Evidence of meeting #86 for Fisheries and Oceans in the 42nd Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was adaptation.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Liberal
Bernadette Jordan Liberal South Shore—St. Margarets, NS
Do you monitor the pan-Canadian framework plan that is now in place to see if it's being worked on? I'm not asking for an opinion on it, I'm just asking—
Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development, Office of the Auditor General
Yes, we will be auditing it.
Liberal
Bernadette Jordan Liberal South Shore—St. Margarets, NS
Is that something that you monitor to see if it is actually working toward targets and goals, or is it something that someone has to ask you to do?
Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development, Office of the Auditor General
I can advise you that the office is giving the government a couple of years essentially. They announced it in December of 2016, and we're now into 2018, and we're planning our 2020 audits. After they make an announcement of a new plan, we normally give them a few years to implement. My guess is that we will be doing audits on the implementation of the pan-Canadian framework.
Liberal
Bernadette Jordan Liberal South Shore—St. Margarets, NS
I have questions about small craft harbours, but they're specific questions. Would it be better to ask...?
Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development, Office of the Auditor General
The department, yes
Liberal
Bernadette Jordan Liberal South Shore—St. Margarets, NS
I guess the other question I would go to is.... Actually, most of them are on small craft harbours, so thank you.
Conservative
Mel Arnold Conservative North Okanagan—Shuswap, BC
In the absence of Environment and Climate Change Canada leadership, did DFO develop its own action plan to look at this, to do the assessments? How did they arrive at the conclusion that they needed to do these?
Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development, Office of the Auditor General
Environment Canada issued a framework on adaptation, which asked each department to look at its climate change risks and to start getting ready to adapt, essentially. That adaptation framework was released in 2011. We noted that the Department of Fisheries and Oceans did its first risk analysis in 2005, so they preceded Environment Canada's adaptation framework. They did their first assessment in 2005 and their second assessment in 2012.
Why did they do their first assessment in 2005? You'd have to ask them why they decided to start looking at it early.
Conservative
Mel Arnold Conservative North Okanagan—Shuswap, BC
When did Environment and Climate Change Canada start giving the directive to—
Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development, Office of the Auditor General
It was in 2011.
Conservative
Mel Arnold Conservative North Okanagan—Shuswap, BC
In 2011, so DFO actually started prior to that. That's interesting.
Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development, Office of the Auditor General
Absolutely. They were ahead of the curve.
Can I say that it's not often that I say anything positive about anything the government does?
Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development, Office of the Auditor General
I just want to be really clear. Audits usually find all the mistakes, everything that everybody hasn't done. I feel like I'm a grade-school teacher always hitting people over the head. It's such a pleasure to be able to say the department, and several departments in this case, actually did what they said they were going to do. I just want to make it clear that it's not often I get to do it. It's a good feeling to be able to say, “They've done a good job”.
Conservative
Mel Arnold Conservative North Okanagan—Shuswap, BC
You might be joining the general public out there with that perception, unfortunately. It's not true. Government departments, I think, do yeoman's work, so kudos to them, especially DFO, if they've been out ahead on this one.
The report found that just over $500 million had been allocated to climate change adaptation since 2011. How much of that funding went to DFO over the years?
Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development, Office of the Auditor General
I don't have the breakdown of how much went to each department.
Conservative
Mel Arnold Conservative North Okanagan—Shuswap, BC
Okay.
Mr. Sopuck, do you have any further questions?
Conservative
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Scott Simms
Okay, I have five minutes here and three minutes here, and I don't have quite eight minutes left. Here's what I'm going to do.
Mr. Finnigan, would you be okay if I went to Mr. Donnelly and then back to you for your questions?
Liberal
NDP
Fin Donnelly NDP Port Moody—Coquitlam, BC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
It's just to see if there's an observation, because it's to talk about the good news. You mentioned in your report to us that Fisheries and Oceans Canada was one of the five departments that made progress on climate change risks. Then you go on to talk about the 38 research projects and the 22 adaptation tools to monitor. How is it that this department is doing better on such a tough topic? You've heard comments on some areas where they don't do so well with public relations or fish stocks, rebuilding plans, etc. How is it, in your opinion or from your research, that the department is doing so well?
Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development, Office of the Auditor General
That would be a great question to ask the deputy minister.
