Evidence of meeting #142 for Government Operations and Estimates in the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was programs.
A video is available from Parliament.
Conservative
Bloc
Julie Vignola Bloc Beauport—Limoilou, QC
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
Mr. Tremblay, Ms. Drainville and Ms. Soucy, thank you for being with us today.
Mr. Tremblay, if I understand correctly, the department is decentralized to the point where it has become a multi-headed hydra whose parts are not linked by a common framework.
Deputy Minister, Department of the Environment
I didn't use the term “multi-headed hydra”.
Deputy Minister, Department of the Environment
At the deputy minister and management committee level, I find that the department is indeed too decentralized. I noticed this when I took up my position. It is normal for the department to rely heavily on separate fields of expertise. For example, meteorologists and employees involved in protecting nature and working on climate change, including scientists, have their own hobbyhorses and rules. However, given that the department is growing, it is important for the management committee to discuss all the tasks related to the organization's corporate affairs, such as human resources, information technology and the management of grants and contributions. It is important that I have detailed knowledge of how things are done, and that standards for employees and clients are the same throughout the department.
Bloc
Julie Vignola Bloc Beauport—Limoilou, QC
You've just told me that there is or will be a kind of round table where the heads of each subgroup in the department can discuss commonalities in order to improve processes.
Have I understood correctly?
Deputy Minister, Department of the Environment
Yes, and we've already started. According to the internal audit report, we have a good committee of directors general working on grants and contributions management, as well as a solid centre of expertise in that field. What is missing is a review of all existing documents to see how we can ensure consistency between documents that have been developed over the years by various subgroups, so that the department's overall vision prevails at the end of the day.
That's why the audit rightly points out that the first thing we need is a vision, a strategy, and that we also need to discuss these topics at management committee level, so that our programs, such as those that aim to protect nature or fight climate change, are not necessarily seen as programs managed by a subgroup of the department, but rather as Environment and Climate Change Canada programs.
Bloc
Julie Vignola Bloc Beauport—Limoilou, QC
Thank you.
According to Sustainable Development Technology Canada's 2024‑25 corporate plan, “SDTC programming will transition to the National Research Council Canada”.
Why wasn't fund management initially transferred to the National Research Council of Canada?
Deputy Minister, Department of the Environment
That's rather Mr. Champagne's remit, not mine.
Bloc
Deputy Minister, Department of the Environment
You are right, the funds were transferred elsewhere and then sent back to the National Research Council. That said, this was not done by my department.
Bloc
Julie Vignola Bloc Beauport—Limoilou, QC
So you can't explain to me why the National Research Council of Canada wasn't initially given the authority to manage the funds.
Bloc
Julie Vignola Bloc Beauport—Limoilou, QC
The Sustainable Development Technology Canada program falls under the minister's remit, but you may be able to answer my question.
The program has been in existence for 20 years. If I understand correctly, managing the program has been problematic recently. To your knowledge, was the program beset with problems during those 20 years?
Bloc
Julie Vignola Bloc Beauport—Limoilou, QC
I imagine that no one other than the minister can answer me on that subject.
Deputy Minister, Department of the Environment
It's one of the few departments I've never worked in.
Bloc
Julie Vignola Bloc Beauport—Limoilou, QC
So this is all new to you.
Would you tend to say that there is a lack of standardization within the department when it comes to program management?
Deputy Minister, Department of the Environment
Yes, there is a lack of standardization.
The department has to strike the necessary balance between good standardization and flexibility, because the needs are not the same. If we standardize too much, clients will complain because we won't necessarily meet specific needs, particularly those of the provinces, for example.
Right now, however, we do need more standardization.
Bloc
Julie Vignola Bloc Beauport—Limoilou, QC
Do you think the department is having trouble managing grant programs?
If so, how long has this been the case? Why were there no alarm bells before? How do you solve that problem and manage growth and what follows?
Deputy Minister, Department of the Environment
It's hard for me to say what people had in mind when program funding increased, which was around 2017. We must not forget that this increased funding is temporary and we do not know whether it will last.
I think it came to a point where the organization felt it didn't have the luxury of waiting to see what was going to happen with the temporary programs. That's my impression. We have to make sure that the department is set up to meet its commitments, if that is indeed the kind of project we want.
The centre of expertise was created around 2017-18. At the time, it was already recognized that a centre of expertise was needed to ensure better program compliance.
However, after that, we had to wait until the end of the pandemic, in 2022, to see the arrival of key organizations, whether it be the director general committee or what is called the network of—
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Kelly McCauley
Thank you. That is our time, Mr. Tremblay.
Mr. Garrison, after 14 years on the Hill, welcome, finally, to OGGO.
The floor is yours.
NDP
Randall Garrison NDP Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke, BC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I do not think I've ever been at OGGO before, but I'm very happy to be here today.
There's no doubt that we face a climate emergency. I respect the department's attempts to get programs going to attack that crisis and that emergency. I do understand that things were done quickly. However, it's also important, given the scale of the crisis, that we use money efficiently, that we don't waste money, and that there's accountability. I take both sides of this very seriously.
What I want to ask you is this: Is there any evidence of widespread fraud or conflict of interest, either in your audit or anywhere with these programs, or is this a matter of accountability rather than fraud and conflict?
Deputy Minister, Department of the Environment
That's a very good question. At the moment, it's an issue of accountability. There's nothing in the audit that suggests that there is any case of fraud.
I think the most valid point in the audit is about information management. The fact is that sometimes the documentation is included, and sometimes it is not included. You have to go back to find it and so on. We don't have a case of fraud. We don't have one situation where we can talk about fraud. It would be even hard to say that it's about program inefficiencies or programs not getting the results. That's not what it is about. It's more to make sure that you have all the controls in place. There are a lot of controls in Gs and Cs programming. From the get-go, from the beginning, for the whole life cycle, there are some that are working better than others. We want all of them to work well and great. That's why we're doing it.
Randall Garrison NDP Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke, BC
Again, as I said at the beginning, I have a shared concern that we spend resources and public monies efficiently, especially in view of the crisis we're facing.
When it comes to the monitoring requirements, which seemed to be the focus as I read through the audit, there's not always monitoring of the final results of programs. Is there any relationship between that failure to monitor and staffing levels? In other words, do you have adequate resources to monitor all of these grants and contributions agreements?