Environment Committee on Feb. 23rd, 2016

[Greg Meredith, Assistant Deputy Minister, Strategic Policy Branch, Department of Agriculture and Agri-Food]

Thank you, Madam Chair. I have a brief personal opening, if you don't mind.

I've been around, as my hair probably attests, for quite some time. I always enjoy the opportunity to come to committee because it's part of a fairly deep and robust set of democratic political institutions. I really do appreciate the opportunity.

[The Chair, Liberal, Deb Schulte]

And we appreciate you being here. Thank you very much.

[Greg Meredith]

Thank you.

It is a pleasure to be here today to provide the committee with information on how Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada supports the government's goals of sustainable development and environmental protection.

At Agriculture Canada, we recognize the importance of providing government decision makers with the potential environmental consequences of the proposals that we've put forward. As the commissioner said earlier, these are consequences that could be positive or negative. We do have processes in place to achieve this, as per the directive on environmental assessment of policy, plan, and program proposals.

We've had a strategic environmental assessment process in place since 1990, which was the initiative of the SEA directive. We have a very broad mandate, as the committee can appreciate, so strategic environmental assessments apply to a wide range of proposals within Agriculture Canada, ranging from governance proposals to those that deal with new research, and proposals on risk management.

This is why my department has dedicated technical experts who perform both project and strategic level environmental assessments. These experts have developed, and over the years improved, internal strategic environmental assessment guidance documents, as well as templates for both preliminary scans and detailed level assessments, to ensure we are consistent and complete in meeting the requirements of the cabinet directive.

Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada has always considered these assessments to be an important tool in helping sustainable development, and that's why we agree completely with and welcome the advice from the commissioner of the environment and sustainable development on how to strengthen our internal processes.

In her report, the commissioner notes that Agriculture Canada's strategic environmental assessment process with respect to cabinet is fairly robust. However, the commissioner did identify important gaps with respect to other types of advice that we provide to the minister. We have taken note of those recommendations in areas where our strategic environmental process can be improved and appreciate the points of clarification provided by the commissioner.

My department has developed and provided to the commissioner a management response action plan that identifies the steps we will take—in fact, steps we are already taking—to address these recommendations and to make our processes more effective and transparent.

These steps involve identifying all types of strategic-level documents and proposals within the department to which the directive should apply, revising our guidance materials, and ensuring that our public reporting is complete, pursuant to the commissioner's recommendations. Similar to what has been done in other departments, I understand, we've developed clear rationales for when to exclude a particular proposal from a strategic environmental assessment, and that has to do with administrative, duplicative, or emergency situations.

We're now adjusting our internal processes in order to roll out these improvements and ensure that all actions related to SEAs, including exceptions, are properly documented and made public so that the public has confidence that we're paying attention to sustainable development objectives.

In Agriculture Canada, we're confident that we'll have a stronger strategic environmental process as a result of this report and audit within the year, and we will fully address the recommendations of the commissioner's report.

Merci.

[The Chair, Liberal, Deb Schulte]

Thank you very much.

I'm wondering if Mr. Moisan is ready.

Thank you.

[Jérôme Moisan, Director General , Strategic Policy, Planning, and Research Branch, Department of Canadian Heritage]

Madam Chair, thank you for the opportunity to appear before the committee today.

The Department of Canadian Heritage agrees with the findings of the commissioner's report and is now implementing its recommendations. At the time of the audit, the department had not finalized a comprehensive approach to implement the cabinet directive. The department did consider issues of sustainable development on an ongoing, case-by-case basis, but a formal process to track and document the consideration of these issues had not been put into place until now.

By nature of its mandate, Canadian Heritage's environmental footprint is most often minimal or null, except in cases of large-scale events such as the 2010 Vancouver Olympic and Paralympic Games. As is usually the case, and as was the case for the games in Vancouver, Canadian Heritage always considers issues of sustainable development and the environment.

Environmental considerations have long been part of the department's decision-making process, but now a process to track and document environmental considerations has been formalized. A Canadian Heritage strategic environmental assessment process with guidance material and a tracking database has been implemented and is actively in use. The department is also finalizing an online questionnaire to accompany the implementation of the process.

Department officials have actively implemented the report's recommendations to ensure that the Minister of Canadian Heritage and the Minister of Sport and Persons with Disabilities are informed of the potential important environmental effects of all policy, plan and program proposals.

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Deb Schulte]

That was very fast. Thank you very much.

Now we can have Mr. Giroux.

[Yves Giroux, Assistant Commissioner, Strategy and Integration Branch, Canada Revenue Agency]

I'll try to be even faster than Jérôme.

Good morning, Madam Chair and esteemed members of the committee.

My name is Yves Giroux, and I'm the assistant commissioner of the strategy and integration branch at the Canada Revenue Agency. Among many other things, I am responsible for sustainable development at the CRA.

As you know, the CRA's mandate is to administer taxes and benefits to Canadians. Few of the proposals submitted to our minister or to cabinet have important environmental effects. However, where there are environmental impacts, they are usually positive and they relate to the reduction of paper use as a result of CRA's efforts to increase electronic filing and self-service options.

The CRA agrees with all applicable recommendations in the audit report by the commissioner and is updating its processes and templates in response.

I'd be pleased to answer any questions you may have.

Merci beaucoup.

[The Chair, Liberal, Deb Schulte]

Thank you very much. I think there might be some questions, because I think we could probably focus on more than paper, but I'll leave that to the committee.

From the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, we have Tom Rosser.

[Tom Rosser, Senior Assistant Deputy Minister, Strategic Policy, Department of Fisheries and Oceans]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair, and I promise I too will be very brief.

I would like to begin by thanking you, ladies and gentlemen, for inviting me to make a presentation before you today.

My name is Tom Rosser, and I am the Senior Assistant Deputy Minister of Strategic Policy at the Department of Fisheries and Oceans.

DFO agrees with all the recommendations put forth in the 2015 Fall Reports of the Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development as they pertain to strategic environmental assessment. We've taken steps to ensure full compliance with her recommendations.

For example, DFO has recently updated its internal guidance documents and processes as they concern strategic environmental assessment and has undertaken a significant training and awareness initiative across the organization.

Finally we've created a new web page and posted outstanding public statements for detailed strategic environmental assessments that were completed during the period of the commissioner's audit, which was January 2011 to December 2014.

Going forward, DFO is committed to full compliance with the directive.

I'll leave my remarks there. Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Deb Schulte]

We'll get started with questions.

Mr. Shields.

[Martin Shields, Conservative, Bow River, AB]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I have a couple of questions for the National Energy Board.

Do you know where you are in the Trans Mountain process you've been undergoing and consulting and working with? Is that review process pretty well complete or 90% complete?

[Josée Touchette]

I do most certainly. The hearings have just been finalized. The panel will be reviewing the evidence and is expected to come up with its recommendation in May.

[Martin Shields, Conservative, Bow River, AB]

As I understand it, there's going to be another process added to reviewing that. Have you been consulted about that or involved with that?

[Josée Touchette]

I believe, sir, that you're referring to the interim principles that have been put in place. Our timeline for the review hasn't changed, so we will submit our recommendation report to the minister by May 20. The minister has said he will seek to extend the legislated timeline for the GIC decisions by four months, I believe, extending the date from August to December, and he has talked about a number of activities that will be undertaken by the government.

My colleagues at Natural Resources Canada will be undertaking deeper consultations with indigenous peoples. My colleagues at Environment and Climate Change Canada will assess the upstream GHG emissions associated with this project, and they will make this information public. A ministerial special representative will be appointed by the minister to engage communities potentially affected by the project and to seek their views and report back to her.

In terms of the process that led to that, our advice was provided to Natural Resources and collated with the advice from other government bodies that was forwarded to the minister, and ultimately, ministers here made the decision to go this way.

[Martin Shields, Conservative, Bow River, AB]

You said you've learned that the consulting process has changed and that you've been involved in it, so with the new interim process principles, have you been consulted or are you just finishing your process and handing it on?

[Josée Touchette]

There's a distinction here that has to be brought into play. The National Energy Board, as I mentioned, has three roles. It has an adjudication role, which is what the panel is doing, and in that role, the panel is independent. Our staff who are dealing with them are in essence “firewalled” and they provide them that advice, so they are acting like the court of record, which they are, according to section 11 of our act.

However, as an organization, the CEO and chair and I, along with our supporting organization, provide advice to Natural Resources Canada. We have provided advice in that context, and that was given to the minister for consideration. So, yes, we were consulted.

[Martin Shields, Conservative, Bow River, AB]

Okay.

In the next interim principle piece, there's another person, then, who is involved in consulting again.

[Josée Touchette]

I'm sorry. I don't understand the question.

[Martin Shields, Conservative, Bow River, AB]

You mentioned another person now being involved in the next process.

[Josée Touchette]

Are you referring to the ministerial special representative?

[Martin Shields, Conservative, Bow River, AB]

That's right.

[Josée Touchette]

Okay. Yes, there will be one appointed by the minister.

[Martin Shields, Conservative, Bow River, AB]

It's a political appointment for someone to go and consult again to gather public information.

[Josée Touchette]

Those questions would have to be put to the department and ultimately the minister.

Jeff, I don't know if you wish to add anything.

[Jeff Labonté]

The board will produce its report and its recommendations and present those to the minister. That report is made public, and that is the judicial panel process, if you will, a quasi-judicial process.

With that, the government has stated very clearly that it will further assess the project and look carefully at that report, as well as reach out to indigenous communities, to Canadians. My colleagues at Environment and Climate Change Canada will assess the greenhouse gas emissions aspect. A number of processes and kinds of decision-making support processes to gather information about the project will be carried out by the government, both by its employees and the ministers special representative that is being considered.

A number of sets of things will feed into providing the assurance that the government has all of the information it needs and that all of the questions have been answered.