Evidence of meeting #123 for Environment and Sustainable Development in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was audit.
A recording is available from Parliament.
4:35 p.m.
Commissioner, Office of the Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development
—so I'm really happy to say something good about something.
It's just part of my job.
4:35 p.m.
Edmonton—Wetaskiwin, CPC
That's good in this place. Not a lot of us say that much good about anything here.
4:35 p.m.
Commissioner, Office of the Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development
Yes. You know, we need to be positive sometimes.
4:35 p.m.
Edmonton—Wetaskiwin, CPC
I appreciate that.
The organizations would have known that you were going to assess all 26, so that would probably have a real impact, or would they not have this time around—
4:35 p.m.
Commissioner, Office of the Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development
Not necessarily, no. That's the interesting part. Once you'd gone through the wringer once with us, the five or six, and then after the next year another five or six, I don't think the first five or six had any clue that we would ever come back to them and do all 26.
I have to say about David, one of my staff in the back, that auditing 26 departments in one year is yeoman's work. To be able to do that in one year, with all the interaction you need to have with 26 departments, is quite unheard of. We need to congratulate all my staff, but particularly for that one.
4:35 p.m.
Edmonton—Wetaskiwin, CPC
I'll switch gears to the toxic substances. You talk about the communications side. To me that's really interesting. In the past when you've reviewed toxic substances, what have you said regarding the communications? It obviously hasn't been good in the past.
4:35 p.m.
Commissioner, Office of the Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development
Actually, I don't believe we've ever talked about communications in the past.
4:35 p.m.
Commissioner, Office of the Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development
This was our first time.
Sorry, I'm having a hard time hearing you guys way far away.
I don't believe we ever audited the issue of communications in the past. This was our first time. I want to say that Health Canada had produced three bulletins that were very understandable for your average Canadian. I think of myself that way: Could I understand this?
At least at the time we did our audit, there were 138 toxic substances, and three of them were done in a way you and I could understand. It would be great if all 138 were. It sounds as though they're on the road to doing that.
4:35 p.m.
Edmonton—Wetaskiwin, CPC
Following up on that for a second, I have a 22-year-old son with autism, and I think about what families face. They're bombarded with the reality of a diagnosis. One thing that's very usual is well-meaning people who will come forward and say, “This has been shown to cause autism” or “This will really help you.” Usually the information is not scientific in any way whatsoever.
In the last minute that we have, maybe the experts in the departments could quickly touch on the importance of science- and evidence-based information for families as they're trying to make the best decisions they can, especially in the sort of wild west Internet environment we live in today.
4:40 p.m.
Commissioner, Office of the Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development
Could I just start by saying that government scientists would be the best people and the people that I would trust the most. Who knows who is presenting what on the Internet, for example?
However, I think Health Canada should probably answer that.
4:40 p.m.
Director General, Safe Environments Directorate, Healthy Environments and Consumer Safety Branch, Department of Health
Absolutely. Thank you very much for the very relevant question.
All the work that we do within the safe environments directorate on chemicals risk assessments is science-based. We rely on scientific studies. We work with other experts and other jurisdictions in that area and we definitely rely on a review process that goes out there. As part of this review process, we often get back comments like “I don't agree with this.” That's very nice, but in the end we need a scientific rationale as to why they agree with it or why they do not agree with it.
We make a very strong effort, in terms of trying to communicate the results of these science-based assessments out to the average Canadian. We've started that. In a series of what we call plain-language summaries, we take that science and we then transfer it into more common language and try to get that out there.
In terms of informing our science, we rely on organizations such as the OECD, as well as the World Health Organization, and also try to bring in that international expertise to help inform our decisions.
I'm sorry about the extra time.
4:40 p.m.
Mr. John Aldag (Cloverdale—Langley City, Lib.)
Thanks for wrapping it up there.
Next we have Mr. Amos.
4:40 p.m.
Liberal
William Amos Liberal Pontiac, QC
Thank you, Chair.
I'd like to thank all of our representatives. It's always a privilege to hear from you, and every time, I learn more.
I'd like to start by commending our commissioner, because I think one of the things we are seeing is that repeat audits on a particular topic lead to better outcomes over time because there is a predictability to it.
I'd like to hear the departmental representatives, particularly on the side of toxins, because that's where the greatest repetition has occurred. I'd like to hear what the departments feel have been the biggest improvements as a result of that sequence of audits over the past several years.
Could you bring us back to the earliest audits related to CEPA and bring us on through?
4:40 p.m.
Executive Director, Chemicals Management Division, Department of the Environment
I can start talking about performance measurement.
In the 2011 audit, I recall that the previous audit on toxics indicated or proposed that we didn't do a good job measuring the effectiveness or what impact our compliance promotion and enforcement activities had.
We took that on board and we put quite an extensive pilot project in place to answer the question of what difference our compliance promotion and enforcement activities actually make.
In the most recent toxics report, I know one of the criticisms was on how many inspections focused on the PERC regulations, but that was actually quite deliberate. The PERC regulations deal with tetrachloroethylene, which is a very toxic substance used in dry cleaning. It's a hydrocarbon, it's toxic to the environment, and if it's not handled properly, it can contaminate our groundwater.
The other thing I should mention is that we had low compliance rates in the dry cleaner community. Typically, there were key issues in that they were just not complying with our regulations.
We put a test in place that involved establishing a baseline period, so we determined current compliance rates. We set a target. We wanted to see a 10% increase in compliance as a result of our compliance promotion activities and our enforcement interventions.
We had our baseline period, when my enforcement colleagues did a blitz of inspections. They determined what our compliance rate was at a point in time. Next, we had compliance promotion experts, who are people who specialize in providing information to regulated communities about how they have to comply with our regulations, and they focused on the dry cleaners and explained to them what their obligations were under our PERC regulations. They did that in a blitz as well, so there were very targeted efforts.
We looked at the community in which English and French were not usually the mother tongues, so we produced materials in a range of other languages. There was a period of compliance promotion, and then we had inspectors go back to do a blitz of inspections to see if we had moved the needle on compliance rates.
In the end, we found that we had and that the inspections and the compliance promotion blitz had an impact. We went from 51% compliance to 62% compliance. It was definitely an improvement, although 62% is still not great.
As the report noted, we are still focusing on that community to make sure they are complying with our regulations.
That's one example of how we have addressed a very specific recommendation about assessing our effectiveness.
If there is time I can ask Heather, my colleague in enforcement, to talk about—
4:45 p.m.
Liberal
William Amos Liberal Pontiac, QC
Thank you. I would like them to have an opportunity as well, but I see that the commissioner would like to comment.
4:45 p.m.
Commissioner, Office of the Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development
Yes. Very quickly, in 1999 the departments didn't have action plans for toxic substances. Now they have action plans for all 138. It takes time, but they have that done. If we look at some of these specific issues, from limited information back then to now, when information they indicate in their response is maintained daily, we do see progress.
We don't always audit where we think progress is going well. They mentioned already that they'd assessed 3,331 chemicals out of 4,300 at the time of our audit. We looked at that and said, “They're probably going to meet their goal, so there's no need for us to audit it.”
We have seen some progress—not in everything, but in some things.
4:45 p.m.
Liberal
William Amos Liberal Pontiac, QC
I'd like to hear from the other civil servants who are working on the toxics question. That would be helpful. Ms. McCready and Mr. Morin, would you comment?
4:45 p.m.
Director General, Environmental Enforcement, Department of the Environment
Thank you for the question. Gwen already did a good job of describing the PERC project. She and I actually worked on it together in more junior positions at the time. That's how we got to know each other.
She was talking about the blitz of inspections. That enforcement approach is very different from how we usually work. Typically we're looking to find non-compliance by using intelligence and other means of analysis to do fewer inspections, but looking specifically for non-compliance. To do the kind of compliance-rate project she mentioned, we had to establish a statistically valid compliance rate. That meant doing a lot more inspections on one particular area—not looking for non-compliance, just doing a random sample, establishing a compliance rate, and then developing a targeted intervention. Part of it was compliance promotion. Part of it was enforcement. Then you go back in and sample again.
That is a significant undertaking, and that's why we saw so many inspections being done on PERC.
At the time we were also testing the methodology to see if we could use it in other ways. The audit mentions that during that period of time, they would have expected to see that we had done that kind of project on other things.
We actually did. We ended up using that methodology for a couple of different cases involving the Fisheries Act and associated regulations. That just wasn't captured by the audit because it was specifically looking at CEPA toxics.
You asked a question about the improvements we've seen, and I really appreciate that question. I've been with the program for about nine years and I've been able to see this incredible evolution. We had peace officer powers about 20 years ago. About 12 years ago we became a separate branch. The audits on CEPA toxics and other things came at key points in our development. I've seen over the years how seriously our department took those recommendations and how much work we've done. The sophistication, the way we're playing right now and the level at which we're playing have improved dramatically.
I'm on the board of the pollution crime working group of Interpol, so I interact with a lot of international colleagues. I'm proud to say that we are among the best in the world at what we do. There is still so much work to be done. That's why I appreciate audits and appreciate the work of the commissioner for highlighting areas where we have to go.
There is so much work yet to be done, but there has been significant progress, so thank you as well to the commissioner for recognizing that.
4:45 p.m.
Mr. John Aldag (Cloverdale—Langley City, Lib.)
You have just seconds left if your Health Canada representative would like to briefly comment.
4:45 p.m.
Director General, Safe Environments Directorate, Healthy Environments and Consumer Safety Branch, Department of Health
Thanks very much for the question. It is very relevant.
One of the areas I have been involved with in the program for many years now, and where I have seen incredible improvement, is in the pace at which risk assessments are done. Previously we took many years to do one risk assessment; between 2006 and 2020 our plan is to do 4,300 risk assessments. We are now at about 3,500 risk assessments done.
Canada's plan to look at our legacy substances, go through our inventory of chemicals eligible for commerce in Canada, triage them, do risk assessments and then flag areas where we must take management action is honestly world-leading. Very few countries in the world have done that. That is one area where we have definitely sharpened our pencils and put a focused effort into the work that has to be done there.
Sorry for the extra time.
Thank you.
4:50 p.m.
Mr. John Aldag (Cloverdale—Langley City, Lib.)
Great. Thank you.
Mr. Yurdiga, you're up next.