Environment Committee on March 8th, 2021

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Let me clarify that myself. I thought I had clarified it, but I will just double clarify if you just give me a second.

[Cathy McLeod, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

You can move to adjourn the meeting if you wish, but if that's defeated we don't need unanimous consent to continue to 5:45 p.m.

The ball is in your court, if you want to move—

[Cathy McLeod, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

Okay.

I know that in other committees I've been on, when they have agreed to go overtime, they have typically adopted a motion that there will be no motions past the regular time. Again, I know we're short of time, so I hate to take time, but I think this is important.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Okay, that's a good point, Ms. McLeod.

I assume there's unanimous consent that there will be no motions in this meeting after we pass 5:30 p.m.

Does anyone object?

Ms. Collins.

[Laurel Collins, NDP, Victoria, BC]

Given the testimony we just heard, I was intending on moving my motion. I was hoping to do it before 5:30 p.m., but we are getting very close to that time now. This is a time at which I can move my motion because it's apropos of the topic, but I also don't want to move it before we've heard from our next witnesses. I'm just at a little bit of a loss.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

You could always give notice of motion for a future meeting.

[Laurel Collins, NDP, Victoria, BC]

I have given notice of motion for this.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Oh, okay. You've given notice, and you'd like to move it. You can always move it at another meeting, as I understand it.

[Laurel Collins, NDP, Victoria, BC]

Just to clarify, at, say, the next meeting we have, at the very beginning of the meeting, I could move the motion, and we could have this discussion?

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Yes, you could, as far as I understand.

[Laurel Collins, NDP, Victoria, BC]

Great.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

That's been confirmed.

Why don't we hear from Ms. Hogan and Mr. DeMarco, and then have one round of questions, and we'll be done.

[Peter Schiefke, Liberal, Vaudreuil—Soulanges, QC]

I have a point of order, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Yes, go ahead, please.

[Peter Schiefke, Liberal, Vaudreuil—Soulanges, QC]

Thank you.

I was just wondering if it was the committee's intent to keep the other witnesses here while the commissioner—

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

No. They're free to go if they wish.

[Prof. Corinne Le Quéré]

Are we allowed to stay? If we are, I—

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

If you wish, yes. I don't see why not. You can stay if you wish, but if you have other matters to attend to please feel free to do that.

Ms. Hogan.

[Karen Hogan, Auditor General of Canada, Office of the Auditor General]

Mr. Chair, thank you for inviting us to appear before the committee today.

I'm pleased to introduce Jerry DeMarco, our new commissioner of the environment and sustainable development, who joined the office of the Auditor General on February 1. Mr. DeMarco previously served as commissioner of the environment within the Office of the Auditor General of Ontario. Before that, he oversaw several administrative justice organizations at the federal and provincial level. He holds a law degree and master's degrees in environmental studies, management and science. It is an absolute honour to have Mr. DeMarco joining our office.

I am also accompanied by Mr. Andrew Hayes, deputy auditor general and a former interim commissioner of the environment and sustainable development.

Mr. Chair, I recognize that the issue before us today is one of policy and, therefore, that it falls entirely to the discretion of the legislature. However, I would like to take this opportunity to convey the merits of having the commissioner of the environment and sustainable development within the Office of the Auditor General of Canada.

The OAG applies exacting auditing standards to provide Parliament with objective, fact-based information that it can use to hold government organizations accountable to Canadians. This applies to all our audits, including those of the commissioner. We are auditors, not advocates.

Operating under the Auditor General Act, the commissioner has broad access to all the government information required to conduct his work and is required to report directly to Parliament. The commissioner's reports are referred to your committee in support of its accountability function.

Since the creation of the commissioner role in 1995, the OAG has built an expertise in environmental and sustainable development issues, through a diverse professional staff with backgrounds in biology, environmental sciences, environmental law and economics just to name a few. While you may be used to seeing the commissioner's influence in performance audits, the environmental expertise is leveraged across all of the OAG's work, including financial audits and special examinations of Crown corporations.

For example, in our review of the financial statements, we audit the government's liability for contaminated sites. When auditing corporations like Atomic Energy of Canada Limited, our scope includes environmental considerations and their impact on the corporations's financial results and business processes.

We view this synergy of expertise across our office as a strength. I want to note that two provincial legislative audit offices, in Ontario and Quebec, have either a commissioner of the environment or a commissioner of sustainable development.

At a time when issues relating to the environment are so closely entwined with social and economic factors, it's important that we not work in silos. By leveraging and integrating our environmental and sustainable development expertise across all our work, we can address issues more comprehensively and holistically.

This need for better integration has prompted the office, in recent years, to weave into all its audit work the United Nations' sustainable development goals, which Canada adheres to. As Canada is faced with responding to various crises, such as climate change and biodiversity loss, and is called on to foster sustainable development across government decisions, the office's integrated approach may serve as a model for working horizontally to address cross-cutting issues.

The volume of all our performance audit work, including the work carried out by the commissioner, was affected as the office dealt with funding constraints. With our office's new permanent funding announced in the 2020 fall economic statement, I can assure you that the tide will turn. In fact, starting this year, the commissioner will present several audit reports per year.

Lastly, the office enjoys an enviable reputation nationally and internationally and is considered a leader in public sector environmental auditing and in auditing the implementation of the United Nations' sustainable development goals. Our expertise is sought by auditors the world over.

Mr. Chair, I'll now turn to Mr. DeMarco to close these remarks.

[Jerry DeMarco, Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development, Office of the Auditor General]

Good afternoon.

I also wish to thank the committee for inviting us.

Since I'm new to this position, I may not be able to answer all your questions today. However, I can assure you that I'm greatly committed to my new role as the commissioner of the environment and sustainable development. I look forward to working with this committee and all parliamentarians to support you in keeping the government accountable on environmental and sustainable development issues.

Mr. Chair, we're now ready to answer the committee's questions.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Thank you, Mr. DeMarco.

I want to congratulate you on your appointment. We look forward to your future appearances before the committee.

I don't know which Conservative member will be speaking in the first round. Is it Mr. Albas or Mr. Redekopp?

[Dan Albas, Conservative, Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola, BC]

Mr. Redekopp, I believe, was supposed to lead off this round.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Okay. Go ahead, Mr. Redekopp.

[Brad Redekopp, Conservative, Saskatoon West, SK]

Thank you for coming today and congratulations, Mr. DeMarco, on your appointment. We're looking forward to working with you and hearing more from you.

I do want to follow up on some of my lines of questioning from when you folks were visiting with us last, which I think was back in March and November of 2020. During those meetings in March and November, I asked about some specific government programming and the ability or inability to do your job as a monitor when the government plays shell games with ministerial responsibility through horizontal transfer.

As an accountant, it seems to me that horizontal transfer is a great strategy to hide money and confuse people. For example, with the supplementary estimates (B), the environment department transferred $3.3 million to the Department of National Resources to plant trees, and also $5.2 million to Crown-indigenous relations for plastic waste. To me, this gets to some of the complexities that you get into when you're auditing. The numbers can get rather confusing.

If you recall, Madam Hogan, in November I asked you whether, if the minister is failing to take responsibility for climate action, the government is purposely moving towards this type of obfuscation to avoid accountability.

You said:

The government is definitely moving in a direction where there is a lot of cross-organizational push for programs to be delivered in such a fashion.

Madam Hogan, first of all, do horizontal transfers make it easier or more difficult for your department to complete its auditing tasks?