[Member spoke in Cree]
[English]
Mr. Speaker, I am proud to rise today and speak in support of Bill C-57, An Act to amend the Federal Sustainable Development Act. I would like to acknowledge the great work that was done by members of the Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development.
Of the many recommendations put forward by the committee, I would like to focus on the recommendations to introduce amendments to the Federal Sustainable Development Act that would enable a whole-of-government approach and comprehensive engagement of all central government agencies in the development and implementation of the federal sustainable development strategy. I am going to speak to the House today about the roles and responsibilities of the various players in implementing the Federal Sustainable Development Act. These include the federal sustainable development strategy departments and agencies, the sustainable development office, parliamentarians, and the main purpose of this debate, the Sustainable Development Advisory Council.
When we think about a whole-of-government approach to sustainable development, we know that it can be accomplished in a number of ways.
First, Bill C-57 introduces some changes that would expand the act's coverage to include all federal organizations named in schedules I, I.1, and II to the Financial Administration Act, more than 90, in total compared to 26 in the current act. The act also provides for adding other entities at a later date and for removing entities.
While Environment and Climate Change Canada coordinates the development of the federal sustainable development strategy and its progress reports, these documents are the product of a collaborative effort involving all implicated federal organizations. The bill would require departments and agencies bound by the act to contribute to the development of the federal sustainable development strategy and its progress reports. It would also strengthen the accountabilities of all departments and agencies by requiring annual reporting to parliamentary committees.
Second, under an amended act, primary responsibility for the federal sustainable development strategy would remain with Environment and Climate Change Canada. However, Bill C-57 would formalize Treasury Board's role in leading greening government operation efforts. The bill provides that the Treasury Board may establish policies or issue directives applicable to organizations covered by the act in relation to the sustainable development impact of their operations.
Parliamentarians must also play an important role to ensure a whole-of-government approach to the FSDA when strategies and progress reports are tabled and referred to committees. Furthermore, Bill C-57 allows for the permanent review of the act, which further provides parliamentarians with the ability to ensure that the act takes a whole-of-government approach and remains, most importantly, transparent.
Stakeholders—which include parliamentarians, the Sustainable Development Advisory Council, the Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development, non-governmental organizations, academia, associations, and Canadians—would also play a major role in developing the FSDS by providing input and feedback on the development and drafting of the FSDS.
In fact, under Bill C-57, the sustainable development office at Environment and Climate Change Canada would remain required to consult with stakeholders and Canadians for feedback and input into the FSDS for a period of 120 days. Under the current act, comments received from stakeholders and Canadians are summarized in a consultation synthesis report that is produced and posted to the web by the office, and these comments inform the final federal sustainable development strategy and subsequent progress reports. However, Bill C-57 moves one step further by stating that designated entities under the bill shall take into account comments made under public consultation.
Finally, and the reason for this debate, the sustainable development office is to seek advice from the Sustainable Development Advisory Council, the SDAC, as part of its governance structure and its consultation and engagement process.
When we first started the debate, it was led off by the Conservatives, who came up with a beautiful little statement that they felt they were being misled by the Prime Minister. Incredibly enough, we were misled by the former prime minister, Stephen Harper, for he cancelled the national round table on the environment and the economy, the NRTEE, which was a Canadian advisory agency founded by the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada in response to the 1987 United Nations document “Our Common Future”. The NRTEE focused on sustaining Canada's prosperity without borrowing resources from future generations or compromising their ability to live securely. The Conservative government of Stephen Harper ended funding to the NRTEE, which ceased to exist on March 31, 2013.
The national round table was an independent policy advisory agency of the Government of Canada. Its mandate was to raise awareness among Canadians and their governments about the challenges of sustainable development. Over 25 years it released dozens of reports on priority issues—forests, brownfields, infrastructure, energy, water, air, climate change, and more. It offered advice to governments on how best to consolidate and integrate the often divergent challenges of economic prosperity and environmental conservation. It brought together hundreds of leaders and experts with first-hand knowledge in a diversity of areas. Its members, appointed by the federal government, were active in businesses, universities, environmentalism, labour, public policy, and community life across Canada.
On March 21, 2013, the Conservative government, in the decade of darkness under Stephen Harper, eliminated the budget for the NRTEE, effectively ending it. The then environment minister initially offered the rationale that the funding was unnecessary because Canadians could at that time access climate change research through the Internet, universities, and think tanks.
However, in response to a question in the House of Commons, then foreign affairs minister John Baird said the government should not be funding the round table because it had issued a series of reports advocating a form of carbon pricing, which he said the people of Canada had repeatedly rejected. He said the round table should agree with Canadians and should agree with the government and should not offer independent advice.
The round table released several reports that concluded that the federal government would have to act more aggressively in order to reach its Kyoto protocol target of a 17% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions from 2005 levels by 2020.
On March 26, 2013, the then minister of the environment issued a directive preventing the round table from transferring its research and the contents of its website to Sustainable Prosperity, a national research network based at the University of Ottawa. Instead, he said, Environment Canada would lay claim to all previous work, which was promised to remain accessible to the public. However, the move appeared to leave the fate of the two unpublished documents on the history, role, and relationship of the round table to the government uncertain. These reflections of past leaders of the NRTEE were subsequently leaked and posted on the Internet.
It is important that under this legislation the Sustainable Development Advisory Council would play an important role by advising the minister on any matter related to sustainable development that is referred to it by the minister. More specifically, it would ensure that the government takes a whole-of-government view, seeking the advice and expertise of Canadians who reflect our country's diversity of background, ethnicity, age, gender, and circumstance.
Research indicates that several OECD member countries have a national sustainable development commission or council similar to our Sustainable Development Advisory Council. These councils often meet on an ongoing basis throughout the year.
Moreover, reforms to the Sustainable Development Advisory Council set out in Bill C-57 would enhance inclusiveness by increasing representation of indigenous peoples from three members to six, by clarifying that the Sustainable Development Advisory Council has a broad mandate to provide advice on sustainable development, and by enabling more effective engagement.
There are governance mechanisms already in place to ensure proper oversight of the Sustainable Development Advisory Council. The additional provisions in clause 5 of Bill C-57 will help to ensure that the best possible advice and guidance is provided on issues that touch all Canadians.
I hope that all of us in the House can support our common desire to make decision-making related to development more transparent, promote coordinated action across the Government of Canada, and ensure we receive maximum benefit from the Sustainable Development Advisory Council based on expert advice using data and science.