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.

On the agenda

MPs speaking

Also speaking

Julie Gelfand  Commissioner, Office of the Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development
Bruce Sloan  Principal, Office of the Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development
Kimberley Leach  Principal, Office of the Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development
James McKenzie  Principal, Office of the Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development
Chris Forbes  Assistant Deputy Minister, Strategic Policy Branch and Regional Directors General Offices, Department of the Environment
Ron Hallman  President, Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency, Department of the Environment
Mike Beale  Assistant Deputy Minister, Environmental Stewardship Branch, Department of the Environment
Helen Cutts  Vice-President, Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency, Department of the Environment
Karen Dodds  Assistant Deputy Minister, Science and Technology Branch, Department of the Environment

4:05 p.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Harold Albrecht

Mr. Bevington, five minutes, please.

4:05 p.m.

NDP

Dennis Bevington NDP Northwest Territories, NT

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thanks for joining us today, Commissioner.

You know, with regard to this whole section on Arctic marine navigation, there are things we've talked about in Parliament on numerous occasions about the charting and the coast guard. I want to go to the coast guard, especially this icebreaking capacity. Right around the world, we're seeing a lot of icebreakers being built by a variety of countries. In Canada certainly we're concerned about the fact that although we know the name of an icebreaker that's supposed to be built, we haven't yet seen the hull laid. The name was announced almost six years ago.

Did you do an analysis of the tasks that are currently performed by the icebreaking fleet of Canada, of what would be their ongoing tasks that would take the scheduling of these crafts throughout the Arctic so that we would have a better understanding of how they're being used; of the fact that we're obviously going to be short of a number of ships, for refits or for decommissioning, in the next five to ten years; and of whether these schedules that have been laid out today could be adequately performed with the fleet that would be available five years from now?

4:05 p.m.

Commissioner, Office of the Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development

Julie Gelfand

You're asking about a detailed analysis. If you look at paragraph 3.40, you'll see what icebreaking services are provided by the coast guard: ice information, ice routing, escorting individual vessels and convoys, freeing ships beset in ice, maintaining shipping channels and tracks through ice, harbour breakout, and providing supplies for Arctic communities when commercial services are not available.

In general, that is what the coast guard provides.

4:05 p.m.

NDP

Dennis Bevington NDP Northwest Territories, NT

You didn't actually look at how their scheduling with the ships they have is configured every year.

4:05 p.m.

Commissioner, Office of the Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development

Julie Gelfand

I don't believe we went into that level of detail. What we did find was that the coast guard has decreased, by 33 ship days, the total time it plans to deploy in the Arctic. At the same time, we know that vessel traffic is increasing. We recommend that the coast guard improve its performance measurement system to assess whether icebreaking services will meet user needs in the future.

4:05 p.m.

NDP

Dennis Bevington NDP Northwest Territories, NT

Now, there's quite a difference in icebreaking capacity between ships. Did you take a look at what ships will be available that can deal with multi-year ice and the more difficult ice conditions?

4:05 p.m.

Commissioner, Office of the Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development

Julie Gelfand

Mr. Chair, I'm not sure we did as detailed an analysis as Dennis is recommending or is asking in terms of each ship and what they would do. What we did find was that they're on average 30 years old, that we plan to extend the operation of five of the vessels by anywhere from eight to fifteen years, and that there are no other icebreakers of equal capability to replace the vessels undergoing retrofit.

I don't know if we looked at every single icebreaker and what services it provides.

Kim, can you add to that?

October 8th, 2014 / 4:10 p.m.

Kimberley Leach Principal, Office of the Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development

We did look at the breakdown.There are six icebreakers that provide services in the Arctic and an additional one that's dedicated to scientific research. Of the six, two are heavy-duty, if you will; three are medium; and one is a high-endurance ship.

4:10 p.m.

NDP

Dennis Bevington NDP Northwest Territories, NT

So you would think that we should perhaps be looking at what we're going to have left in five years to understand whether.... As you say, the two most capable icebreakers will be decommissioned. Are we going to have enough capacity to deal with...? I mean, we're dealing with an Arctic that's fairly large, one of the largest Arctic systems in the world, and where ice shifting is now unpredictable in terms of where the heavy ice will be.

Was there any sense that there needs to be an icebreaker on either side of the islands in order to deal with the issues we have? I notice today that we have another community that's suffering because multi-year ice moved in and they can't get their resupply. This has happened over and over again. What it says is that you need icebreakers in various locations.

4:10 p.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Harold Albrecht

Mr. Bevington, we're going to need to cut you off there. We've given you extra time.

Thank you for that rhetorical comment.

We'll move now to Mr. Toet, for five minutes, please.

4:10 p.m.

Conservative

Lawrence Toet Conservative Elmwood—Transcona, MB

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Commissioner. It's good to have you here.

In a couple of places in your opening remarks you said you were concerned that some significant projects may not be assessed. In your closing statement you also mentioned that again.

Did you find any significant projects that have not been assessed since the implementation of CEAA 2012 in July 2012?

4:10 p.m.

Commissioner, Office of the Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development

Julie Gelfand

Specifics?

I'm going to pass it over to Bruce for that level of specificity.

4:10 p.m.

Principal, Office of the Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development

Bruce Sloan

With this audit we were trying to look at the systems and practices that the department has put in place to contribute to the success of the new act, so we didn't get into looking at new projects.

A lot of them are still going through the EA process, so the office tries to stay away from commenting on projects that are in the middle of hearings. We didn't look at specific projects, rather this infrastructure that the department and the three organizations have been putting in place.

4:10 p.m.

Conservative

Lawrence Toet Conservative Elmwood—Transcona, MB

So when you went through this process, you could not identify whether there were any projects that should have been assessed that were not assessed.

4:10 p.m.

Principal, Office of the Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development

Bruce Sloan

We didn't look for that. We looked for whether the three responsible authorities were setting out their rationales for which projects they are in, and which projects they are not. That's aimed at getting transparency and predictability around the process, which is one of the objectives of an EA process.

4:10 p.m.

Conservative

Lawrence Toet Conservative Elmwood—Transcona, MB

You had that concern, but you did not look to see if your concern was justified at all.

4:10 p.m.

Principal, Office of the Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development

Bruce Sloan

Not in this audit.

Our strategic audit plans have a series of audits that will look at the EA process over time. I think that is an issue we'll be coming back to within the next short period of time. We can't deal with everything in one audit.

4:10 p.m.

Commissioner, Office of the Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development

Julie Gelfand

The CEAA 2012 is a brand new piece of legislation.

We're only two years into it, so the idea was to do.... You have a name for it—

4:10 p.m.

Principal, Office of the Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development

Bruce Sloan

It's analogous to a systems under development audit.

4:10 p.m.

Commissioner, Office of the Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development

Julie Gelfand

Right. It's a systems under development audit. That's very specific language for auditors.

We were basically looking at how well they were doing in the implementation right at the front end of a new law, as a way of trying to provide guidance and help if things are kind of off track.

4:10 p.m.

Conservative

Lawrence Toet Conservative Elmwood—Transcona, MB

I appreciate that, but when you mentioned it twice in your opening statement, it seems to me you would have had real reason to believe that some projects had been missed.

Anyway, going on, under chapter 6, when you talk about progress in implementing sustainable development strategies, you talk about processes having been approved. Then you also mention that “there is still a risk that ministers are not getting complete information on the environmental impacts of proposed programs, plans, and policies”.

Again, can you cite any cases where ministers did not get the information they required, based on your assessment here?

4:10 p.m.

Commissioner, Office of the Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development

Julie Gelfand

We looked through memorandums to cabinet and Treasury Board submissions, and we looked in particular at approximately 47 of them.

4:10 p.m.

A voice

It was 45.

4:10 p.m.

Commissioner, Office of the Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development

Julie Gelfand

In about a third of the cases, there was information that stopped before it got to ministers. It was both positive impacts on the environment that did not go up to ministers and negative impacts on the environment.

Now due to the secrecy of the documents, I don't believe we can be specific about those. Is that correct?

4:15 p.m.

James McKenzie Principal, Office of the Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development

No, we can't.