Mr. Speaker, It is with great pleasure that I rise to address Bill C-83, an Act to amend the Auditor General Act.
This bill seeks to achieve five specific objectives:
First, to ensure that environmental considerations in the context of sustainable development are taken into account in the auditor general's reports to the House of Commons.
Second, to provide for the appointment-as suggested by the Bloc Quebecois-of a Commissioner of the environment and sustainable development.
Third, to impose requirements for responding to petitions received by the auditor general about federal environmental matters in the context of sustainable development.
Fourth, to provide for monitoring and reporting to the House of Commons on the activities of departments and the extent to which they have met the objectives and implemented the plans set out in their sustainable development strategies, and for reporting to the House of Commons on petitions.
Fifth, to require that each department's sustainable development strategies be prepared and tabled in the House of Commons.
From a technical point of view, if this bill is passed, a number of measures will have to be taken.
First, an adequate definition of what is meant by "sustainable development" will be necessary.
Second, the mandate of the Commissioner of the environment and sustainable development will have to be properly defined.
Third, we will have to ensure that the process for responding to petitions will adequately meet the requirements of the citizens who submit these petitions.
Finally, we will have to ensure that all departments have sustainable development strategies and that they meet the objectives set therein. This means that a major structure to monitor the activities of all departments will have to be put into place.
I said earlier that the first objective of Bill C-83 was to ensure that environmental considerations in the context of sustainable development are taken into account in the auditor general's reports to the House of Commons. In order to achieve this goal, all stakeholders must agree on a single definition of what sustainable development really means.
Bill C-83 includes such a definition; it says that sustainable development means "development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs".
It is surprising, to say the least, that the Minister of the Environment decided to include this definition in the bill to amend the Auditor General Act, but that she has not yet included it in the Canadian Environmental Protection Act itself.
In her speech to introduce this bill in the House of Commons on September 18, the Minister of the Environment said this: "[-] one of the first departments the office of the commissioner will be looking at is my department, the Department of the Environment. We welcome the opportunity of independent public review because we believe it will accelerate the integration of the two key objectives of sustainable development and their integration into the economy".
I hope that, during this review of the department's operations, the commissioner will have the opportunity to set the Minister of the Environment straight about this, because it would indeed not make much sense if the basic respecting the environment in Canada was not the first to include a definition of sustainable development.
The only possible explanation for this is the minister's inability to carry out her responsibilities properly. Several examples come to mind. The Irving Whale case is a well-known example, where the minister proved to be unable to deal properly with such a major issue and such a dramatic one, under the circumstances.
In that case, the office of the auditor general would obviously have much to do to meet the first objective of this bill.
The second thing that Bill C-83 does is provide for the appointment of a commissioner of the environment and sustainable development. To this effect, the duties that the future commissioner to the environment and sustainable development is expected to perform are described in clauses 22 and 23.
The following information can be drawn from reading these sections. First, the commissioner in question will report directly to the auditor general, assist the auditor general in the performance of his duties with respect to the environment and sustainable develop-
ment. For instance, the commissioner will assess the effectiveness of action plans in meeting the objectives set out in departmental sustainable development strategies.
Second, the commissioner will follow up in the prescribed manner any petition received from a resident of Canada about an environmental matter in the context of this so-called sustainable development.
Third, the commissioner will make any examinations and inquiries that he deems necessary to monitor the extent to which each department has met the objectives set out in its own sustainable development strategy.
Finally, he will, on behalf of the auditor general, report annually to the House of Commons on the extent to which each department implemented its sustainable development plan and on anything in relation to the environment that he considers should be brought to the attention of the House.
I think it is important at this juncture to repeat to this House the comments made by Auditor General Denis Desautels when he appeared before the Environment and Sustainable Development Committee on October 3.
At that time he said the following-and I shall quote him extensively because I think that the Auditor General has put his finger right on the fundamental problem in this matter.
I shall be quoting from several pages of Mr. Desautels' testimony. He said: "When I last appeared before this Environment Committee, I also spoke of the expectations of the interested parties concerning what it was agreed at that time to call the `auditor general of the environment', as no name had been found at that time. The extent of those expectations continues to be of concern to me" he continued. "I feel that there might be a gap between what interested parties such as the environmentalist groups want the commissioner to do, or hope that he can do, and the reality of the mandate and the available funding. In the coming months, it will be important to take care to reduce that gap as much as possible. I would, however, like to speak briefly of three areas in which such a gap might exist".
"When I came to speak to this Environment Committee in March of 1994, I stressed the importance of the office's independence and objectivity, which have justified its credibility since its creation in 1878".
"I pointed out that the responsibility for issues such as policy examination and environmental conflict resolution ought not to be a mandate of my office, since this might quickly and seriously endanger the long-standing independence, objectivity and credibility of the Auditor General".-I think that we can agree with Mr. Desautels on that.
"It is generally accepted in Canada that legislative auditors do not comment on the justification of policies. They concentrate on the application of policies"-policies defined by others, including this House.
"I might also add that our contacts with other auditor generals throughout the world indicate that the majority of my counterparts elsewhere interpret their mandate in the same way. "The proposed amendments to the Auditor General Act contain no provision authorizing the office to comment on policy, and we will not do so".
I would like to intervene at this point. We see that the auditor general made it clear that he will not be involved in formulating policies but in enforcing policies formulated by others.
Mr. Desautels continued to discuss his role as ombudsman or what that role would be expected to be: "Similarly, neither the proposed amendments nor the current mandate of the office provide that the office should play the role of ombudsman. To play that role would be costly and might have an adverse effect on the credibility of the Auditor General's Office and the commissioner of the environment and sustainable development".
He also talked about jurisdictions, saying: "Finally, the mandate of the Auditor General's Office, including the proposed duties of the commissioner of the environment and sustainable development, is limited to what falls within the purview of the federal government. Neither I nor the commissioner have or will have the authority to deal with matters that are a provincial or municipal responsibility. I think it is important to mention here that the mandate and duties of the office, including those of the commissioner"-and I underlined what Mr. Desautels said in my text- "cannot be a substitute for firm leadership by the government and consistent management and accountability on the part of the department. And this applies both to environmental and non-environmental programs and activities".
"It will be up to the department's senior management to carefully scrutinize programs, and to determine whether they achieve their objectives, whether they remain relevant, and also whether there are more efficient ways to achieve the same results. Such analysis is essential to sound program management and proper communication of audit information".
"A Guide to Green Government' published in June this year indicates that departments are to report annually on progress made on sustainable development in Part III of the Main Estimates. The guide also indicates that this regular progress report in the Main Estimates will require on-going monitoring and self-evaluation. As part of its responsibilities, senior departmental management, will have to monitor and evaluate its own progress. This is a fundamental managerial responsibility, both in the public and private sectors".
"The results of our work assessing programs indicate how hard it is for the government to implement good ways of measuring efficiency and to communicate practical information in this regard".
I think Mr. Desautels explains himself here and will indicate the thrust of his interpretation of this bill: "At a time of employee cuts and restructuring, I fear the challenge may not been taken up". The auditor general goes on to say: "In our experience, for departments to act positively, they must be given leadership, support and direction". "I think there may be some expectation that we will be the ones to establish reference points or criteria on which to measure the government's progress. We would become part of the day to day business of the government, and thus the traditional independence of the legislative auditor from operations would disappear. This could also be seen as a potential conflict of interest, because we would have to audit something we had developed".
This is the end of the auditor general's text. I have taken the liberty of reading much of it, because it is in fact the response of the auditor general to this bill, which establishes his guidelines and determines his responsibility. In his opinion, they do not seem to correspond to people's expectations, and the auditor general himself says in fact: "I fear the challenge may not be taken up".
In short, the auditor general is telling us he cannot meet Parliament's expectations on the monitoring of activities of the departments covered by this bill.
What in fact are these expectations the auditor general refers to? During debate at second reading, the parliamentary secretary to the Minister of the Environment said the following, and I quote: "Beyond the significant powers of the office, the very existence of the office of a commissioner of environment and sustainable development sends a powerful signal not only within the government itself but beyond the government into the reaches of Canadian society. They now know there will be somebody there, a monitor, an ombudsman, who will devote his or her duties to the environment and sustainable development in making sure the government itself practices what it preaches".
The remarks by the parliamentary secretary are somewhat at odds with those of the auditor general. This is made even more worrisome by the fact that, in the same speech, the hon. member for Lachine-Lac-Saint-Louis goes on to say, "The key issue here is if this commissioner of environment and sustainable development will be truly independent and have the necessary powers, autonomy, independence to ensure that he or she is listened to and that the public feels that through this office it has a voice and a say".
The auditor general's own description clearly shows that his role depends essentially on the government's real leadership and not on his own qualifications.
But, as we heard, the auditor general did say that playing the role of ombudsman could have a negative impact on the credibility of the auditor general's office and of the sustainable environment commissioner. During the same debate, the hon. member for Davenport had this to say about Bill C-83: "This is not a minor step. It is a remarkable one. It inserts in the mandate of the auditor general the importance of monitoring sustainable development strategy and implementing the meaning, significance and the interpretation of sustainable development. That is no minor feat".
Yet, the auditor general himself went to the trouble of toning down this interpretation of the role that will be played by the commissioner of the environment and sustainable development. The auditor general himself said that the proposed amendments to the Auditor General Act contained no provisions allowing the auditor general's office to comment on the validity of policies, and that they would not do so. That is what Mr. Desautels said.
I also want to point out that, in his September 18 speech, the member for Davenport said: "The role and the funding of the commissioner must be ensured so that they do not suffer in times of budget cuts. I am certain that this matter will be taken into account fully".
Let us hope that the reassuring words of the member for Davenport, who is surely full of good intentions, will be heard by the Treasury Board Secretariat, because the auditor general expressed concern in that regard, following his discussions with TBS. Mr. Desautels said: "I want to point out that, in spite of the additional resources made necessary by the amendments to the Auditor General Act, in 1997-98, the office will have reduced its budget by some $7 million per year". Again, there is a contradiction.
There is another provision in the bill which should be looked at, namely the requirements to be imposed for responding to petitions received by the auditor general about federal environmental matters in the context of sustainable development. Clause 22 of the bill states how these petitions will be dealt with. That clause reads as follows:
(1) Where the Auditor General receives a petition in writing from a resident of Canada about an environmental matter in the context of sustainable development that is the responsibility of a category I department, the Auditor General shall make a record of the petition and forward the petition within fifteen days after the day on which it is received to the appropriate Minister for the department.
(2) Within fifteen days after the day on which the Minister receives the petition from the Auditor General, the Minister shall send to the person who made the petition an
acknowledgment of receipt of the petition and shall send a copy of the acknowledgment to the Auditor General.
(3) The Minister shall consider the petition and send to the person who made it a reply that responds to it, and shall send a copy of the reply to the Auditor General, within
(a) one hundred and twenty days after the day on which the Minister receives the petition from the Auditor General; or
(b) any longer time, when the Minister personally, within those one hundred and twenty days, notifies the person who made the petition that it is not possible to reply within those one hundred and twenty days and sends a copy of that notification to the Auditor General.
(4) Where the petition is from more than one person, it is sufficient for the Minister to send the acknowledgment and reply, and the notification, if any, to one or more of the petitioners rather than to all of them.
I would have much more to say on petitions, Madam Speaker, but you are signalling that my time is up.
To sum up, I would like to say this. We will be voting against this bill for very specific reasons, in spite of the fact that we had originally requested that a position of commissioner to the environment be established.
The auditor general tells us that his basic problem is that he does not believe that he will be able to fulfil this mandate adequately. He also tells us that the government's leadership in this matter is more important that his. And so far, on every issue-whether it is the Irving Whale or the Berlin agreements on greenhouse effect-the Minister of the Environment has failed to show the leadership required to allow us to believe with any degree of certainly that the commissioner of the environment would have any real power.
Third and last, I note also the very clear picture that my colleague the hon. member for Laurentides has painted for us in her quite accurate analysis of clause 21.1, which does invade areas of provincial jurisdiction.