Public Accounts Committee on May 1st, 2008

[Joe Comartin, NDP, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

To whom do you report?

[Ellen Burack]

I report to the assistant deputy minister of policy in our department.

[Joe Comartin, NDP, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

Ms. Meredith, do I understand, concerning the agreement that has been reached with the four departments, that the rest of the departments in the Government of Canada have also signed on?

[Daphne Meredith]

Yes, they have signed on to our leadership. That was one of our commitments in our management response to the audit, and we got their approval just last month.

[Joe Comartin, NDP, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

Is this signing on formal? Is there an actual document that every department head has put their signature to?

[Daphne Meredith]

No, they have not signed a document. We tabled a deck laying out our respective responsibilities, including theirs, and it met with their satisfaction.

[Joe Comartin, NDP, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

Then how will you monitor their compliance? Will it be Ms. Burack's office that will be doing it, or will there be other mechanisms to see whether compliance is occurring?

[Daphne Meredith]

What that achieved was that they acknowledge our leadership, the role of Public Works. They can expect, therefore, that we will be after them to engage on their strategies and their plans, their targets. They would acknowledge, of course, Treasury Board and Environment Canada and NRCan in their supporting leadership roles as well.

It gives us greater leverage than I feel we had before to be proactive in engaging them and setting some expectations with them in partnership with them.

[Joe Comartin, NDP, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

I'm not sure that answered my question. I was looking for something more formal in the way of follow-up to make sure they are complying.

[Daphne Meredith]

This is the beginning of an engagement strategy that would result in their sustainable development strategies for the period 2009 to 2012. The way we see it, we have a window of perhaps 18 months to work with those deputy ministers. It was a group of deputy ministers that acknowledged our leadership.

We have plans for re-meeting in May to discuss targets, to discuss measurement issues, to discuss progress on the last plan, and how different departments dealt with the last plan, and what we consider to be best practices there, and to lever off that kind of conversation to be aspirational for the future and to start working with them on their plans for the next period, 2009 to 2012.

[Joe Comartin, NDP, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

There are no penalties here if there is non-compliance. If, say, we come back in 18 months and find out that Transport is not cooperating, there are no penalties. Isn't that right? It is still all voluntary.

[Daphne Meredith]

It's voluntary. It's something for which, in terms of compliance, we would hope, with proper reporting of both their commitments and their progress in meeting their commitments, there is some accountability on their part.

The model is one whereby we're providing leadership through calling the meetings, through making suggestions, through lending our technical expertise, but at the end of the day it is those departments that are going to be reducing their environmental footprint. They are making the commitments, and they're going to be accountable to parliamentarians for their progress in that regard.

[Joe Comartin, NDP, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

I just don't see where the line of accountability runs. On past practice, I don't have any confidence, and I'm not getting it from what we're hearing today.

[Daphne Meredith]

The clear line would be for us to be accountable in our leadership role in supporting departments. At the end of the day, they're accountable for greening their operations.

That being said, the way the government is constructed is that, in our case, Public Works is responsible for a fair chunk of the operations of government, just because of the office buildings we own and run. So a lot of the greening activities actually take place through the activity of Public Works.

We're accountable for that, but we're not accountable, for example, for progress made by the Department of National Defence—another large property owner, but just not in the case of office accommodation. We can help them to determine good and ambitious targets, but at the end of the day, they are their targets.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

Mr. Jean.

[Daniel Jean]

Let me add that through the RPP and the DPR there are also opportunities, the more we define some targets and the more we give more specific guidance. There are opportunities for these to be tabled in Parliament every year through the RPP and the DPR.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

Thank you, Mr. Comartin.

Thank you, Ms. Meredith and Monsieur Jean.

Mr. Wrzesnewskyj, you have seven minutes.

[Borys Wrzesnewskyj, Liberal, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

Thanks, Chair.

Commissioner Thompson, the public setting of targets seems to create an impression of the government's being quite proactive, but we have this shocking number that 21 out of 28 departments have not met the targets. It's a shockingly low, failing grade of 25%.

You've identified in your report that there seem to be two fundamental issues here. One is that targets get set, but then the wording allows them to be ignored. They're non-specific; they're open to interpretation. I do not want to assume that there's premeditated intent in this process--that you set targets, but then the substance of the wording is such that it allows those targets to slide by.

Where exactly would you lay the fault in the very timid wording that's been attached to what should be quite firm targets?

[Ron Thompson]

Mr. Chairman, first, I don't know that it's fair for us to adduce from the report that 21 out of 28 haven't met their targets. I think that's maybe stretching things a bit. But it's maybe not the most important issue either.

In terms of targets, we find it difficult to have a situation develop where 28 government departments and agencies are able to essentially set their own targets, their own yardsticks, and measure success or failure against that standard. I don't think personally that's the way this should be run.

I think one needs to get a sense, for the government overall, of what the government is trying to achieve in the way of greening its operations, and to then back those initiatives up into individual departments and agencies and say, you're responsible for helping us do this and here are your targets, which we are expecting you to achieve. They're not something the departments have necessarily created only by themselves; they're a set of targets that would have been developed by the government for the government as a whole.

Then you'd have the government report back in total how it's doing in meeting its targets and would have individual departments and agencies who are responsible for contributing to that meeting of targets held accountable, perhaps through their DPRs, for how well they've done in helping the government as a whole move forward.

These are the kinds of targets, sir, that we're talking about. The government, as we've heard today, is not there yet.

[Borys Wrzesnewskyj, Liberal, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

Perhaps the government doesn't have premeditated intent in using wording that allows the targets to be missed, but we have this example of the greenhouse gas emission target, which was clearly set and was supposed to be achieved by 2010.

Mr. Shugart, you have said that this specific and very clear target sunsetted; yet documentation we have clearly states that the government wound it up, killed it.

Was there a sunset clause attached to this target? Our understanding was that it was to be met by 2010. Or did the government just decide to wind it up and not replace it with a new set of targets?

[Ian Shugart]

Mr. Chairman, what I think I said—certainly my intention—was in reference to Mr. Lussier's question about the specific program, the federal house in order program. That's what I was referring to. In fact, I think there would not have been any formal decision to change or terminate that target. I think my comment was that the purposes, the policy direction, would have remained the same.

I would agree entirely that the—

[Borys Wrzesnewskyj, Liberal, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

So did the government wind it up, or was it sunsetted, as you previously stated?

[Ian Shugart]

The program, as I understand it, was given five-year funding, which was due, in terms of parliamentary appropriations, to sunset. That is what happened, as I understand it, to the program.

[Borys Wrzesnewskyj, Liberal, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

So funding wasn't provided past a certain point in time and it was wound up.

[Ian Shugart]

For that particular program, that's right.