Evidence of meeting #88 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 departments.
A recording is available from Parliament.
10:35 a.m.
Voices
Oh, oh!
10:35 a.m.
Conservative
Martin Shields Conservative Bow River, AB
—and we all bleed green, right? I'm not from Saskatchewan, so....
Words mean things. Without that clear definition, I think it leads to some confusion about what actually it is that you're doing. That would be an encouragement on my part.
When you talked about doing workshops, you said that you did two round tables, one with staff. Can you describe the length of this, where it occurred, and who was involved?
10:35 a.m.
Executive Director, Centre for Greening Government, Treasury Board Secretariat
Yes. We held a round table here in Ottawa, because we started with staff in the Ottawa capital region. We had a morning session here in Ottawa. We looked at ideas to mobilize employees on environmental issues in government operations.
10:35 a.m.
Executive Director, Centre for Greening Government, Treasury Board Secretariat
What level in terms of how senior or in terms of how many?
10:35 a.m.
Executive Director, Centre for Greening Government, Treasury Board Secretariat
I think we had 50 or 60 people there from all levels.
10:35 a.m.
Conservative
Martin Shields Conservative Bow River, AB
Okay. If you're talking about the grassroots level, we just heard the commissioner talk about how people can pick off easy little things and go back and say that they did green things, right? Are you going to do follow-up? Are you going to work at the grassroots level with staffing?
10:35 a.m.
Executive Director, Centre for Greening Government, Treasury Board Secretariat
With staff at all levels? Is that what you're asking?
10:35 a.m.
Executive Director, Centre for Greening Government, Treasury Board Secretariat
A lot of staff have a real big interest, of course, in environmental issues. What we've found is that they're really committed and really interested, so we're tapping into that network, that grassroots network of staff who are really keen on greening, and asking how we enable them to do that, and not with central command and control. How we enable and give tools to staff to green in their area of responsibilities inside their areas is I think what we're looking at, for sure.
10:35 a.m.
Conservative
Martin Shields Conservative Bow River, AB
On that one session you've had, if I'm developing something that I want grassroots staff in on from top to bottom, unless they have a lot more input and a lot more working together, I'm guessing your buy-in is not there. I would encourage a much stronger approach with the grassroots, or you're getting superficial....
10:35 a.m.
Executive Director, Centre for Greening Government, Treasury Board Secretariat
Okay.
10:35 a.m.
Conservative
Martin Shields Conservative Bow River, AB
When you talked about the second, you talked about your partners out there and some excellent things that you found.
Can you give some examples of the innovation that you found?
10:40 a.m.
Executive Director, Centre for Greening Government, Treasury Board Secretariat
Sorry, in talking with our partners, for example?
10:40 a.m.
Executive Director, Centre for Greening Government, Treasury Board Secretariat
For example, the Canada Green Building Council has come out with a net zero standard for buildings. They've defined what a net zero carbon building would look like, and they've piloted it with 16 partners across the country. One of those buildings is a Public Services and Procurement Canada building in Toronto.
We're looking at those 16 buildings and seeing what they've done and how they're reducing their carbon and getting to net zero carbon in terms of their building. That's a good example of where we're looking at the construction industry and partners that are doing good things.
10:40 a.m.
Conservative
Martin Shields Conservative Bow River, AB
Have you partnered with the municipalities, with the regulations that they're looking at and attempting to do?
10:40 a.m.
Executive Director, Centre for Greening Government, Treasury Board Secretariat
I co-chair, with B.C., a federal-provincial-territorial community practice. We're working with the provinces, because of course they're looking to green their operations as well.
I've also talked to various NGOs that work with municipalities to get a sense of what municipalities are doing. I'm always very interested in best practices and examples of what municipalities are doing.
10:40 a.m.
Conservative
Martin Shields Conservative Bow River, AB
They've often been the leader in this in the country. They've done a lot of work. If you can connect into that, I think there's some leadership that has been done municipally that you can translate from, so that would be good.
10:40 a.m.
Conservative
Martin Shields Conservative Bow River, AB
The commissioner said that we need leadership from Treasury Board on developing the report cards, the buckets, for them to be able to report on. She's looking for leadership from Treasury Board to give them some standardization and timelines that work to make this make sense.
Is that something you're working on?
10:40 a.m.
Executive Director, Centre for Greening Government, Treasury Board Secretariat
I noted her testimony here. I was here and listening.
Definitely I think if we can standardize things and make it clear on how folks can report, that would be a good thing.
10:40 a.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Deb Schulte
Yes, and bringing it at the same time, so that you can bundle it up and we can be effective in the review.
Mr. Fisher.
10:40 a.m.
Liberal
Darren Fisher Liberal Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS
Madam Chair, I'll be quick, because I think I'm going to pass my time to Mr. Bossio when I'm done.
We talk about greening government services all the time. I speak about greening government services because I think we need to show some leadership from here.
I'm happy with the success that the country has had with the 19% reduction. Regardless of who was at the helm when this happened, I think this is great. A 19% reduction over 10 years is good, but there's a lot of work to do.
I'd like to focus on your comments about the single-window access to tracking information about the government's GHG emissions. I think Canadians want to know about these success stories, and I don't think we're telling the story well enough.
With regard to Canada.ca, direct us on exactly how we would be able to go in on a regular basis, if someone is sitting at home and wants to do a checkup on our report card.