Evidence of meeting #5 for Environment and Sustainable Development in the 43rd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was groundwater.
A recording is available from Parliament.
10 a.m.
NDP
Laurel Collins NDP Victoria, BC
Ms. Pauzé asked briefly about the fossil fuel subsidies. Can you tell me what has been done? There was an audit of fossil fuel subsidies in 2019. Was that done by your...?
10 a.m.
Interim Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development, Office of the Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development
We did an audit in 2017. We were looking at fossil fuel subsidies vis-à-vis the commitment that the government had made to phase out or rationalize those subsidies by 2025. Our concern was that, when we went in there, the government had not settled on a definition of what was an inefficient fossil fuel subsidy.
We have seen that the government has gotten rid of some fossil fuel subsidies. I think there has been one that has been added, but with a phase-out plan between here and 2025.
10:05 a.m.
NDP
Laurel Collins NDP Victoria, BC
In your view, is Canada on track to meet its commitment to phase out fossil fuel subsidies by 2025?
10:05 a.m.
Interim Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development, Office of the Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development
From my perspective, I actually can't make that statement without knowing what the government means by—
10:05 a.m.
Interim Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development, Office of the Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development
—inefficient.
There's work to be done on the front end of that.
10:05 a.m.
NDP
Laurel Collins NDP Victoria, BC
Does your office take any position on what that definition should be or how it should be aligned with global...?
10:05 a.m.
Interim Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development, Office of the Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development
No. To flesh that out a bit, we audit what the government commits to. With the G20 commitment that we're talking about there, the government was supposed to define what inefficient means in the context of Canada's national circumstances. That's a matter purely for the government.
10:05 a.m.
NDP
Laurel Collins NDP Victoria, BC
Going back to CEPA enforcement, this committee did a review of CEPA in the last Parliament. I'm curious how the studies in this committee interact with...you had a 2018 report on CEPA and how the enforcement audits and our work here in the committee come together.
10:05 a.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Yasmin Ratansi
She's over time, but if you can give her a 30-second answer that would be good.
10:05 a.m.
Principal, Office of the Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development
I was going to say that's a great question and we'd like to do more of that. The challenge is that it takes us 18 months to do an audit. If we know what you're looking at, we can better help work things together. A good example of where we did that was that we looked at marine mammals, and the fisheries committee at the time was studying marine mammals, so we were able to do that together. We're very interested in your plan moving forward as well.
10:05 a.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Yasmin Ratansi
Thank you.
I've been generous with everybody's time, but I have two and a half minutes to spare for Madam Findlay and for Mr. Longfield.
Go ahead, Madam Findlay.
10:05 a.m.
Conservative
Kerry-Lynne Findlay Conservative South Surrey—White Rock, BC
Thank you, Madam Chair.
I got a question out, but I didn't have time to hear the answer, so I'll come back to it.
My concern is about your pointing out that there's no system in place to measure, monitor and report on progress nationally. Is it part of your job to suggest what that would look like, or are you looking to the government for leadership and then you respond to that?
10:05 a.m.
Interim Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development, Office of the Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development
We do expect the government to put in place the mechanisms to measure, monitor and report. We do make recommendations. However, we're careful not to cross into the policy realm because when we do get close to suggesting policy, it can have an impact on the perceptions of our independence and objectivity.
Let me put it another way. We don't want to audit ourselves in the sense that if we tell the government to do something and then it doesn't work out, that's us auditing ourselves.
We do expect that information and measurement that will be important for decision-makers is a priority for the government. We have seen with past reports that data quality and focus on measurement is often an area that can be improved.
10:05 a.m.
Conservative
Kerry-Lynne Findlay Conservative South Surrey—White Rock, BC
It seems to me it's hard to audit something if you don't know the measurements and the way to do it.
Am I correct, Ms. Leach?
10:05 a.m.
Principal, Office of the Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development
Yes.
I think what you're referring to is our 2018 audit on the sustainable development goals, which looked at whether the government was prepared. It found that they weren't measuring, monitoring and verifying. In fact, we found that our government had 62% of the information available to measure the sustainable development goals, to start to work toward that.
We found many other problems in their preparedness in that audit. We're currently doing an implementation audit. We're about halfway through, and we'll be reporting that to Parliament in the fall of 2020. We're following up on exactly that.
10:05 a.m.
Conservative
10:05 a.m.
Principal, Office of the Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development
We made recommendations on measuring, monitoring and verifying and they agreed to those recommendations. We're following that up in our audit and we'll be reporting back to you.
10:05 a.m.
Conservative
Kerry-Lynne Findlay Conservative South Surrey—White Rock, BC
When you talk about limited consultation, it seems to me there are a number of ways that government can consult with the Canadian public on what they're doing and how they're doing it. However, it is up to government to set the framework for those consultations. Would it assist you in your work if you had a better sense of where the Canadian public is on what we're trying to achieve?
10:10 a.m.
Principal, Office of the Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development
An important part of this is that we are doing the same kind of audit work that other countries are doing under the International Organization of Supreme Audit Institutions. We're asking of our government the questions that the other audit offices are also asking of their own governments. In that way, we've been able to understand more about where our government should be because we're looking at best practices and activities of other countries as well. That helps feed into our expectations.
10:10 a.m.
Liberal
10:10 a.m.
Liberal
Lloyd Longfield Liberal Guelph, ON
Thank you.
The previous governments had cut funding for audits and for Statistics Canada. I know you've brought forward some resource on audits that haven't been done because of lack of resources. Do you comment on other departments, like Statistics Canada?
10:10 a.m.
Interim Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development, Office of the Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development
At times during our audit work, when we speak with departmental officials and try to identify what is standing in the way of their progress, if resourcing is presented as a reason and we find the audit evidence necessary to support that conclusion, we will mention in our audit work that the department or agency was short on resources and that impacted things.