Environment Committee on Oct. 4th, 2018

[The Chair, Mr. John Aldag (Cloverdale—Langley City, Lib.)]

I call the meeting to order.

Good afternoon, everyone. I'm pleased to have our commissioner of the environment and sustainable development, Julie Gelfand, and her team with us. We had four reports tabled in the House of Commons on Tuesday morning, and the commissioner is going to take about eight minutes to start to walk us through the four reports that were before the House. We'll then hear from departmental officials.

As I understand it, we're going to have the commissioner of the environment take five minutes on report 1 and then we'll move to the Department of the Environment for five minutes on report 3. Next, we'll have the Department of Fisheries and Oceans present five minutes on report 2. Finally, the Department of Health will have five minutes on report 1. That gives us about half an hour of presentations, with opening statements by the commissioner and departments. At that point, we'll then move into our rounds of questions. We're going to have about 90 minutes available. I want to save about 10 minutes at the end for some in camera committee business, so I will be watching the clock.

Essentially, we'll go through the regular rotation and get into discussions. The questions can be geared to the commissioner and her team or to any of the departmental officials. That's how the rest of the day will unfold.

One other comment I made was that a number of committee members were able to attend the confidential briefing on Tuesday morning, and there were some very good questions raised. If members feel that they had their questions addressed at that briefing, this is now a public session, so if you want to get any of those questions and answers on record, don't feel bad about asking the commissioner to repeat what you asked on Tuesday, because she's assured me that she's willing to repeat what she said.

[Julie Gelfand, Commissioner, Office of the Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development]

I'll do it word for word.

[The Chair]

Exactly. I just throw that out as a reminder to committee members not to hesitate to reiterate or restate the questions we had on Tuesday. With that, go ahead, Commissioner.

[Julie Gelfand]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. I'm really happy to be here.

I am here to discuss our fall 2018 reports, which were tabled in the House of Commons last Tuesday, along with our annual report on environmental petitions.

I am joined by Kimberley Leach and James McKenzie, who are the principals responsible for the whales and toxic substances units respectively.

Our first audit dealt with the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, which sets out the federal government's responsibility to protect Canadians from the risks related to toxic substances such as mercury, lead and PCBs. This audit is the fifth one we've done on toxic substances since 1999, and we continue to find troubling deficiencies.

The government has identified 138 toxic substances, such as mercury, lead and PCBs, that need to be controlled either through regulations, pollution prevention plans, codes of practice or some other mechanism. We found that Health Canada and Environment and Climate Change Canada had not assessed whether their action plans were reaching their overall objectives. This means that the government does not know how well it is meeting its goal of protecting Canadians from the risks of toxic substances.

The government has developed 39 regulations to control these risks. Environment and Climate Change Canada conducted some 10,000 inspections over three years, but many regulations covering substances such as flame retardants received few or no inspections.

About one-fifth of inspections focused on a single substance used by dry cleaners, without any evidence to show that it presented a higher risk to human health or the environment.

As far as public information is concerned, both Health Canada and Environment and Climate Change Canada play a role in informing Canadians about risks from toxic substances. We found that most of the information available on their websites was often hard to find and very technical. Content was not presented in a way that made it easy for the average person to find out about the risks of toxic substances. These deficiencies make it difficult for Canadians to get the information they need to make informed decisions.

Let's turn now to our second audit, which looked at what the government has done to protect marine mammals from the threats posed by vessels and commercial fishing.

In Canada, there are over 40 species of marine mammals, such as whales, dolphins, seals, and 14 populations are on the endangered species list.

We found that Fisheries and Oceans Canada, in collaboration with Parks Canada, Transport Canada and Environment and Climate Change Canada, was very slow to take action to reduce threats to marine mammals. Departments have several tools at their disposal to protect these animals. For example, they can establish protected areas, they can set speed limits for vessels, they can close or restrict fisheries, and they can set distances for whale-watching boats.

We found that most of these tools were not used until the situation became severe. Twelve endangered North Atlantic right whales, representing 3% of the world's remaining population, were found dead in the Gulf of St. Lawrence in 2017. It was then that the departments took action to protect a few whale species by, for example, closing certain fisheries and introducing speed limits for ships in some areas.

We also found that Fisheries and Oceans Canada lacked the resources and direction to effectively respond to distressed marine mammals. There are around 900 incidents of distressed marine mammals every year, and very few people are trained to help.

The measures recently put in place have been reactive, limited and late. The clock could well be running out for certain species, such as the West Coast's Southern Resident Killer Whale which has been listed as an endangered species for 15 years, and whose population is now down to 74 individuals. There needs to be continued action from the departments to manage threats for all marine mammals.

I want to draw your attention now to the results of our third audit. It examined whether federal organizations were taking the required steps to ensure that environmental considerations were included in the information provided to government decision-makers.

This is an area we've been auditing for the last five years. In 2012, our office started a multi-year plan to audit all 26 government organizations that are required to assess the positive or negative environmental impacts of their proposed policies, plans and programs. In 2015, we found that the organizations we audited assessed less than half of their proposals, and results were even worse in 2016 and 2017.

This year, given past poor results, we decided to re-examine all 26 organizations. We were happy to find that they had carried out strategic environmental assessments for more than 90% of the policy, plan, and program proposals they submitted to cabinet.

I'm going to repeat that in English, because it's not often that we have great news. We were really happy to find out that more than 90% of proposals that went to cabinet had been looked at in terms of their environmental impacts, either positive or negative, before the proposal got to cabinet. This is a marked improvement over the past.

Let me close with environmental petitions. These petitions are an important mechanism that Parliament put in place to give Canadians a way of getting answers from federal ministers to their questions about environment and sustainable development.

Last year, we received 10 petitions from individuals and organizations.

We also surveyed petitioners about their experience. The vast majority of respondents were not satisfied with the answers they received from departments; however, they stated they were likely to use the petitions process again.

To recap, the government still has work to do on toxic substances and marine mammals, but there is a bit of a bright light when it comes to integrating environmental considerations in government decision-making. We had great co-operation from all the departments on all of our audits. We highly respect the bureaucrats who are working in these departments. We're here to try to help make things better.

That concludes my opening remarks. We are happy to answer any questions you may have.

[The Chair]

Thank you, Commissioner. It's always a pleasure to have you at our committee, and your timing was perfect. You came in right at eight minutes.

We'll turn it over now to the Department of the Environment representatives. I do want to say that, like you, I know the committee highly respects the work of the departmental officials, and we really do value the work that you do and your appearance before us, so thanks for being here today.

I'll ask each of the lead spokespersons to introduce the team that they have with them for their respective departments and then go into the presentation.

For the Department of the Environment, is Ms. Goodier going to be starting?

Wait one second. Go ahead, Mr. Godin.

[Joël Godin, Conservative, Portneuf—Jacques-Cartier, QC]

Mr. Chair, we have the documents now. Is it possible to know who the next presenters will be? I have two documents and I want to be able to follow along.

These two documents include the opening remarks, correct?

[The Chair]

Environment has two presentations, five minutes on report 1 and five minutes on report 3. I'll let the departmental official determine who's speaking to which, but it will be report 1 that we're looking at first.

[Joël Godin, Conservative, Portneuf—Jacques-Cartier, QC]

Okay, thank you.

[The Chair]

Environment Canada, go ahead, please.

[Gwen Goodier, Executive Director, Chemicals Management Division, Department of the Environment]

Hello.

My name is Gwen Goodier. I am the Executive Director of the Chemicals Management Division at Environment and Climate Change Canada.

I have with me Heather McCready, who is a director general with our enforcement branch in the same department, as well as my colleague David Morin, who is a director general with Health Canada. We are going to be speaking about the first audit on toxic substances.

I'm going to make some opening remarks and then turn to Heather, who will speak from an enforcement point of view.

Let me begin by saying thank you for the opportunity to appear before the committee today to speak about the toxic substances audit. Environment and Climate Change Canada welcomes the report of the commissioner for the environment and sustainable development, and we will take action to address the recommendations contained in the report.

Toxic substances are identified and managed under the Government of Canada's chemicals management plan, a program jointly managed by Environment and Climate Change Canada and Health Canada. We're actually very proud of what we've accomplished to date under the CMP. Since 2006 we have assessed over 3,500 substances, and that represents about 80% of the 4,300 substances that we identified as priorities for assessment. We're on track to completing that work by 2020.

That work, those assessments, have resulted in our finding over 450 chemicals that are harmful to human health, the environment or both. We've put in place about 90 different risk management instruments to manage the the risks posed by these substances. When I say “risk management instruments”, there are a variety of instruments we use that include regulations, pollution prevention plans, environmental performance agreements with industry, etc.

We also take action to ensure that new substances entering the market are safe for Canadians. Since the beginning of the program, we have received close to 6,000 notifications for new substances. These notifications have been assessed, and they resulted in additional risk management actions where needed.

While we believe that the chemicals management plan is fundamentally a strong program, we agree that there are improvements that should be made in the three areas identified in the audit, which are performance measurement, enforcement, and communications.

In the area of performance measurement, my department will work with Health Canada to develop a long-term approach to systematically assessing the effectiveness of actions to control toxic substances. In the interim, to inform that approach, Environment and Climate Change Canada and Health Canada will complete the assessments that we currently have under way to determine whether we're meeting objectives to protect human health and the environment for the four substances for which we have pilots under way. Those are mercury, BPA, lead, and PBDEs, which are a flame retardant.

The audit report also focused on how we enforce regulations that manage toxic substances and how we communicate to Canadians about the risks posed by these substances.

I'm going to turn to my colleague Heather McCready, from our enforcement branch, to speak about enforcement. In a few minutes, David Morin from Health Canada will provide comments on the audit from a Health Canada perspective.

Thank you.

[Heather McCready, Director General, Environmental Enforcement, Department of the Environment]

Hello.

Thank you for having me today.

As Ms. Goodier said, I am the Director General of the Environmental Enforcement division at Environment and Climate Change Canada.

I would like to use the rest of our allotted time to provide a few overarching comments on behalf of ECCC's enforcement branch.

We have approximately 200 officers designated to enforcing the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, which we call CEPA, and its almost 60 regulations across the country. These same officers also enforce the pollution prevention provisions of the Fisheries Act.

Our organization takes great pride in the work of these officers. They conduct thousands of inspections and hundreds of investigations every year. More than ever, their work is leading to meaningful penalties to deter those who would choose to violate Canada's federal environmental laws and regulations.

Over the past five years, for example, fine amounts for CEPA offences have increased from a few hundred thousand dollars per year in 2012 to over $3 million in the 2016-17 fiscal year. Our total fines from prosecutions last year, including fines for Fisheries Act offences, were more than $10 million. The majority of these fines are directed to the environmental damages fund, which finances projects that improve environmental quality.

We are also improving our capacity to identify where non-compliance presents the greatest risk to the environment and human health. To this end, in 2017 our directorate launched a comprehensive risk assessment process, with the objective of completing a comparative analysis of all CEPA regulations by the spring of 2020. We believe this work will address the recommendations outlined in the current audit as well as previous audits on the same subject. This is part of a continued effort to better target the highest-risk non-compliance with ECCC laws and regulations to achieve the highest levels of environmental protection.

We would like to thank the commissioner for her continued work in this area and her continued attention, and we really appreciate the comments.

We would be pleased to answer any questions you have.

[The Chair]

Again, that was perfect timing. Thank you so much.

Now we will go to the Department of Health and Mr. Morin for five minutes on reports as well.

[David Morin, Director General, Safe Environments Directorate, Healthy Environments and Consumer Safety Branch, Department of Health]

Thank you very much.

My name is David Morin. I'm the director general of the safe environments directorate at Health Canada.

Thank you for giving me the opportunity to be here today to talk about the report on toxic substances and enforcing the Canadian Environmental Protection Act.

I also want to thank the commissioner for her report. Health Canada accepts the recommendations and is working on following through on those recommendations.

I would like to share a few brief remarks.

As you know, the audit is on federal measures taken with regard to the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, or CEPA, in order to control toxic substances and to communicate the related risks. CEPA is an important legislative document that Health Canada invokes in order to protect human health through the chemicals management plan.

The CMP is highly regarded as a world-leading approach to chemicals management, and I'm proud to say that other countries often look to Canada as a model for improving their own approaches.

With our partners at Environment and Climate Change Canada, we use the latest scientific information to identify substances that may be harmful to human health and the environment, and we work with Environment and Climate Change Canada to manage these risks through various mechanisms, such as new regulations, codes of practice and information to Canadians.

To date we have assessed over 3,500 substances under the CMP, and as my colleague Gwen mentioned, over 450 of these individual substances have been found to be toxic to human health and/or the environment, resulting in over 90 measures put in place to address these risks since the implementation of the CMP, or chemicals management plan, in 2006.

We use various methods to assess the effectiveness of these risk management actions. One important tool we use is biomonitoring—which involves looking at blood and urine samples from Canadians through the Canadian Health Measures Survey. This survey is currently in its 5th cycle. It has historically included approximately 6,000 Canadians per cycle, with about 100 different chemicals being tested.

As an example of biomonitoring, I can tell you that the level of lead in the blood of Canadians has declined by over 70% since the late 1970s, due to federal measures to restrict lead in gasoline and paint. The level of mercury in blood has also declined as a result of reducing emissions of mercury domestically by 90%.

We are confident our efforts are making a difference. However, we also agree with the commissioner that we need to be more systematic in our approach to demonstrating how the CMP is working to protect the health of Canadians. This work is not always scientifically straightforward. For example, it took about 20 years to see a decrease in the traces of lead in humans after the government imposed restrictions on the use of lead in gasoline.

The commissioner's report correctly notes that we are in the process of finishing three comprehensive performance evaluations—for bisphenol A, mercury and lead—to formally examine whether our established objectives for risk reduction have been met. We are aiming to publish our first evaluation on BPA before the end of the year, with the other two to follow. This work will allow us to better communicate to parliamentarians and all Canadians on how the CMP is working to protect the health of Canadians every day.

In terms of how we communicate to the public, we know that Canadians are concerned about toxic substances and want information that is easy to find and understand. To that end, we post information on our website and on social media, we distribute a number of guides on specific topics, and we hold workshops for various audiences. We also engage trusted key stakeholders who can help us share information through their networks.

We recently conducted public opinion research to better understand what type of information Canadians are looking for and identify areas for improvement. Armed with this information, we have already developed a targeted communications strategy that will address the commissioner's recommendation. The strategy will be launched in the coming months. It includes a suite of new activities and messaging aimed at helping Canadians more easily find relevant and useful information about toxic substances so that they can make informed decisions to help protect their family. This messaging will include new plain-language advice to Canadians on chemicals and pollutants of concern in and around their home and what they need to know when buying, storing or disposing of products.

In conclusion, we very much welcome the commissioner's report and have an action plan in place to respond to all of its recommendations.

I would also like to take this opportunity to acknowledge the important work of this committee in their review of the Canadian Environmental Protection Act. The findings from both this audit and the work of this committee will help inform the continuous improvement of chemicals management in Canada.

Thank you.

[The Chair]

Thank you. It's nice to hear an acknowledgement of the work our committee did on CEPA. We spent almost a year on it as a committee and we're very proud of the report we did, so thank you for those comments.

We'll now move to our Department of Fisheries and Oceans representatives for their comments on report 2.

[Adam Burns, Director General, Fisheries Resources Management, Department of Fisheries and Oceans]

Thank you.

I'm here with Philippe Morel, who is the assistant deputy minister of aquatic ecosystems. My name is Adam Burns. I'm the director general of fisheries resources management at DFO. I'm here representing Sylvie Lapointe, who is not available. She's the assistant deputy minister of fisheries and harbour management.

First and foremost, I'd like to thank the commissioner for the report and recommendations and to thank the committee today. We welcome the CESD report on marine mammals and its conclusions on how to adequately protect marine mammals from the threats posed by marine traffic and commercial fishing. We take these findings very seriously and are taking appropriate actions to ensure they are addressed.

We agree with the recommendations set out in the report, and are continuing our work towards mitigating threats to marine mammals and responding to those in distress. While recent actions demonstrate that progress has been made, we recognize that there's more work to do. The audit recommendations will inform our future actions to further protect Canada's marine mammals.

Marine mammals are important to Canada not only culturally, but also to the health of our aquatic ecosystems. Fisheries and Oceans Canada is dedicated to protecting these species.

As the report noted, the Government of Canada is making progress in protecting marine mammals. Since 2016 the government has invested $1.5 billion in Canada's oceans protection plan and $167.4 million in the newly launched whales initiative. With these investments, the government has taken concrete steps to help protect marine mammals from threats related to commercial fishing and marine traffic.

Several measures have already been put in place to protect the southern resident killer whale, such as the reduction of chinook fisheries to increase prey availability and a new mandatory requirement that vessels maintain a safe 200-metre distance at all times. In addition, we are pleased that other new measures, including speed restrictions for vessels and fisheries management measures in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, have been successful in reducing the risk for the endangered north Atlantic right whale population. In fact, thanks to the tremendous collaboration from the fishing and transport industries in implementing these measures, there have been no north Atlantic right whale deaths in Canadian waters this year.

Looking forward, we will work with all involved as we review the 2018 measures and improve them for 2019 based on stakeholder input and important new science advice that we're expecting late this year.

I would also like to note that the government has made important investments in our Marine Mammal Response Program providing $1 million annually to the world-leading third-party responder groups which are the backbone of this program. With this investment, the government is making sure that we have the capacity to respond to marine mammal incidents including whale entanglements.

We will continue to work with these groups to respond to the findings of the audit including holding another national meeting with them this fall to review the protocols in place for 2018 and make improvements where appropriate.

Many of the new measures now in place directly address recommendations found in the report. In 2015, the government promised to protect 5% of Canada's oceans by 2017, and this has been achieved. We now recognize 7.9% of our marine and coastal areas as protected, up from around 1% three years ago, and the government will continue towards conserving 10% of our marine environment by 2020.

Marine protected areas such as those under the Oceans Act, national marine conservation areas and marine national wildlife areas, are among the many tools the government has to protect ecologically significant and sensitive species and their habitats.

We will continue to work closely with our partners and stakeholders including Transport Canada and Environment and Climate Change Canada to review, assess and recommend the implementation of measures to address the threats to marine mammals.

We are committed to continuing to implement measures that address the recommendations in the report and we feel this will go a long way toward ensuring that marine mammals are protected from threats posed by marine vessels and commercial fishing activities.

Thank you.

[The Chair]

Thank you.

Finally, we'll move back to our Environment Canada representative.

Who's presenting for Environment Canada on report three?

[Roger Roberge, Acting Director General, Sustainability Directorate, Department of the Environment]

I am.

[The Chair]

Excellent. It's over to you.

[Roger Roberge]

I'm Roger Roberge. I'm the acting director general of the sustainability directorate at Environment and Climate Change Canada.

Thank you for the opportunity to discuss report 3, “Departmental Progress in Implementing Sustainable Development Strategies”, including the significant progress that has been made as outlined in the report.

I will begin by providing some context on the evolution of the cabinet directive on the environmental assessment of policy, plan and program proposals; the Federal Sustainable Development Act and how it relates to this audit of strategic environmental assessments, or SEAs; and the audit results themselves. I will also highlight actions that Environment and Climate Change Canada is taking to support decision-making for sustainable development.

In brief, the cabinet directive came into being in 1990 and outlines the requirement to conduct SEAs when two conditions are met: that proposals are submitted to an individual minister or cabinet minister for approval, and that implementation of the proposal may result in important environmental effects, either positive or negative.

The cabinet directive was amended in 2010 to include a requirement to link SEAs to the federal sustainable development strategy, or FSDS, and to include within them contributions to the FSDS's goals and targets. It also required the 26 departments and agencies contributing to the FSDS to include results of their SEAs in their own departmental sustainable development strategies.

These departmental strategies are designed to include measures to ensure decision-makers are able to take into account environmental considerations alongside economic and social factors.

To support the development of comprehensive SEAs, the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency assists all federal organizations by promoting SEA and providing guidance and training. In addition to its own obligations under the directive, Environment and Climate Change Canada is responsible for providing departments and agencies upon request with expert policy, technical and scientific advice.

In the previous SEA audits beginning in 2013 and over the course of the past five years, the commissioner has looked at how each of the individual 26 departments and agencies has applied the cabinet directive and whether they had met their commitments to strengthen SEA practices in general. The commissioner's report shows that the 26 audited federal organizations applied the cabinet directive to 93% of the proposals submitted for cabinet approval in 2017.

This is a significant improvement over the findings of previous audits when the rate of compliance varied between 23 and 44%.

What is more, 17 of the 26 departments that were audited, including Environment and Climate Change Canada, presented a 100% rate of compliance. Seven other departments presented higher rates of compliance and two others presented no plans in 2017.

It should be noted that the report contained no new recommendations.

Under the cabinet directive, each department is responsible for conducting its own SEA, and with this in mind I would like now to mention some of the steps that Environment and Climate Change Canada has taken to implement the directive.

At ECCC, we are committed to conducting a detailed SEA for every policy, plan and program proposal going to cabinet or to Treasury Board for approval. This also applies to proposals led by other departments or agencies that are assigned by the Minister of Environment and Climate Change. This goes beyond the requirements of the cabinet directive, which allows for some proposals, such as those not expected to have important environmental affects, to undergo preliminary scans rather than full SEAs.

We recognize that SEAs must be high quality to support decision-makers. As a result, ECCC has a dedicated unit to provide advice and review SEAs for the department. This unit also provides online classroom training to ensure employees are able to carry out thorough assessments. Public statements are also made available online so that Canadians can be informed of the steps being considered or taken. These include a description of how ECCC proposals could affect the achievement of FSDS goals and targets.

In conclusion, these and other actions taken in individual departments and agencies are reflected in the commissioner's positive findings.

Thank you. I look forward to any questions you might have.

[The Chair]

Great. Thank you to all the witnesses for staying within the allotted time. That's excellent.

I'd also like to recognize that we have a Parks Canada representative, Tamaini Snaith, with us, and from Transport we have Michelle Sanders. Welcome to you both. I understand both of you are available for questions as well.

I also wanted to welcome a visiting member, Mr. Yurdiga, from the Conservative side, and Elizabeth May from the Green Party. Welcome to our new members.

With that, we'll get into our rounds of questions, and we have six minutes per person. First up is Mr. Fisher.

[Darren Fisher, Liberal, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS]

Thanks very much, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Commissioner, for being here. You're here so often that it's like you're a member of the committee. Thank you to all members of the departments for being here and for your expertise.

I don't have to tell you, Julie, that our committee studied both the federal sustainable development strategy and the act. You've reminded us of that definitive separation between the two many times. I'll say that we did as a committee share your concern that many departments in the past weren't developing and implementing sustainable development strategies. It didn't seem that the cabinet directive was being taken seriously or applied.

Now to go on a bit with what Mr. Roberge was saying, I'm really happy to see that in 2017, under our government, it says here that “263 of 283 proposals submitted for approval to Cabinet...had the Cabinet directive applied”. I think that's somewhere from 40% to over 90%, which is significant. You know I'm an optimist. I'm looking for some of the improvements, and I'm also fairly patient.

We've heard from the department on what they feel they've done, but from your perspective, can you highlight the changes and improvements that you've seen during the audit and compare it with maybe the last three audits you've done?

[Julie Gelfand]

Absolutely. We've been looking at this issue of whether or not strategic environmental assessments have been done when proposals, plans or programs are presented either to ministers or to cabinet. We've been doing this since 2012, I believe, so it's been quite some time.

We found that results were quite poor in the past. In 2015 we had very poor results. SEAs were done in less than half the cases. In 2016 and 2017, actually, the results weren't much better. Remember that we had proposals that go to ministers and proposals that go to cabinet. There was always less compliance with the proposals that went just to the minister. It was more in the 20% range, whereas proposals that went to cabinet were more in the 30% to 40% range.

We were doing four or five departments at a time. This year we decided we would go back to all 26 departments, but we only looked at one section. We didn't look at the proposals that went to ministers, just at the proposals that went to cabinet. That's when we found a marked improvement: The last time we audited it, we were looking at about 40% compliance, and now we're above 90%. It's actually 93%—

[Darren Fisher, Liberal, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS]

Wow.

[Julie Gelfand]

That is really remarkable. One of the questions I got was, what accounts for this? We hope that it's because of our audit. I don't actually care what created the change; the fact is that cabinet now, in 93% of the cases for which it should have information about the environmental effects, both positive and negative, has that information in front of them, as well as the social and the economic effects.

That is really what we're trying to achieve when we talk about sustainable development. We want the decision-maker to know what the environmental, social and economic implications are. In the past, all they really had was economic, sometimes social, but usually socio-economic, and they never really had the third piece of the stool. Now they do. That is a positive thing.

[Darren Fisher, Liberal, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS]

Therefore, 17 of 26 departments were perfect. That's pretty good.