Okay.
Evidence of meeting #4 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 process.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Evidence of meeting #4 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 process.
A recording is available from Parliament.
11:45 a.m.
Liberal
11:45 a.m.
Voices
Oh, oh!
11:45 a.m.
Conservative
Ed Fast Conservative Abbotsford, BC
I'm pleased to hear that the corporate sector that's involved in pipeline construction, pipeline management, and pipeline maintenance is actually complying. Going forward, in terms of the resourcing, right now because of the downturn in oil prices, my guess is that it will be easier to recruit the kinds of people that are required to do this work. Did you say 50% of the conditions you reviewed were not being followed up?
11:45 a.m.
Commissioner, Office of the Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development
They were not being properly tracked by the—
11:45 a.m.
Conservative
Ed Fast Conservative Abbotsford, BC
They were not being properly tracked. Okay, that doesn't mean they weren't being followed up in some way. Is that correct?
11:45 a.m.
Commissioner, Office of the Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development
They could not tell us whether or not the approval condition had been met.
11:45 a.m.
Conservative
Ed Fast Conservative Abbotsford, BC
They couldn't tell you that because of what? Was it resourcing or data management processes?
11:45 a.m.
Commissioner, Office of the Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development
Those two are part of the reason, yes.
11:45 a.m.
Conservative
Ed Fast Conservative Abbotsford, BC
Okay. It does sound to me as if they are under-resourced and they do need to bring their operations into the 21st century, so that they're more efficient in following up on this.
11:45 a.m.
Commissioner, Office of the Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development
They're here today and you can ask them that.
11:45 a.m.
Conservative
11:45 a.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Deb Schulte
Thank you to all you. That was excellent.
We're going to suspend for a minute just to get the people on the other panel in place. We'll just take one minute, because we really don't have a lot of time.
11:45 a.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Deb Schulte
Thank you very much for getting into position so quickly.
I want to recognize quite a few people who have come forward to meet with us today. I'm just trying to think who's here. You're spread all around, so why don't I just read the list and then you can let us know who's going to be talking.
We have, from the Department of Health, Paul Glover and Richard Aucoin; from the National Energy Board, Sandy Lapointe, Josée Touchette, and Robert Steedman; from the Department of Natural Resources, Jeff Labonté; from the Department of Agriculture and Agri-Food, Greg Meredith; from the Department of Canadian Heritage, Jérôme Moisan; from the Canada Revenue Agency, Yves Giroux; and from the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, Tom Rosser.
We're going to start with the Department of Health, Paul Glover. Thank you very much.
11:50 a.m.
Paul Glover Associate Deputy Minister, Department of Health
Thank you, Madam Chair. I have to say I'm not used to being on this side of the table. I'm used to the end.
11:50 a.m.
Associate Deputy Minister, Department of Health
This is a little unusual, but bear with me.
Thank you for this invitation.
I'm really happy to be here today to tell you what we're doing in response to the commissioner's report on pesticides. I have just a few brief remarks given the report, its tone. I wanted to share with you a number of critical facts.
The Pest Management Regulatory Agency, as you know, has a responsibility to protect both health and the environment as it relates to pesticides. A bit of information with respect to our performance, generally.... We have performance targets that are published and available, and we are meeting those and have been meeting them for the last three years for all of the new chemicals that we have to deal with.
To put that into perspective, there were over 80 applications for new chemicals of major uses. We met our performance targets. There were 400 submissions for new products, 1,400 administrative submissions for things like label updates—very important. We did 14 joint reviews with partners around the country, five of which were with the EPA and others were global.
Turning specifically to the commissioner's report, there were a number of very helpful findings, and we thank the commissioner for her report. We fully agree with them, and in all cases, we have already taken action to begin to address the recommendations.
One area is conditional registrations. While this is a common practice in OECD countries, as well as in the U.S. and Europe, it has been used less than 1% of the time in Canada for all pesticides that have been approved. We noted there were some issues with respect to conditional registrations. Most notably we felt that, as a result of delaying the normal public consultations, conditional registrations were not as transparent as we felt they needed to be.
In January, we published our intent to stop granting conditional registrations as of June 1 this year. With respect to all conditional registrations that have previously been granted, we have a plan in place to address all of those by the end of 2017.
With respect to the audit's concern regarding the timeliness of the re-evaluation of older pesticides, we just want to confirm with you that we have all of these already under way, Of the 401 older pesticides, 90% of the pesticides have been looked at, and for the remaining 45, or 10%, we have a plan in place to address those by 2020.
Specifically, because you probably hear a lot of this and we're not trying to back-end this all to 2020, we will have six re-evaluations completed by the end of this fiscal year of 2015-16. We'll have an additional six completed in 2016-17, 10 planned for 2017-18, and 12 planned for 2018-19, with the final 11 completed by 2019-20. We have a very specific plan to address the remaining 45 substances over the next few years and that plan will be published on our website in the coming weeks as we move forward.
Some people have questioned how, given the length of time it's taken us to get this done, we can speed up and accelerate that quickly, and we just want to reassure the committee that we continue to do full due diligence on the science. We are looking to make sure that we are protecting health and the environment in all of these assessments.
We have been able to move to efficiencies to better use predictive analytics about where the risks are and allow us to focus our re-evaluation efforts on where we feel the risks are greatest to health and the environment, and by working with international partners.
The commissioner also made some recommendations with respect to the cancellation of registrations when they propose an unacceptable risk. I just want to reassure the committee that when risks are found to be unacceptable they are being addressed in a timely way. Phase-out measures are put in place, uses are cancelled, and actions are taken to protect workers' safety, to protect human health, and to protect the environment.
There is a lead time necessary for the industry to develop new, safer products. On average, we typically phase-out a product within two to five years, for the committee's information. That is similar to the U.S., which does it in about two to six years, so we are right in there, or certainly better than where our trading partners are with respect to that.
For the sake of time, I'll conclude my comments there, other than to say that we very much welcome the commissioner's report and have an action plan to respond to all of its recommendations.
In closing, I would just note that while not specifically mentioned in the report, one of the areas is fees. The Pest Management Regulatory Agency is cost-recovered. Its fees were last updated in 1997, so it is working with fees that are significantly out of date. We have signalled and begun the process to update the fees, which will help us to ensure we have the resources necessary to work with industry to protect the health and safety of Canadians.
We certainly would welcome working with this committee as we move forward to advance new, updated fees and bring them in line with the reality of 2015-16, and not 1997.
Thank you, Madam Chair.
11:55 a.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Deb Schulte
Thank you very much, Mr. Glover. That sounds very good.
I'd like to hear from Mr. Labonté.
11:55 a.m.
Jeff Labonté Director General, Energy Safety and Security Branch, Energy Sector, Department of Natural Resources
Thank you very much for the opportunity to appear before the committee today. It's a great pleasure for me.
I'll perhaps keep my remarks quite brief, so that my colleagues from the National Energy Board can follow.
Let's start by indicating that we all recognize that Canada's pipeline infrastructure is critically important to the country. Certainly every day, the pipelines deliver energy to Canadians, businesses, our trading partners, and support many facets of our economy.
Before we get into the specifics and before we get into the details, perhaps it would be useful to draw out the distinctions between the department and the National Energy Board and how we're orchestrated and organized. That would be for the benefit of committee members who perhaps have not yet had the full brief on that.
The Department of Natural Resources provides advice to the minister and helps to set the government's approach to energy and energy policies in those areas of federal jurisdiction. This includes advice to the minister on the National Energy Board Act, which provides the fundamental authorities that the board operates under.
The National Energy Board is an independent regulator. It reports to Parliament through the Minister of Natural Resources. Its primary responsibilities are set out in the act, and these responsibilities include the regulation, construction, operation, and abandonment or decommissioning of pipelines across interprovincial and international boundaries. Any of these regulatory oversight roles directly support the objectives of the safety and protection of the environment, and the safe operation of pipelines.
Natural Resources Canada appreciates the work that the commissioner has done to report on this oversight of pipelines. We consider it both timely and relevant in the current context, and certainly in the context of looking at all of the perspectives related to pipeline operations and safety. I think my colleagues will report on this further, but the NEB has publicly accepted the recommendations of the commissioner and has already implemented action plans, many of which are well along the path to addressing a number of the audit findings.
I'd like at this point, as well, to make reference to one of the points that was raised in the audit report that related to the Pipeline Safety Act, which received royal assent well over a year ago in Parliament, and will come into force in June of this year. That particular piece of legislation changes the number of the authorities. It has several references within the audit report, and should there be any questions about that and how it relates to this particular audit, we'd be happy to take those questions as well.
Thank you very much, Madam Chair.
11:55 a.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Deb Schulte
That was very fast. Thank you very much.
Sandy? No?
I'll leave it to you to decide who's going to go next.
Go ahead.
11:55 a.m.
Josée Touchette Chief Operating Officer, National Energy Board
Thank you, Madam Chair.
My name is Josée Touchette, and I am the Chief Operating Officer of the National Energy Board.
I am joined today by Sandy Lapointe, the NEB's Executive Vice President, Regulatory, and Dr. Robert Steedman, our Chief Environment Officer.
Let me offer a quick overview of the NEB, because I guess we're going to be the subject of a few questions.
The NEB is an independent regulator of pipelines, energy development, and trade. It has three key roles: adjudicating energy projects, supporting the safety of Canadians and the environment through oversight, and engaging Canadians on energy information. As my colleague indicated, the NEB reports to Parliament through the Minister of Natural Resources.
Canadians know us mainly for the hearings that we conduct on the development of energy infrastructure. But we regulate that infrastructure over its entire life cycle, from project proposal, to construction and operation, through to abandonment.
We oversee 73,000 kilometres of pipelines. That's nearly enough to wrap around the earth twice. We also oversee 1,400 kilometres of power lines, which is about the distance from Yellowknife to Regina.
Our annual budget for 2015-16 is $91 million, 37% of which is temporary, including roughly $12 million for safety. We cost-recover 95% of this from the companies that we regulate.
In my role as chief operating officer, I run the day-to-day business of the organization. I report to Peter Watson, in his role as CEO.
About 18 months ago, Peter Watson was appointed chair and CEO. I joined about six months later.
When we began to work at the board, we were already aware that the NEB needed to change to respond to a growing issue of public trust. We quickly learned that the 475 NEB staff are well qualified, talented, and dedicated, but it was evident that the energy and environment discussion in Canada had changed dramatically over a short period of time and that the NEB was not prepared. Notably, there were systemic deficiencies in our IT and information management processes that were inhibiting our ability to be transparent and to show Canadians that we are on the job of keeping pipelines safe every single day.
Therefore, we were not surprised when the commissioner noted those deficiencies. We immediately embarked on an aggressive agenda of modernization that is aligned with our three strategic priorities, namely, regulatory excellence, safety, and engaging Canadians, and we began to implement changes.
First, we made changes to our leadership team. Of the 10 most senior staff members in the organization, six are either new or new in their positions. We achieved key milestones to make our oversight work more robust, to improve our IM/IT capabilities, to make information more transparent, and to better engage with Canadians.
Canadians can now find an interactive map of all pipeline incidents on our website. Our inspection reports and our evaluations of emergency exercises conducted by pipeline companies are now posted online. In the spring of 2015, we launched a public consultation on the transparency of pipeline emergency management information, and in the next few weeks we'll outline how pipeline companies will post their energy procedure manuals online.
In response to the audit, we've developed two information management tools that better enable our systems to talk to each other—to use the words of the commissioner—and as promised to the minister in a letter dated February 4, we are posting on our website all 2,869 pipeline approval conditions that have been issued since January, 2010, along with the associated compliance information.
The audit confirmed our diagnostic and helped guide the changes we are undertaking that will, we believe, lead to more robust oversight, greater transparency and, we trust, greater public confidence and engagement in the decisions of the board.
Thank you. I look forward to the committee's questions.
Noon
Liberal
