Evidence of meeting #62 for Finance in the 41st Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was work.
A video is available from Parliament.
Liberal
Scott Brison Liberal Kings—Hants, NS
Observing this change, you're saying that the government now has access to more information and advice from groups like this. But the groups you named are among the groups the government is attacking and referring to as radicals. Don't you think it's a little—
Liberal
Scott Brison Liberal Kings—Hants, NS
No, I'm sorry, but your ministers have actually used those terms.
Isn't it a little unlikely that the government is going to seek advice from organizations that it labels as radicals?
Director General, Strategic Policy Directorate, Department of the Environment
I'll speak to the issue of the kind of work these organizations do. I think it is safe to say that we in the policy world examine their work, analyze it, take note of it, and take note of it to ministers, etc., as appropriate. We meet with these organizations on a variety of issues on a regular basis. Their work is given real consideration in any kind of policy process.
Liberal
Scott Brison Liberal Kings—Hants, NS
The National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy was initiated in what year?
Director General, Strategic Policy Directorate, Department of the Environment
I believe it was 1988.
Liberal
Scott Brison Liberal Kings—Hants, NS
The same year as Rights and Democracy, which we discussed earlier. It doesn't seem to be a good founding year.
From time to time the round table, under successive Progressive Conservative and Liberal governments, presented positions that were contrary to the government's policy at the time. Is that correct?
Director General, Strategic Policy Directorate, Department of the Environment
I would say yes. I'll concede I'm less familiar with probably some of the earlier years of the round table, but I'm sure there would be lots of instances where they were proposing either policy directions that the government of the day was not necessarily pursuing or recommendations that weren't necessarily accepted.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative James Rajotte
Thank you, Mr. Brison.
We go to monsieur Caron, s'il vous plaît.
NDP
Guy Caron NDP Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC
Mr. Brison asked the questions I wanted to ask. Fortunately, I have two more.
First, you say that groups like the David Suzuki Foundation and the Pembina Institute are going to do the same work. I think they do excellent work, but, and correct me if I am wrong, we now have the National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy. That group had a very specific objective, while groups like the David Suzuki Foundation, the Pembina Institute and other environmental organizations will be doing work that will sometimes deal with the impact on the economy, and sometimes not.
Do you not think there may be a loss in terms of effectiveness if an organization that focuses on the relationship between the environment and the economy disappears like this?
Director General, Strategic Policy Directorate, Department of the Environment
I think the issue is that if you look at the range of organizations, some will try to factor economic issues into their overall work. I think Pembina strives to do that. I think a lot of these organizations that are focused on sustainable development try to build that in, for example, in identifying either the potential economic benefits of certain kinds of environmental actions or the need to strike that balance.
I think you're certainly correct that some organizations will focus solely on the environment and that probably others will focus more specifically on economic issues. But if you look at the plurality of these organizations across the board, there would still be a fairly rich source of independent advice on which the government would draw.
NDP
Guy Caron NDP Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC
I have a supplementary question. I am then going to share the rest of my time with Ms. Nash.
I find this really strange. You talked about think tanks and environmental groups. Am I mistaken? I thought the National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy was not a think tank or an environmental group. I thought it was an advisory committee with members appointed by the government to make recommendations on an action plan for the environment and its impact on the economy.
Today, that work is being eliminated. Instead of having an advisory committee, there will be think tanks and environmental research groups. Possibly we can trust their judgment; that will obviously depend on the goodwill of the government.
Can you confirm that this was in fact an advisory committee, and not a think tank or an environmental group? Are we not losing quite a bit, since its members were appointed by the government and they had more influence by making positive recommendations about public policy?
Director General, Strategic Policy Directorate, Department of the Environment
I suppose it does get into terminology questions of “advisory group” versus “think tank” versus “environmental organization”. But I think at the end of the day, the reality is that the kind of work the round table did was often to speak to various participants in the system, to do analytic and economic research, to do comparative international research—just some examples—and on the basis of that, to make recommendations to the government.
While you're right that certainly they differ from other kinds of organizations—in that they were established by an act of Parliament and reported to Parliament through the Minister of Environment—the types of work, the types of analysis they did, and the idea of trying to base recommendations on that analysis bears many similarities to the kind of work done by environmental groups, think tanks, academia, etc.
NDP
Peggy Nash NDP Parkdale—High Park, ON
I'll just use the last minute or so here.
I want to return to this notion about other environment groups taking on this role. Certainly the Minister of Natural Resources talked about environmentalists and other “radical groups”. There have been other comments by government ministers. I guess I have to say that I have very little confidence in this government taking advice from organizations dedicated to reducing greenhouse gas emissions or taking on the challenge of climate change, when the government seemed to have difficulty listening to its own body, the round table, in that regard.
How can this change inspire the confidence of Canadians that the government will genuinely seek and take the advice of these organizations, which in many cases are critical of the government's actions?
Director General, Strategic Policy Directorate, Department of the Environment
Again, I would note there continues to be a regular and open dialogue with many of these groups and that analysis is taken seriously. We look at the work that is done by these organizations. We meet with these organizations. For example, there are very valuable work and analyses done on a wide range of, say, conservation issues as one example, identifying best practices, activities, etc. These are all valuable things that we continue to make use of.
Conservative
Conservative
Brian Jean Conservative Fort McMurray—Athabasca, AB
I am curious. So the National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy provided independent advice to the Government of Canada, and Pembina and other groups, of which there seems to be a tremendous amount, are now currently providing general advice and criticisms to the government, which the government can or cannot choose to listen to, precisely like they can or cannot choose to listen to the National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy. But we still have how many bureaucrats and how many employees with Environment Canada who are going to continue to provide advice to the Government of Canada? How many employees?
Director General, Strategic Policy Directorate, Department of the Environment
I think that is an important point. The department itself is the source of thousands of individuals, a large number of scientists, on a wide range of issues. The fact that the round table no longer exists may suggest that there is no more in-house—if you will—within the Government of Canada on a wide range of environmental issues, at a policy level, an economic level, and perhaps most importantly, at a scientific level. But as you point out, that all continues to be in place.
Conservative
Brian Jean Conservative Fort McMurray—Athabasca, AB
In fact, I read some of the reports of the round table. I know they did a recent water study and a report on that and had a consultant doing that. Indeed, over the years, I think the last six or seven, they have produced the same report on GHG emissions, and to my mind, reached the same conclusion every single time, except maybe the numbers changed a little bit.
We will continue to receive a lot of information and a lot of advice from the Government of Canada employees who work for Environment Canada. I think there are 7,000 or 8,000 individuals, somewhere in that neighbourhood, but it's one of the larger departments and one of the larger cost bearers of taxpayers' money as well, if I'm not mistaken.
Those are my points. Thank you very much.
Conservative
Director General, Strategic Policy Directorate, Department of the Environment
The department does have a wide range of expertise, as was indicated, whether it be scientists on all those issues of water, conservation, greenhouse gas emissions, air pollutions, and those sorts of efforts, and they continue to report out on those kinds of activity. For example, the recent reports that went forward in April were on current activities related to climate change and emission levels, etc., in Canada.
Conservative
Liberal
Scott Brison Liberal Kings—Hants, NS
To clarify, you said that one of the principal reasons for those changes, since the beginning of the round table in 1988, is that there has been a lot of new groups now doing this kind of work. You mentioned the Pembina Institute, the David Suzuki Foundation, and the Sierra Club. These organizations have been around, and in fact, they all predate the National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy. The Sierra Club has been around since 1969, the Pembina Institute since 1985, and the David Suzuki Foundation—I guess it's the same year—1988.
Director General, Strategic Policy Directorate, Department of the Environment
The reality is that some of them do predate the round table, but it's also worth noting that if you look at something like Suzuki, it was founded the same year. It's not only the proliferation. I think it would also be safe to say it's the growing sort of sophistication and focus.
As an example, the number of groups focused on providing advice on climate change will have expanded since there have been new environmental issues that have emerged over time around which groups have organized themselves. So I think it partly becomes simply a question of critical mass of an entirety of organizations and research networks, etc., perhaps, more than any one individual organization that one might wish to name.
