Good morning, members of the committee. It's a pleasure to be here today.
The mandate of the enforcement branch is to enforce the department's environmental and wildlife acts and their regulations in a fair, predictable and consistent manner. As my colleague mentioned, our work covers many pollution regulations, wildlife regulations, general prohibitions, national wildlife areas and migratory bird sanctuaries, among others. The enforcement branch, in collaboration with several Environment Canada programs, provinces, territories and national and international partners, works to ensure that companies and individuals comply with the environmental and wildlife acts and regulations. Our main objective is to bring regulatees into compliance. It's not about going out there and saying, “We got you”; it's more about bringing them back into compliance.
We are a young branch. We were formed only in 2005, following recommendations made in 1998 by the Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development. It had tabled a report called “Enforcing Canada's Pollution Laws: The Public Interest Must Come First!”. The report made a number of recommendations, including that the department should establish an independent or centralized enforcement agency and that enforcement decisions should not be made by officials with managerial functions and responsibilities in areas other than enforcement. This is why the branch was created under the minister, reporting directly to the deputy minister.
The minister has a responsibility for management and direction of the department. Accountability for the branch rests with me, the chief enforcement officer. I report directly to the deputy minister. While the minister provides strategic direction to the entire department, the minister's role is independent from my role in enforcement operational decision-making. This distance was put in place to protect the integrity of the law enforcement process and protect all parties from claims of conflict of interest, influence or misuse of public office. This distance, when it comes to enforcement, is very important.
The branch itself is made up of about 430 employees, of whom 270 are enforcement officers, and they are across Canada. They have enforcement powers under the legislation, which they are designated for. We are dispersed into five regions, and we have about 27 district offices across Canada. Enforcement officers are designated with the powers of peace officers for the purpose of enforcing the legislation under which they are designated. Among other things, this gives us the power to seize evidence, with search warrants, and to issue summonses compelling people to appear in court.
The enforcement branch is organized into five sections. Of course, we have the enforcement on the environment side and the enforcement on the wildlife side. We have risk assessment, and we also have the training and the support officer safety section as well.
I'm going to leave it here. It's quite evident what we do as our role within the department, and we work very closely in collaboration with our regulatory people and also people from the wildlife section.
Thank you.