Evidence of meeting #8 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 strategy.
A recording is available from Parliament.
12:05 p.m.
NDP
Nathan Cullen NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
Well, it's funny, strange motivation.
Mr. Vaughan, do you want to...?
12:05 p.m.
President and Chief Executive Officer, International Institute for Sustainable Development
No, that was exactly the point. There was in the original act that provision to measure—
12:05 p.m.
A voice
It's still there.
12:05 p.m.
President and Chief Executive Officer, International Institute for Sustainable Development
I believe the intention was originally to measure the performance of deputies, and then I think by legal opinion from Justice and others it was watered down to a very narrow, specific of third party contracts.
12:05 p.m.
NDP
Nathan Cullen NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
Because saving on some photocopying is great, but the ambition is so much greater in what John originally constructed in that Parliament.
So I come back that if we say this is good and this is important, then by the way it's been described so far the government is not treating it as important. I'm trying to remember if there are other directives. When the government came in and said to a deputy minister, “You need to shed 5% of your workforce” and it was connected directly to their pay and benefits, it happened. It was very rare, with one exception at Transport, that it didn't happen.
Why is this treated so less seriously, and if it is treated less seriously, then it sounds as if we need to move it out of Environment into something much more significant.
12:05 p.m.
Commissioner, Office of the Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development
I would argue that the suggestion Mr. Godfrey made.... It's sitting in a line department. It's being run by Paula. I'm sure she's doing a fabulous job.
12:05 p.m.
Commissioner, Office of the Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development
Exactly, and she's doing the best she can at that level. But it's very different to be running it out of a line department than it is running it out of a central agency.
12:05 p.m.
NDP
Nathan Cullen NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
I'll go to Mr. McDougall, because I know he wants to talk.
You found, Ms. Gelfand, that when you reviewed the draft FSDS for 2013-16, only six of 34 strategic targets met the most basic criteria of being relevant, specific, measurable, time-bound, and achievable. That is 18%.
Mr. McDougall.
12:05 p.m.
Assistant Deputy Minister, Strategic Policy Branch, Department of the Environment
Thanks.
I think it would be a mistake to conflate strategic environmental assessments with the sustainable development strategy. The strategic environmental assessments predate both the individual and the collective sustainable development strategies. They are certainly one tool that the government has available, one that the auditors tend to focus on because they are perhaps more measurable than some of the others in some ways, but the strategy is much larger than that.
With all due respect to Paula, she's not the only one who works on this. We have a very large group of people, almost 50 people, who work on this, including up to the assistant deputy minister level—
12:05 p.m.
NDP
Nathan Cullen NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
But the question is that it has performed so poorly. We're not talking about Paula here.
12:05 p.m.
Assistant Deputy Minister, Strategic Policy Branch, Department of the Environment
There are aspects of it that have performed poorly and aspects of it that have performed well, and I think you'll find that by going over the reports. Where they have been done, there are a lot of helpful suggestions that come from the commissioner through the auditing process, which are incorporated not only by our department but by all departments as these things improve, including those on the question of strategic environmental assessments. Departments have committed to improving their performance on those based on her last report, and I expect that she will be following up with that.
12:05 p.m.
Liberal
March 22nd, 2016 / 12:05 p.m.
Liberal
Darren Fisher Liberal Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS
Thank you very much, Madam Chair.
Thanks, folks, for your presentations.
I'm going to continue on along Nathan's line of questioning.
This is a really smart plan. No offence to the folks who wrote this plan, but writing a smart plan is easy. I think everyone around this table would agree that we all want good strong environmental legislation. I think we're talking about a culture here that we need to change. We need a smart plan, but we need the tools to enforce the smart plan, and it seems as though those are missing.
The draft talks about federal leadership. I think there was mention of greening government operations.
Madam Chair, I hate to get down in the weeds here, but when I was a councillor they called me a “curb and gutter” councillor. I saw the small picture sometimes much more clearly than I saw the big picture. Yesterday I walked into the men's room in Centre Block and the window was wide open to provide cool air and yet the radiator was blaring hot. On any given day, just around Parliament Hill, there a hundred cars idling for eight-hour shifts, gas-powered cars. We have our gas-powered parliamentary buses. We have loads of room for charging stations, and I know strategy, I think, 1.4 speaks to that, but I call that low-hanging fruit.
If we're going to send a message and try to change a culture, it has to start here, perhaps right on Parliament Hill, but certainly in all of our government offices all across the country, and we're not doing that. We're not even really recycling. I hate to throw in a plug for light bulbs, but we're still throwing our light bulbs out when they're spent as well.
I guess my question is for the commissioner.
Every time you speak, I either want to high-five you or I want to hug you, but my question for you is very simple and you can get this on the record: Do you have the enforcement tools you need to better implement this act? It's a good act and a good plan with excellent intentions by Mr. Godfrey, but we're not following through on the good things in this plan.
12:10 p.m.
Commissioner, Office of the Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development
The commissioner of the environment and sustainable development is in the Office of the Auditor General.
The role of the commissioner is not an enforcement role. I'm not the police person or policewoman of the strategy or of the act. I'm not a lawyer. I'd have to think about what we could think about in terms of enforcing the act, but right now that's not my role.
My role is to tell you whether or not the strategy is measurable, smart, achievable, or realistic, and to give you comments on the draft strategy. I'm also supposed to look at the progress report and tell you whether or not it seems fair in terms of what's in it, so somebody else is looking at it and it's not just Environment Canada saying that they've done a great job. The commissioner comes in and gives an assessment of that progress report
The commissioner also gives an assessment of the strategy and then has an obligation to review departmental sustainable development strategies. We have to review, I believe, all 26 in a period of five or six years. We have very specific jobs that we have to do according to the act as it now is, but an auditor isn't usually also a police person. An auditor is the reporter, the person who gives you the information, and Parliament is really the police person.
12:10 p.m.
Liberal
Darren Fisher Liberal Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS
Okay. I stand by my comments. I have a great plan to lose 10 pounds, but so far I have not done very well with that plan.
12:10 p.m.
Commissioner, Office of the Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development
And I would tell you how well you're doing.
12:10 p.m.
Voices
Oh, oh!
12:10 p.m.
Commissioner, Office of the Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development
My apologies if that was disrespectful.
12:10 p.m.
Liberal
12:10 p.m.
Liberal
Darren Fisher Liberal Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS
On regional council we had a review every five years of a regional plan. Unfortunately, it takes two years to review it.
My question, a quick snapper, would be for Mr. Godfrey.
Is three years realistic when you have a 120 turnaround, you have multiple people reviewing it? Is this something we could look at, or is this something that people might consider changing to a five-year plan?
If you have a five-year plan and it takes two years or even a year to do it, is three years a little bit too aggressive? Do you think that maybe switching to five years might be more reasonable?
12:10 p.m.
As an Individual
No. One problem with five years is you'd be in different parliamentary cycles, for one thing. I think that if you did it too quickly there wouldn't be time to change or correct. I think three years is about right, but I suspect, and one could confirm in talking to Ms. Brand and to the commissioner, the idea was to keep the pressure on but not to be unreasonable.
Another thing I would say is that this thing was designed to take into account that there would be changes in political administration, and that there would be changes of emphasis. As I say, if you look at the original draft bill from Suzuki, they didn't really talk about climate change; they only talked about CO2 as one of the substances that was listed.
As political priorities and public priorities change, you need the flexibility to be able to put a greater emphasis on things. That's where I think parliamentary committees come in, because they reflect the urgency of the day. Also, we have to be thinking about tomorrow as well.
The act itself, in describing the sustainable development strategy, is an empty vessel. It's what you put in that thing, and it's how you update it, and it's how you build on the basis.... It's an iterative policy that allows you to get better and better at the measuring part.
I would just say right now that I suspect there is a perfect kind of alignment between the concerns of Canadians and the concerns of members on this committee. Therefore, you can be more ambitious with this bill, which did pretty well, actually. I think the fact that there were three iterations speaks well for the previous government as well, frankly.
12:15 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Deb Schulte
I'm so sorry to have to keep cutting this off, but it's a good discussion.
12:15 p.m.
A voice
I'm chomping at the bit to make comments.