Evidence of meeting #69 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 information.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Conservative
Jim Eglinski Conservative Yellowhead, AB
We could list them all, and I could probably calculate them.
Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development, Office of the Auditor General
Yes, we've actually put a “projected impact on budgetary balance” in the table.
Conservative
Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development, Office of the Auditor General
I don't think we added them up.
Conservative
Jim Eglinski Conservative Yellowhead, AB
Okay, well let's just skip by that then.
Going through what you spoke about today, I'd like to go to paragraph 18 in your notes. How long have you been waiting? You said you sent the letter to Finance Canada, and how long have you been waiting for a response by them?
Andrew Hayes Principal, Office of the Auditor General
We have been engaged with Finance Canada since last July over information. We've had various discussions throughout the audit. The most recent request, which followed the order in council in May, came in a formal context last Friday. We sent a letter on Friday.
Conservative
Jim Eglinski Conservative Yellowhead, AB
So you've been going almost a year with negotiations and getting nowhere, so now you're going by a formal written request, I take it.
Principal, Office of the Auditor General
Throughout the audit we had both a formal request for information and informal discussions to understand the information that Finance was not able to provide to us. That information was characterized as cabinet confidence. At a relatively early stage in our audit examination, we found out that we would not be getting that information.
Conservative
Principal, Office of the Auditor General
That's the way the information was characterized in response to us.
Conservative
Jim Eglinski Conservative Yellowhead, AB
Thank you.
I'm going to ask a question. You may answer it, and you may not. My research tells me that between federal and provincial governments through the oil and gas sector, they support the industry with about $3.3 billion in subsidies, as do provinces and the federal government for windmills and for solar panels. None of these energy forms are affordable on their own without some form of subsidy.
Dealing with oil and gas, because I have that number, do you think that money would be better spent other than subsidizing large industry? It could be spent on technology, science, and educating our younger people, who are about to enter the workforce, to give them the tools to give us greener energy, greener climate, and a greener country.
Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development, Office of the Auditor General
Unfortunately, in the role that I play, my job is to audit what the government has said it will do. If a government makes a commitment to reduce inefficient fossil fuel subsidies, my job is to go in and let you know whether or not they're getting it done.
Your question is really a policy question, and the government has to make a decision about where and what it should spend its money on. We looked at the commitment the government made and whether or not it is meeting that commitment.
Conservative
Jim Eglinski Conservative Yellowhead, AB
Just to rephrase this slightly, throughout your audit, did you see anywhere that we are spending money on science and technology where we're directly putting it through the finance department? Did they give you any evidence that we are making some effort towards that?
Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development, Office of the Auditor General
Another audit I will be tabling in the fall will be about funding new green energy sources, so I'll be able to give you more information on that this fall. Here we looked specifically at whether or not they had defined what an inefficient fossil fuel subsidy was and whether or not they were on track to meeting the commitment of reducing or phasing them out and rationalizing them.
Conservative
Jim Eglinski Conservative Yellowhead, AB
Have they looked at the inefficiency of fuels of other types? They haven't defined them yet, have they?
Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development, Office of the Auditor General
The commitment the government made was on fossil fuel subsidies.
NDP
Linda Duncan NDP Edmonton Strathcona, AB
Madam Chair, before I begin my questioning, I would like to move that we extend a request for the ministers of Environment and Finance or their designates to be called to the committee to explain their response to the report by the Auditor General on the fossil fuel subsidies.
Liberal
Mark Gerretsen Liberal Kingston and the Islands, ON
I would like a little more time to think about this as opposed to just voting on it right now. I would suggest that we continue on with the delegation and then bring the motion back for discussion at a later time.
I move to adjourn debate on this motion.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Deb Schulte
All those in favour? All those opposed?
The motion is adjourned for the moment.
NDP
Linda Duncan NDP Edmonton Strathcona, AB
I'll just proceed with my questions.
Thank you very much. It's always a pleasure to have you both here.
There are a number of things in the report. It is very thorough, as usual. I note at least six concerns raised, everything from not revealing the information, to not having a plan, to not providing any kind of timing. What's deeply disturbing.... I have to admit that I didn't realize before that it's under the sustainable development undertakings, too, and that the Department of the Environment would respond to this.
To that end, I'm deeply troubled to see in your report on page 9 that Environment Canada redacted almost all of the strategic environmental assessment report. That's stunning, given the fact that we're only just starting to have the department consider doing strategic environmental assessments.
We began to try to look at the case law, and we're seeing as highly questionable the decision to be redacting this kind of information. I wonder if you could speak to that.
Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development, Office of the Auditor General
To be perfectly precise, the Department of Finance redacted that information.
We also found it surprising. The Auditor General himself found it surprising, something as simple as the strategic environmental assessment, which we have been auditing for five or six years. We've been going into each department to ask if they have been following the cabinet directive on strategic environmental assessment. We've been getting full strategic environmental assessments on hundreds of different proposals, and for this issue we got severely redacted strategic environmental assessments. We were quite surprised.