Evidence of meeting #39 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 you're.
A recording is available from Parliament.
4:05 p.m.
Conservative
Jim Eglinski Conservative Yellowhead, AB
Your answer went where I thought it was going to go.
Do you see the need for a national law for the provinces to follow?
4:05 p.m.
Senior Vice-President, Canadian Trucking Alliance
Absolutely. We, as a nation, take great pride in reducing our emissions. Therefore, we need a national enforcement policy, not just for emissions, but to level the playing field. This is not just an environmental issue; it's a competitive balance issue.
4:05 p.m.
Conservative
Jim Eglinski Conservative Yellowhead, AB
I'm going to slide a little bit away from where we are, but I think it overlaps: ELDs. I know that you have been a proponent for bringing ELDs in, and for those who don't know what I'm talking about, they are electronic logging devices for trucks. I believe Ontario is looking at them.
Now all provinces in Canada use a paper trail. A paper trail is very easy to falsify, and many times we have these vehicles running longer than they should. I see where that overlaps into the environment.
I'd like to know if you feel that we should become like the United States and allow ELDs in Canada, and that they should be a national requirement?
4:05 p.m.
Senior Vice-President, Canadian Trucking Alliance
Absolutely. Instead of “environment”, insert “safety and competitive balance”. They are the same issues.
Just for the record, the CTA takes great pride in being a progressive association. We believe in the environment. We believe in safety. We believe in compliance, and equal compliance across the country.
4:10 p.m.
Conservative
Jim Eglinski Conservative Yellowhead, AB
Thank you. That's very good to hear.
I'd like to go to our other witnesses.
I was reading your report—my background was law enforcement for 35 years—and the statistics kind of caught my eye. I notice that in 2015-16, 4,000 CEPA inspections uncovered 3,000 infractions. I think you said that roughly half of these incidents were dealt with by way of warning, which is not bad. I believe there is a great role for us to give warnings versus prosecution.
Where I get a little confused is that then you say,
Last year, that is fiscal year 2015-16, in addition to the 4000 inspections we conducted, we opened 54 investigations under CEPA, and obtained 24 convictions; 18 of those convictions came from our planned work.
They must have been targeted.
What happened to the other 1,400 and some? Where did they go?
4:10 p.m.
Director General, Environmental Enforcement Directorate, Enforcement Branch, Department of the Environment
No.
4:10 p.m.
Conservative
Jim Eglinski Conservative Yellowhead, AB
If you can't answer, I'd like to see a written report on that.
November 29th, 2016 / 4:10 p.m.
Conservative
4:10 p.m.
Director General, Environmental Enforcement Directorate, Enforcement Branch, Department of the Environment
We can break that down for you further.
One thing to point out is that we're likely to uncover multiple infractions per inspection, so you're looking at one company that could have multiple infractions. Then, each enforcement action that's delivered could be dealing with multiple infractions. It's not like they're necessarily disappearing.
We can provide you with more information breaking down exactly what happened to each one of those cases if you'd like.
4:10 p.m.
Conservative
Jim Eglinski Conservative Yellowhead, AB
Oh darn. I had a lot of questions, but I don't have a lot of time.
4:10 p.m.
Liberal
4:10 p.m.
NDP
Linda Duncan NDP Edmonton Strathcona, AB
Thank you.
My questions for this round, and I hope we get a second round, are going to be for the enforcement officers.
I hope to get back to you, Mr. Laskowski, but I want to commend you for coming forward as a sector calling for strict law enforcement for environmental protection. I want to share with you in the second round what we did in Bangladesh when I was working on a project there to address exactly what you're talking about.
Thank you very much for coming. This was my request and it's my prejudice, because I used to be the chief of enforcement, and I don't think we hear enough from the enforcement officers. It's a very important part of the agency. I'm wondering if you can provide to the committee the breakdown of staff at headquarters and in the regions. If you have a report on that, you could submit it so that everybody could see that.
4:10 p.m.
Director General, Environmental Enforcement Directorate, Enforcement Branch, Department of the Environment
We can provide you with better data for that. You're looking at five regions, and each has a regional director. Most regions have approximately three managers and several enforcement officers under them. At headquarters we're looking at maybe—
4:10 p.m.
Director General, Environmental Enforcement Directorate, Enforcement Branch, Department of the Environment
There are definitely more people in the regions than there are at headquarters.
4:10 p.m.
NDP
Linda Duncan NDP Edmonton Strathcona, AB
Maybe you could just give us the breakdown of who does what at the headquarters and in at least one region. I think B.C. would be a good one to look at.
4:10 p.m.
Director General, Environmental Enforcement Directorate, Enforcement Branch, Department of the Environment
Sure. Often people want to see more boots on the ground, as they say.
4:10 p.m.
NDP
Linda Duncan NDP Edmonton Strathcona, AB
Please don't expand on that, because I have some very clear questions that are directly related to that.
I was going through my files on enforcement, and I recalled something I'd forgotten about when I'd asked you to come forward, and that is the disclosure of the report by the former enforcement CEO about serious problems with morale within Environment Canada and the enforcement agency. The issues that were listed included enforcement officers who felt enforcement actions were blocked, if they were not a government priority or if there was more importance to friendly provincial relations; a disconnect between the regions and headquarters; a lack of operational experience at headquarters; a lack of recognition of the importance of officers with science knowledge; a lack of respect for the job of investigations; and on it goes.
Can you tell us what has been done to address these very serious allegations and whether things have changed now under the new government? This is a report from this past January.
4:15 p.m.
Chief Enforcement Officer, Enforcement Branch, Department of the Environment
Thank you.
That was a report that was related to the public service employee survey that was conducted in 2014, and the report that you're referencing specifically was an action plan that identified some of the additional commentary through the PSES, the Public Service Employee Survey, which was from across the country. To that extent, certainly I think that across the department and across the public service, we've had varied responses about morale and happiness, or the lack thereof.
What we had identified was that action plan. It was misquoted a bit in the media, but notwithstanding that—
4:15 p.m.
NDP
Linda Duncan NDP Edmonton Strathcona, AB
I was looking at the exact report. I'm not talking about what the media said.
4:15 p.m.
Chief Enforcement Officer, Enforcement Branch, Department of the Environment
Okay, because it did end up in the media. Sorry, I thought that was the reference that you were making.
To that end, we established the action plan, and that was undertaken and issued by my predecessor, the prior CEO. Upon my appointment earlier this year, I committed to taking those considerations forward, and I continue to try to drive for improvements across our organization.
We've channelled our focus to areas of leadership, communication, and respect in the workplace, and we've been undertaking a whole series of discrete activities to try to improve morale. We hope that by the time the next survey comes forward, we will see some improvements in morale and so forth. There has been a lot of outreach with the officers to get their input.
We've expanded our management cadre to also include more of the regional directors to ensure that we get a broader perspective, so things don't get perceived as being, or at least are not directed, from a headquarters-only perspective, in the hope that we can look at some of our operational imperatives and at where we want to make improvements around training, around communications in the field, and so forth. We are taking a lot of concrete actions to try to address a lot of those concerns. We continue to collect feedback to see what we can do to improve things going forward.
