think, with Mr. Choquette's question. We have a projection of emissions going forward based on measures that are currently in place, announced and currently in place.
That doesn't tell us about what the effects are of any future actions at the federal level, provincial-territorial level—
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Liberal
John McKay Liberal Scarborough—Guildwood, ON
We're a little bit down the road on this. This is 2015, effectively.
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Assistant Deputy Minister, Strategic Policy Branch and Regional Directors General Offices, Department of the Environment
Well, we're basing our projections off the 2012 national inventory report data, and we project forward.
There are two things I would say, as a forecaster, in response to that. I think there are uncertainties about what future actions will be taken and what the impacts of those are—
5:05 p.m.
Liberal
John McKay Liberal Scarborough—Guildwood, ON
If you don't agree with her statement, why didn't you say so in your response?
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Assistant Deputy Minister, Strategic Policy Branch and Regional Directors General Offices, Department of the Environment
We respond to the recommendation. And the recommendation, I can look back to it—
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Liberal
John McKay Liberal Scarborough—Guildwood, ON
But you have an opportunity to review the reports before you—
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Conservative
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Liberal
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Conservative
The Chair Conservative Harold Albrecht
Okay, well, if we're going to ask questions, we need to give a chance for a reply.
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Liberal
John McKay Liberal Scarborough—Guildwood, ON
You have an opportunity to review the report prior to its being published. I would have thought that if you felt that this was either an inaccurate statement or was wrong, or was a projection, you would have said so in your response to the commissioner rather than agreeing.
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Assistant Deputy Minister, Strategic Policy Branch and Regional Directors General Offices, Department of the Environment
Again, the response was a response to the recommendation itself, which was focused on the planning process that the commissioner was recommending. So what we were accepting.... Quite honestly, as a public servant, we can always do better at some of these things. The recommendation was clear that we needed to work on a planning process with other federal departments, engaging provinces and territories—
5:05 p.m.
Liberal
John McKay Liberal Scarborough—Guildwood, ON
If you clearly believe there's no factual basis for the commissioner's view, that her view is based upon a projection, then presumably...and it's a projection widely shared among pretty well everybody outside of the Department of the Environment. I would have thought that for the point of clarification, for the point of defending the department, you would have said, “Well, we don't actually agree with that statement”.
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Assistant Deputy Minister, Strategic Policy Branch and Regional Directors General Offices, Department of the Environment
In terms of the process we go through, we discuss the report with the commissioner, and we focus our formal response on the recommendations. That's what we've put on paper there.
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Liberal
John McKay Liberal Scarborough—Guildwood, ON
But she says in the recommendation that you should get “a quantitative description”, you should get “a detailed description”, you should get “a regulatory review”, you should get “a regular report”. And you agree to that.
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Assistant Deputy Minister, Strategic Policy Branch and Regional Directors General Offices, Department of the Environment
Yes.
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Liberal
John McKay Liberal Scarborough—Guildwood, ON
In light of the sentence she has prior to that, you're basically saying that you're going to give up smoking by smoking.
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Assistant Deputy Minister, Strategic Policy Branch and Regional Directors General Offices, Department of the Environment
I guess I hadn't thought of it that way. My take on it was that—
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A voice
He probably hasn't even started smoking.
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Liberal
