Environment Committee on March 10th, 2020

[Laurel Collins, NDP, Victoria, BC]

I used to sit on the Capital Regional District's watershed governance board, and one of the communities outside of our community—which we considered, because watersheds don't know borders—Shawnigan Lake, had a contaminated soil dump that was proposed and whose construction began at the head of the watershed of the drinking water for about 12,000 people. They had liners that were projected to last for about 50 years. I know you mentioned that in the past there weren't those protections for companies, there weren't the regulations, and that now it seems like there are. Just from following that one case, it did seem like the protections were there for the next 50 years, but what happens when that liner deteriorates?

I'm curious if you're seeing those kinds of similar gaps. One of the things that I know the provincial government is looking at is the professional reliance model, which is the way in which the company, regulators and engineers come together to make decisions about what's safe for communities. I think that review is going to be helpful, but I'm curious about those regulations for things like contaminated soil dumps and toxic soil dumps that impact our drinking water and our groundwater.

[Jay Famiglietti]

I have just one comment, and this is where, I think, maybe revisions to the Canada Water Act and a national water agency can come into play. Actually, I have a couple of comments. One is that, when thinking about a framework for an agency or new policy, it's very important to think in terms of watersheds or aquifers and their intersections rather than of political boundaries because water doesn't know those boundaries. That's part of it.

The other thing is that we now understand in ways that maybe we didn't 40 or 50 years ago, like Dave was saying, the lifetime of some of these things and the fact that a 50 year horizon.... Guess what? Fifty years ago was 1970—at least a few people in the room were alive at that point—and 50 years goes by pretty fast. We probably need much longer time horizons. We know the exceptionally long lifetimes of some of these chemicals, and some of them we don't even know because we haven't really anticipated their appearance in the environment. I think that we need to be taking a more long-term view, especially if we have an opportunity to redo or recreate some of these agencies and policies.

[The Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

You have one minute.

[Laurel Collins, NDP, Victoria, BC]

Great.

[David Rudolph]

I'll speak to that, if you want.

[Laurel Collins, NDP, Victoria, BC]

Yes, please.

[David Rudolph]

The engineering design of it, to last 50 years, is a challenge in itself. We're not very good at designing too many things that last longer than that. What they do include now are very sophisticated monitoring systems around these facilities. They're compelled by law to track and monitor the environment around them, so if there happens to be a breach, something starts to move, you're looking for an early warning there. That has really, really helped. People have been able to make predictions and change things if there's been a leak. So make sure they keep an eye on the monitoring system. The problem could be a compound coming out of that contaminated soil that we don't even know about yet. That's the emerging contaminant challenge that we have. Several have asked about that. That gives us at least some safeguard to something failing.

[The Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

Thank you. Actually, your time is up.

Thank you very much to the witnesses for being here. If you have additional information or things you would like to send to the committee, please do so.

With that, I'll suspend it for a couple of minutes to let the new witnesses come.

[The Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

We have a very tight timetable, so please take your seats. We will let the witnesses take their seats as well.

Thank you.

Today, we have from the Office of the Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development, Mr. Andrew Hayes, the interim commissioner, and Kimberley Leach, principal.

How many minutes are you going to be speaking for?

[Andrew Hayes, Interim Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development, Office of the Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development]

It'll be about seven minutes.

[The Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

Is that seven minutes each or in total?

[Andrew Hayes]

No, it's just me.

[The Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

Okay. Thank you.

You may start.

[Andrew Hayes]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

We are happy to appear before your committee this morning. It is very important to us that parliamentarians take an interest in our work.

With me today is Kimberley Leach, who is an audit principal responsible for many of our environmental and sustainable development audits.

With your permission, I would like to begin by providing a bit of a historical context about the function of the Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development.

The idea of having some form of environmental auditor general for Canada had its origins in 1987, with the landmark Brundtland commission report. This report introduced the concept of sustainable development, which was again discussed at the 1992 Rio Earth Summit. The position of Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development was created in 1995 and was made part of the Office of the Auditor General of Canada by an amendment to the Auditor General Act.

The amendments to the act also created two new government processes, namely, departmental sustainable development strategies and environmental petitions. I'll touch on both processes briefly.

I'll now provide an overview of our mandate.

The commissioner is appointed by the Auditor General. The commissioner gives parliamentarians objective, fact-based information and expert advice on the federal government's efforts to protect the environment and foster sustainable development.

First, we conduct performance audits on environmental and sustainable development topics. In these audits, we verify whether the activities and programs of federal organizations are being managed with due regard for economy, efficiency and environmental impact. The performance audits that we submit to Parliament follow the same processes, auditing standards and methodology that we use for the Auditor General's performance audits.

We also manage the environmental petitions process, which enables Canadians to obtain responses directly from federal ministers on specific questions regarding environmental and sustainable development issues under federal jurisdiction.

We also review and comment on the federal government's overall sustainable development strategy. We monitor and report on the extent to which federal departments and agencies contribute to meeting the targets and goals set out in the federal sustainable development strategy.

On behalf of the Auditor General, the commissioner reports to Parliament at least once a year.

In addition to these responsibilities, the commissioner also helps the Office of the Auditor General to incorporate environmental and sustainable development issues, as appropriate, in all of its work for Parliament. This includes considering the United Nations sustainable development goals, or SDGs, when selecting and designing performance audits. Canada and 192 other countries committed to the United Nations 2030 agenda for sustainable development and its 17 SDGs in September 2015.

ln 2018, we audited Canada's preparedness to implement the SDGs. We concluded that the Government of Canada was not adequately prepared to implement the 2030 agenda for sustainable development. There was no governance structure and there was limited national consultation and engagement on Canada's approach, and there was no implementation plan with a system to measure, monitor and report on progress nationally.

The SDGs will continue to be a priority for the work of the entire Office of the Auditor General of Canada. For example, we are working on an audit of the implementation of the 2030 agenda for sustainable development, which should be ready for tabling this fall. I look forward to reporting to Parliament on the government's progress in achieving its objectives.

Madam Chair, we are always happy to discuss our past work with this committee, including our various reports on climate change, which will also continue to be a priority area for the commissioner's work. I would also like to mention that we will present a report to Parliament later this spring on the transportation of dangerous goods.

As always, we're available to appear before the committee at any time. The committee's attention to our reports supports accountability. This allows you, as parliamentarians, to ask senior officials to appear before you to answer questions about our findings and explain how they intend to follow your directives and our recommendations.

This concludes my opening remarks.

We'll be pleased to answer your questions.

[The Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

Thank you.

Madam Findlay, you have seven minutes.

[Kerry-Lynne Findlay, Conservative, South Surrey—White Rock, BC]

Thank you very much for being here.

In the 2018 fall report, you pointed out that lack of coordination in meeting Canada's sustainable development goals was leading to confusion and duplication of work. Can you give us an example of unnecessary duplication? What are you zeroing in on there?

[Andrew Hayes]

I will ask my colleague Ms. Leach to answer some of this question, because she was responsible for that audit.

I would mention that in the perspective I provided when we tabled our reports at the end of 2019, we talked about policy coherence and the fact that there are two strategies for sustainable development by the federal government right now. There's the federal sustainable development strategy, which is managed by the Department of Environment and Climate Change Canada, but there's also a strategy that was issued in June from ESDC, dealing with the 2030 agenda for sustainable development. That creates some confusion.

I'll turn this over to Ms. Leach.

[Kimberley Leach, Principal, Office of the Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development]

I believe you're referring to the 2019 report that Andrew mentioned, in which we talked about the confusion, I guess, created by the federal sustainable development strategy and the federal approach to the sustainable development goals.

More specifically, what we mean by that is that there are 17 sustainable development goals, 169 targets and 232 indicators. These are global targets, and we also now have national targets for the sustainable development goals. The sustainable development strategy, on the other hand, has different targets and different goals. For example, there are 39 sustainable development strategy targets.

Just by virtue of the fact that we have two different streams that are really essentially working towards sustainable development in Canada, it is confusing. We've spoken with officials in government and elsewhere, and we're told that it is confusing.

[Kerry-Lynne Findlay, Conservative, South Surrey—White Rock, BC]

Thank you.

In the spring 2019 report, I think it was, you found that the government was not doing enough to assess the risk posed by aquatic invasive species. What are the cost implications of ongoing shortcomings in dealing with this problem, and how should we be dealing with it?

[Andrew Hayes]

I would refer that question to the department. I can't give you a clear answer on the cost implications. We audited the way that the department was managing the program. At this point in time, I'm not familiar with the cost implications.

[Kerry-Lynne Findlay, Conservative, South Surrey—White Rock, BC]

Okay. That's fine.

Also, you stated in previous reports that ECCC was not basing its enforcement priorities on “risks to human health”. What would you say would be the approximate level of risk that something should have in order to be a priority? Basically, what I'm trying to understand is this: Is there a risk associated with focusing on substances that pose lesser risk to human health?

[Andrew Hayes]

You might be referring in part to our recent report on toxics, which I think was in 2018.

[Kerry-Lynne Findlay, Conservative, South Surrey—White Rock, BC]

Yes, I have 2018.

[Andrew Hayes]

We used an example in that report about the focus the department had on dry cleaners, for example. We talked about the need for a risk-based approach to identifying the businesses, the toxics, that the department should be focusing on.

I guess I would put my concern this way. If we focus on the low-hanging fruit instead of the most severe risks, we miss opportunities to deal with the most important threats to Canadian health.

[Kerry-Lynne Findlay, Conservative, South Surrey—White Rock, BC]

I take it that in the report you were saying that we're not focusing on the human health risks enough.