Environment Committee on Oct. 31st, 2017

[Robert Sopuck, Conservative, Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa, MB]

You made a flippant comment about yesterday's rainfall being climate change. Those kinds of flippant comments are not helpful in the least. The only thing that's helpful are quantified long-term trends. For example, in prairie Canada, 1961 was the driest year ever, and in Manitoba this year we had a perfect farming year. I would urge the powers that be never to focus on anecdotes but only to look at data. Otherwise, it's all just speculation and opinion.

You talk about Fisheries and Oceans in terms of looking at rising sea levels and so on. The department raised a wharf after a harbour flooded. That's hard infrastructure. Recently, the Manitoba government launched the made-in-Manitoba climate and green plan, and I would urge you to read it because, in addition to dealing with the subject of emissions, the report deals at great length with what I call ecological infrastructure—wetlands, forests, habitats, and so on.

Why do you think there's so little emphasis in the climate change debate on conserving, managing, and protecting our ecological infrastructure, such as wetlands, woodlands, riparian areas, water quality, and so on?

[Julie Gelfand]

Unfortunately, I didn't audit that issue, so I can't make a comment on it.

As for my comment regarding Ottawa, the reason I mentioned it was that I heard the mayor of La Pêche talk about climate change, so it was in my head and I was thinking about it.

[Robert Sopuck, Conservative, Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa, MB]

Except you talked about infrastructure. You talked about how we adapt to climate change and developing infrastructure to deal with climate change, and I'm saying it's a grave omission not to have included ecological infrastructure.

I strongly recommend you follow the example of the Manitoba government when it comes to dealing with infrastructure and have a section evaluating the federal government's actions in terms of ecological infrastructure, meaning things like wetlands and woodlands.

Following up on Mr. Bossio's comments, much of the ecological infrastructure consists of carbon sinks. Would you agree that Canada has a pretty good track record in protecting and preserving our carbon sinks, such as our taiga woodlands and so on, but we could do more?

[Julie Gelfand]

I am doing an audit right now on the Aichi biodiversity targets, and one of those targets is the use of and thinking around natural capital. I'll be able to talk more about whether or not the government is meeting that target in terms of protecting natural capital, which is part of what you're talking about.

[Robert Sopuck, Conservative, Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa, MB]

It's a part, but a relatively small part. The biggest part.... You focus on things like floods, droughts, and so on, and water is by far Canada's most important environmental issue, in my view. The Aichi targets are only peripherally involved with water, perhaps with the protection of wetlands.

What Manitoba is contemplating with their made-in-Manitoba climate change agreement plan is a massive water conservation program, the likes of which Canada has never seen before. That's the kind of program to emulate.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Deb Schulte]

Mr. Fisher is next.

[Darren Fisher, Liberal, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

Thank you very much for coming. It's always great to see you.

In our committee report, “Federal Sustainability for Future Generations”, which I think was a unanimous report, this was one of our recommendations:

The Committee recommends that the Government of Canada develop additional measures for improving enforceability and accountability in support of meeting the sustainable development targets. In developing these measures, the Government should seek the advice of the Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development.

That's you.

What measures of enforcement and accountability do you recommend in order to ensure stronger departmental progress?

[Julie Gelfand]

Tell me exactly what you want me to talk about. Is it the Federal Sustainable Development Act?

[Darren Fisher, Liberal, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS]

It's the act, yes.

[Julie Gelfand]

The new one that's being discussed?

[Darren Fisher, Liberal, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS]

We talk about how we keep our departments accountable for the things we've been discussing today. How would you recommend we move further to ensure accountability of those departments? With five of the 14 not moving forward....

[Julie Gelfand]

I hope that the committee will call me to specifically talk about our recommendations around the new proposed act, the deficiencies of the previous act, and the advantages of the new act. Today I'm here to talk about the reports that we just issued.

[Darren Fisher, Liberal, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS]

Can you talk about that at all?

[Julie Gelfand]

Privy Council and Treasury Board have a responsibility in implementing the strategic environmental assessment tool. When things go to cabinet, PCO and Treasury Board could and should, most likely, be doing a better job of making sure that strategic environmental assessments have been done before the proposal gets to cabinet.

It would likely raise our rates of compliance with this cabinet directive if the central agencies used their tools. Similarly, they could be putting—and we've mentioned this—a climate impact lens on things as well, to make sure that we're ready to adapt. There's a strong role for the central agencies.

In the climate adaptation chapter, you'll note that they did not do a lot of work in the area of adaptation, and we recommended that they look at the tool that they already have, which is the strategic environment assessment tool, and think about adapting it so that the country can be better ready to adapt to climate change.

[Darren Fisher, Liberal, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS]

You mentioned today, and also in your “Adapting to the Impacts of Climate Change” report, that Environment and Climate Change Canada was not working to advance the federal government's adaptation to the impacts of climate change.

What can Environment and Climate Change do to provide leadership to support public and private sector institutions as they prepare Canadians from coast to coast to coast for climate change?

[Julie Gelfand]

In the adaptation framework, it's quite clear that there are several goals set out for that framework on adaptation. One of them includes helping Canadians get ready to adapt.

That would be a great question to ask the department. I believe they'll be here in the next session. My job is to audit. When they say they're going to do something, it's up to them to decide how to do it.

[Darren Fisher, Liberal, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS]

When Mr. Bossio started off questioning, you were commenting about the fact that the government worked well with provincial and territorial governments on the pan-Canadian framework and the Vancouver declaration. You acknowledged that this does take time.

I know this is similar to what Mike asked, but how much progress should have been made in this period of time? What were realistic expectations when you came in at the end of 2015 and started the negotiation process? What would have been realistic? Where would you have hoped or expected that we would be?

[Julie Gelfand]

One thing that you need to remember is that when we started the audit on climate change, there was no pan-Canadian framework. In fact, I believe we started it in 2015.

[Kimberley Leach, Principal, Sustainable Development Strategies, Audits and Studies, Office of the Auditor General]

It was in 2015.

[Julie Gelfand]

We came in right when all of this was in play. It's difficult for me to say how much should be in play or not. We have indicated that this plan is different from the other plans. That's because they've engaged the provinces and territories. That's never been done before.

We remain hopeful that we will start to see action and start to see the curve bend on our emissions. We've had plans before, but our emissions continue to go up.

[Darren Fisher, Liberal, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS]

Are there any recent signs of that increase?

[Julie Gelfand]

The latest data would be 2015 data, so it's too soon to tell.

[Darren Fisher, Liberal, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS]

Okay, it's 2015 data, so you can't give me a—

[Julie Gelfand]

The data lags.

[Darren Fisher, Liberal, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS]

—general feeling of how you feel things are going without the data.