:
I call this meeting to order.
We are going to start doing our study of the Federal Sustainable Development Act and a review of the draft federal sustainable development strategy, pursuant to Standing Order 108(2) and subsection 9(3) of the Federal Sustainable Development Act.
We have joining us today as witnesses, from the Department of the Environment, Michael Keenan, the assistant deputy minister for the strategic policy branch, and from the Department of Public Works and Government Services, Caroline Weber, assistant deputy minister of corporate services, policy and communications branch.
Welcome, both of you, to the table. We're looking forward to your opening comments.
Mr. Keenan, please kick us off.
:
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
[Translation]
I would like to begin by describing the proposed approach we are taking to the implementation of the Federal Sustainable Development Act. I will then respond to your questions and comments.
The draft strategy released last week represents focused work to improve the way the federal government plans for sustainable development and, importantly, to address weaknesses of the old system that have been noted by the Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development and others.
Since 1995, when the Office of the Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development was created, the federal government had planned for sustainable development through the preparation and tabling of individual departmental sustainable development strategies. These strategies were produced every three years between 1997 and 2006. This was a very decentralized approach. Almost from the time of implementation, it was criticized repeatedly as lacking central leadership, coordination and follow-up.
[English]
As a result, in 2006 the Minister of the Environment, Minister Ambrose at the time, released a fourth and final round of departmental strategies committed to strengthening the overall approach to sustainable development. As members of the committee know well--as many contributed, through hard work--the Federal Sustainable Development Act was passed in June 2008 with all-party support. The purpose of the act is to provide a legal framework for developing and implementing the federal sustainable development strategy to make environmental decision-making more transparent and accountable.
We would submit that the draft strategy represents the first significant improvement to sustainable development planning and reporting since 1995, and reflects the government's commitment to environmental sustainability through improved transparency and accountability. The draft strategy is geared to making environmental decision-making more transparent and accountable. Our hope and plan is that this greater transparency would in turn drive progress in environmental decision-making. The update of the strategy and the reporting on results every three years provides the basis for constant improvement and innovation over the long term.
The greater transparency that drives the cycle of continuous progress would be the result of three key improvements coming from the new federal sustainable development strategy. The first is it provides an integrated, whole-of-government view of federal actions and results to achieve goals in environmental sustainability. So instead of a production of 32 stand-alone and sometimes inconsistent departmental reports--as was done under the previous approach--the government will now produce one sustainable development strategy that reflects actions across government.
The second is it links sustainable development planning and reporting to key planning and decision-making processes of the government, particularly the expenditure management system.
Third, it would drive real progress on environmental sustainability by establishing effective monitoring and reporting on results, which in turn allows parliamentarians and Canadians to track progress across the Government of Canada towards meeting goals and targets with respect to environmental sustainability.
I'd like to just take a minute in terms of each of these three features because they are at the heart of the new strategy. In terms of the whole-of-government approach, it is something that has been cropping up in comments from the Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development as far back as 2001, when he commented on the lack of a common management approach to sustainable development across the Government of Canada. The draft strategy reflects not just a common management approach but the product of significant senior-level engagement across the government to ensure a whole-of-government approach underneath in terms of the work that contributes to this strategy. A lot of that is driven through the sustainable development office that we have created in Environment Canada.
The proposed approach is to allow parliamentarians to have a one-stop view across the entire government of goals, of targets, and of implementation activities that are driving towards those.
The second element of key importance is the linking to the government-wide planning and reporting. At the broadest level, this mainstreams, if you will, the management of sustainable development as recommended by the OECD and other organizations. It brings sustainable development into the core budgeting planning processes and systems of the Government of Canada. It provides much better access to various information in terms of activities and results generating from those activities, and it reflects comments from the Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development where he has recommended that the sustainable development strategies adopt and follow the forms of the reports on plans and priorities as mandated by the Treasury Board Secretariat.
In terms of monitoring and reporting, we are proposing in this strategy a new approach that places a much greater emphasis on the use of objective and rigorous data that's much more focused on results with respect to the environment as opposed to processes and activities. In supporting that, we're making much better use of data under the Canadian environmental sustainability indicators program. This was a program for which the Government of Canada renewed funding in the latest federal budget.
Again, I think this would map to many comments we've seen from the Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development where he's looking for a standardized process for monitoring the implementation and reporting on progress. That would in turn be a powerful factor for a future federal sustainable development strategy.
The goal in this plan and in these three features is to establish a system that will, over time, drive a continuous cycle of improvement based on the principles of “plan, do, check, and improve” that are often favoured by auditors and agencies such as the Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development.
With these three key management features in the foundation, the strategy outlines and encompasses goals, targets, and implementation strategies in four areas that are of high importance with respect to environmental sustainability: addressing climate change and air quality; maintaining water availability and quality; protecting nature; and finally, shrinking the environmental footprint, beginning with government.
The tables in the consultation paper reflect a snapshot of the situation today with respect to the goals, targets, and implementation strategies across the Government of Canada. The proposed federal strategy is meant to provide a basis to report on these goals in a highly transparent manner. It does not, in and of itself, establish new goals or new implementation strategies, but it creates the transparency by which the core decision-making processes of governments can move forward in these areas of environmental sustainability.
As a result, there is a visage, a strategy, through which the situation with respect to goals, targets, and implementation strategies is dynamic and evolves over time; ideally, and on purpose, the transparency from this strategy would help to drive that process of advancing these issues with respect to environmental sustainability.
Online consultations on the proposed federal sustainable development strategy began last week. Canadians, parliamentarians, the sustainable development advisory committee, and others are now in the process of reviewing the strategy and providing their comments during the 120-day review period, which ends in early July. The government will then pull together a final strategy based on the advice that we receive and envisages tabling a final strategy in Parliament very soon after its resumption in the fall, within the 15 sitting days of June 26, as required in legislation.
This is a long-term endeavour. All of the advice and the best practices mention the focus on the long term, but there is a sense in this strategy that it puts in place the foundation for a cycle of continuous innovation and continuous improvement in every three-year cycle. That is at the heart of the new strategy.
I would like to close, Mr. Chair, by emphasizing the government's commitment to improving sustainable development, and as the head of the federal sustainable development office, I want to emphasize our commitment in terms of driving this change and this innovation, based on the guidance of this committee and others, in the implementation of a new federal sustainable development strategy.
Thank you for your time.
Thank you, Mr. Keenan and Ms. Weber, for being here.
Mr. Keenan, I want to go back to a couple of things and correct the record about the indicators initiative you mentioned. I don't think you addressed this, but it's important for folks to know.
When Minister Martin was Minister of Finance, he asked the Prime Minister's national round table to devise a small suite of indicators so he could use them in budget-making speeches to tell Canadians the fuller truth about the state of our well-being. I don't think it's quite correct for you to suggest in your remarks that the government has renewed funding for all those indicators. We know, for example, that the indicator dealing with either wetlands or forest cover, which was being pursued in cooperation with our space agency, had its funding reduced significantly.
I also want to ask you a really interesting question--maybe not interesting to you, but interesting to me.
Mr. Mulroney signed the original agreements in 1992 in Rio and created the National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy. It was supposed to be our principal institutional response to the Rio declaration and the agreements we signed there. Mr. Mulroney had the wisdom to create a body that was based in his office. It was the Prime Minister's round table based out of PCO.
Since the arrival of the Conservatives, they have demoted this organization and it now reports directly only to the Minister of the Environment. They changed its enabling legislation without debate. I think that's a terrible mistake, just as I'm deeply worried about what you're presenting here--that this national sustainable development strategy is going to be enforced and developed by Environment Canada. My recollection is that Environment Canada is the second- or third-least funded department in the federal government.
By situating this strategy inside Environment Canada you're making it the “enviro-cop” of the federal government. Sustainable development is not supposed to be about the marginalization of these issues into an environment department. We saw the government do that already with the Prime Minister's round table, and then it cut eight of its 26 positions just last week.
Environment Canada has very limited capacity in policy, very little economic modelling capacity, very little econometric history, and very little reach and influence on Finance Canada and the Treasury Board. How do you see this new office, based in Environment Canada, with seemingly revolving ministers of the environment over three and five years, as being capable of influencing the entire federal government, with its $257 billion worth of spending? Why shouldn't this organization be based where it properly should have been with the round table at PCO, where its responsibility is to steer and not so much to row?
I think there were four questions, and I have four minutes.
I'll go quite quickly through the issue you raise in terms of environmental indicators.
I think, Mr. Chair, the honourable member is absolutely right that the Canadian environmental sustainability indicators program, which runs at about $9.2 million a year, was renewed for two years by this government in the budget. That program will enable the collection of water quality information, air quality information, and protected lands information across the country. It's a very important program, and in my view, and in the view of the federal sustainable development office, that renewal has been intrinsically positive to our ability to create results-based indicators to track the strategy.
I think the member's right in the sense that there are other environmental indicators, beyond the ones funded in this program, and that you have to have a picture of the whole thing. But the continuation of that $9 million program is really key to providing us with the tools we need for this.
In terms of the funding for Environment Canada, I don't know where it ranks. I know that our mains this year have asked Parliament for $1.1 billion. That would make it far above the second or third smallest. I think we're somewhere in the middle of the pack, but I couldn't say exactly where.
In terms of EC being the enviro-cop of econometric capacity, let me say that as the assistant deputy minister of strategic policy, I am responsible for economic analysis in Environment Canada. I can tell you that our ability to do econometric modelling and enviro-econometric modelling can't be touched.
The Department of Finance sometimes gets nervous, because we can model impacts that they can't touch and don't understand. I've been in charge of econometric modelling at the Department of Agriculture and at Environment Canada, and actually, we have a pretty good capacity.
I have looked at your draft Federal Sustainable Development Strategy. As I see it, one of the key elements of a sustainable development strategy, albeit not the be-all and end-all, is the so-called strategic environmental assessment.
Where is this key element of a sustainable development strategy to be found in your document?
It is important to remember that since 1994, I believe, each department has been required, pursuant to a directive from the Prime Minister's Office, to conduct a strategic environmental assessment of plans, policies and programs.
Where in your sustainable development strategy is provision made to require departments, in accordance with this directive or order, to conduct a strategic environmental assessment?
:
Mr. Chair, I'll respond to that question in two ways.
One is to say that while the strategy does not change the application of the cabinet directive on strategic environmental assessments and does not change the roles—for example, the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency has a key role in the administration of it, and the Privy Council Office has a key role in the administration of it in ensuring the orderly preparation of memoranda to cabinet—the federal sustainability strategy will in a significant manner support the application of that directive in the following way, by means of the second feature, which links to sustainable development.
In the current system, the sustainable development strategies were kept, if you will, to the side. They were not linked to the expenditure management system; they were not linked to the major processes of decision-making through MCs and through Treasury Board submissions. By linking sustainable development to the expenditure management system, we bring the information on sustainable development into the expenditure management system. That is precisely the information that is included in a memorandum to cabinet, which is where the scans and the assessments with respect to the directive apply. We'll bring better information into that decision-making process, and I believe that will enable the government to do a better job of operating the cabinet directive on strategic environmental assessment.
One of the issues is the quality of the information concerning environmental impacts, which is one of the key considerations in the scan and in deciding how to apply the directive. This strategy, once fully in place, once linking sustainable development and environmental goals and targets and implementation strategies into the expenditure management system, will thereby bring that information into decision-making documents, such as memoranda to cabinet, and in that indirect but powerful way will, I believe, support better application of the strategic environmental assessment.
Thank you, Mr. Keenan and Ms. Weber, for being here.
I find this a very interesting discussion, actually. I had the pleasure of working with my colleague--a Liberal colleague, but a colleague--who had a passion for the environment. That was Mr. John Godfrey. There was the initial proposal that he had--his private member's bill, the Federal Sustainable Development Act--and then over the months, a couple of years ago, we came up with a position where it was amended, the committee dealt with it, and we had unanimous support around this table.
How quickly those two years have gone by. Now we are faced with continuing on that good work. We have each received this consultation paper, which I found very helpful, and I am sure we are all happy to be able to provide some input.
Page 1 makes it very clear that the goals in here are aspirational, but they also provide a long-term focus. On page 1 of this consultation paper, reference is made to the OECD study. It says:
An OECD study has found that, where governments have attempted to move too quickly and on too many simultaneous fronts to achieve sustainable development, governance systems have become overloaded and paralyzed, and little progress has been made.
You referred to that study on pages 4 and 5 of your speech.
I don't think the problem with the Liberals was that they tried to do too much in too little time. I think it was quite the opposite. The commissioner at the time said there was a lack of leadership, but those days have changed. It was the decade of darkness, as it was referred to. Anyway, we have moved on, and here we are working together on sustainable development.
Sustainable development in this reference paper is also referred to as “development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs”. That is good.
You also refer to Minister Ambrose. I've had the pleasure of working with Minister Ambrose, Minister Baird, and now Minister Prentice, all of them very capable and committed people. I think Mr. McGuinty referred to the number of ministers. My understanding is that during those years when not much happened, there were five Liberal ministers; we have had three in the time I've been able to represent the government as a parliamentary secretary. They have been years of getting a lot of things done, and again we have before us this discussion paper.
My question refers to a statement Minister Ambrose made just after we became government in 2006. She said that she would be looking at a range of options, including legislation around national sustainable development and reviewing global best practices as Canada makes further progress toward putting sustainability at the heart of the government's activities.
Can you tell us how the government has kept that promise?
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I'd be happy to. Thank you for the question.
In terms of going back to the quote from the Minister of the Environment that you just went through, the proposed system, we believe, delivers on that commitment and that vision going back a couple of years in each of the three key changes.
For example, the change had mentioned about linking the sustainable development into the expenditure management system. If you go to the OECD, if you go to the best practices on sustainable development, the International Institute for Sustainable Development's 19-country survey, they keep coming back to this key touchstone that if sustainable development is going to change decision-making, it has to be mainstreamed into the decision-making system. Bringing sustainable development into the expenditure management system does exactly that, and that is one where I think there's a strong resonance between the best practice globally and a key change here that reflects where the minister was trying to go at the time.
On the second—I was not working in the Department of the Environment at the time—I've heard that part of the problem was that the minister at the time was sitting with 32 reports. If you looked at one against the other, they didn't make any sense. They weren't consistent. They didn't add up to any coherent picture. I think that reflects, again, one of the key best practices you see in sustainable development, that across a government, across a society, you need something that puts together different activities of different departments into a coherent picture.
This moving to a whole-of-government approach, where we establish all-of-government targets and then organize the activities across different departments, it doesn't matter where they are, by the targets and by the result that the government is trying to achieve and has held itself accountable to would be a second key evolution and a second key improvement that reflects the minister's desire to make changes that align to best practice.
The third—again, a common theme—is you need a system that gives you that “plan, do, check, improve” audit cycle, something that can track progress, and that progress, or lack thereof, can be part of the feedback loop for taking action and adjusting. The three-year cycles for planning and reporting on progress that are part of this strategy, and quite frankly are in the legislation, are key to driving that almost three-year cycle of ongoing improvement.
The commitment to move towards results-based indicators of progress as opposed to activity-based is a fundamental one. If you read through the reports that have been part of the former system, sometimes they're indicators of progress. Where a public servant went to a conference and presented a paper, that's a good activity, but that's not progress in terms of environmental sustainability...and shifting away from those kinds of indicators to ones about the environment improving in a local or a national context.
I think those three key features, which align to best practices you see in the OECD and other organizations that have looked rigorously at sustainable development, are delivering a change that I believe—I can't speak for the minister—delivers on the promise of what she was trying to commit the government to in 2006.
Obviously, we support this initiative because it was this very committee that examined Mr. Godfrey's bill and recommended that it be adopted.
This afternoon, we are having a discussion of a very high conceptual nature. We are talking about initiatives that are good in and of themselves, about goals and about aligning the activities of each department. However, can you explain further to me how in concrete terms the system will work?
Each department will submit sustainable development plans to your office. However, what happens if a department's goals are not aligned with, or maybe even run counter to, those of other departments?
Would you contact your minister and would he speak to the Minister of Natural Resources to advise him that his sustainable development plan does not work because it clashes with your department's plan, or that of the Department of Fisheries and Oceans?
Explain to me how this will actually work on a day-to-day basis.
:
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
[English]
Thank you very much to the witnesses, Mr. Keenan and Ms. Weber, for coming to us today. I have appreciated your crisp and clear presentation.
Quite frankly, I'm very excited about this strategy simply because it does represent such a step forward and I think it's going to turbocharge the government's efforts on the environment.
I'll take one of the things you said, Mr. Keenan, as a starting point on that, that the draft strategy “represents the first significant improvement to sustainable development planning and reporting since 1995”.
As I understand it, in fact, the existing or previous system was established by the former Liberal government in 1995. Almost immediately it became subject to criticism and it was clear that it was not achieving the intended results.
What did that government do? Well, that government did nothing. That government did nothing for 11 long years.
In fact, in 2001-—
The Chair: Mr. Bigras has a point of order.
:
Thank you for the question.
The new system or the proposed system that's described in the consultation paper before you does represent a significant change. It is absolutely true that the Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development has commented repeatedly on the weaknesses of the system. I think in the 's message, there's one of the better quotes. He said it was like putting together a jigsaw puzzle without having the box to show you what the jigsaw puzzle is supposed to look like .
I think the shift to the whole-of-government approach where you bring together all of the pieces so you can see what the box is supposed to look like is a key innovation and a positive change in terms of the management of sustainable development.
The second one, which I think is mentioned several times, is the fact that the sustainable development is now linked to the expenditure management system. I'll give you an example of why that's particularly important. The Government of Canada has a very significant clean air agenda. There are currently 44 programs delivered across nine departments, which add up to, I think, about $2.2 billion a year, all with the goal of advancing clean air. If you look through the sustainable development strategies, it's hard to get any sense of those programs. Those are very important programs that speak to a very important environmental goal. Under the former system, you couldn't get any decent picture of what they were. Now as it happens, as part of the expenditure management system, the Government of Canada put a summary of those programs and what they're accomplishing in Canada's performance report, a key Treasury Board document that describes the results achieved for the more than $200 billion of taxpayers' money that's spent by the federal government.
That kind of information describing what the government is doing on clean air and what effect it's having in terms of air quality would be at the core of a new sustainable development strategy. I'd submit that it would be one that would have information to enable parliamentarians and Canadians to get a clear picture of something like clean air and what's going on, which would represent in a practical, concrete sense a significant improvement.
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I think in responding to the question there are two dimensions.
One of them is, I guess, with respect to the role of Environment Canada. Given that the purpose of the act is to make environmental decision-making more transparent for parliamentarians, I would submit that it makes sense for Environment Canada to take the lead in that. We are the department, quite frankly, that cares about that. Our minister is accountable for that and champions that very strongly in government. So we're the ones who have the interest in driving it. I'm the one who drags my colleagues together. I'm the one who has formed a partnership with Treasury Board to get this into the estimates process so there's money connected to it.
But I think your more fundamental question is how this translates into progress. The strategy by which this translates into progress is quite simply transparency. It was difficult to tell where things.... Under the former system, you could read through 32 reports and you would be left wondering what's being done, what's being spent, what's being achieved. It was very difficult to tell. It was virtually impossible in many areas.
By pulling this together and by driving a system that's connected to all of the budget decision-making by the estimates process in Parliament, the information is pulled together and parliamentarians can judge, Canadians can judge easily. They can judge what the government is doing, what it's achieving, and whether or not it's falling short, coming closer, or moving farther away from the goals it's established. It can also see clearly where it has good goals, it has not-so-strong goals, or it is missing goals. Already there have been three or four comments around the table with respect to a target that is missing, a target that needs to be added.
It's great to be a vacationer on this committee, sitting in as a substitute.
Before I get to my question, I was just interested in the comments from across the way, about being worried about the implementation. I think the credibility actually comes from...and my colleague had just talked about it.
I know they may have a little trouble understanding how things actually get done within a timeframe, but within 18 months we've actually got an implementation. We've got a sustainability report here. What drives it is, again, unique; I think right now it's obviously the transparency that will come.
When I read through this and tried to understand the 32 separate silos, anyone who has business sense would know you can never deal with that. It takes a management system. It takes coordination within a department and with a department to come up with a consensus and an approach that can actually be discussed and to then have a report come forward. It's called a whole-of-government picture. It actually makes the departments and agencies accountable to each other rather than just to themselves--i.e., laying it out there and saying, “You know, this is only our point of view. For the rest, the other 31, you're on your own.” That's not the approach that needs to be taken.
I think congratulations should be given to the ministers who have taken the initiative and taken hold of something that sat around for 13 years or however long the time was. It obviously needed repair. The mechanic has come along and we now have a vehicle that is actually running much better. That's not to say it's perfect. That's not to say it's complete. I think the Canadian people obviously recognize that something drastic had to be done.
We now have a strategic approach, which I think is really important. At the start of it, there's reference to inclusion under the theme of shrinking the environmental footprint. We then talk about actually setting the example through government. We have all the other aspects within our economy and across the country. We talk about how we're going to measure it for the environment.
Beginning with the government, could you tell us about the progress on greening operations? Is there anything you can tell us in terms of some type of status for where we are, since as a government we want to have a leading edge?
:
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair, for the question.
We have been active. Since April 2006, we've actually had in place an approved Treasury Board policy on green procurement. The implementation of the policy was deemed satisfactory by the Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development in his March 2008 report. As a result of this policy, we have completed and have ready green standing offers that are available for use by departments in areas of government spending, including vehicles, fuels, information technology equipment, paper, and furniture.
There's also a Treasury Board directive on the executive fleet, which now requires all vehicles to be four-cylinder, hybrid, or run on alternative fuel. As we replace our fleet, we're replacing it with more environmentally friendly and energy-efficient vehicles.
In terms of new office buildings, they must meet the LEED gold level of performance. In the rare instances when we talk about new construction, there is a certain environmental level that we need to meet or exceed. Some federal buildings actually meet LEED for environmental design. A Public Works and Government Services Canada building was the first LEED gold administrative building north of the 60th parallel. Parks Canada has a building that was the first LEED platinum building in Canada.
The strategy gives us an opportunity to make more progress in those areas and to ensure consistency across the Government of Canada.
Thank you for the question.
Thank you, of course, to the witnesses for appearing.
Just so I understand this--and I'm listening to Mr. Trudeau's questions here--let me see if I've got this. By bringing sustainable development considerations into the EMS system, that in fact makes cabinet the first check in the system rather than a department official or somewhere else, or parliamentarians for that matter. It makes cabinet the very first check in the system.
I'm not a prime minister. I'm not campaigning to be one, either, in case anybody wants to know. But if I were sitting at the top of cabinet, I wouldn't know what's going on in a particular department somewhere way down deep with respect to sustainable development or a commitment that the government may have made. I would become aware of that if cabinet itself were discussing it on an ongoing basis, therefore being able to have the oversight over the government's overall objectives and agenda and commitments in this regard. The FSDS establishes that type of an ongoing system, where the prime minister and his cabinet are talking about these initiatives on an ongoing basis.
Is that a fair assessment? Does it make cabinet, if you will, the first check in the system?
Thank you very much. I just wanted to get the record straight.
I have a question for you, as well, to deal with the eco-efficiency metrics that the former Liberal government designed for Canada. It became Canada's major contribution to the OECD and it is now, I think, the golden standard for the OECD. That has to deal with water, materials, and energy intensity. These eco-efficiency metrics were delivered to the government in 2006. They were supposed to continue in terms of their funding and their research, in partnership with the Canadian Institute of Chartered Accountants, but that was cut in the 2006 budget as part of the $5.6 billion of cuts in climate change initiatives.
I'd like to know how you see those eco-efficiency metrics. You say you have a big team, Mr. Keenan. I'd like you to tell us how the eco-efficiency metrics that the OECD is pursuing are going to be used and translated here, particularly on water intensity, materials intensity, and energy intensity. How are we going to apply those metrics to the government's operations, particularly as we look to green government's operations, procurement and otherwise? Can you help us understand? Do you know where that's been left off since 2006 when it was given to the government?
:
I have a few brief questions.
Mr. Keenan, I'm looking at this other document, “A Guide to Green Government”, which I think is affiliated. Unfortunately, there are no page numbers, but under section 2 it talks about “Planning and Decision-Making for Sustainable Development”, and then it talks about policy tools.
I'm puzzled. I would encourage you to adjust the document, because it makes no reference to the enforcement and compliance strategies and policies that are already in place in departments. The reason I'm mentioning this is that departments don't have broad access to those tools. They're already prescribed very clearly, and to the credit of the government, because that came about when the first CEPA was tabled. Minister Tom McMillan actually tabled the first enforcement compliance policy, which triggered similar policies across Canada. I think it's really important to reference that.
The other matter that you might want to reference is the commitment Canada has made under the North American Agreement on Environmental Cooperation. I think it's article 5 of that agreement which states that Canada commits to effective environmental enforcement. There have been a lot of agreements under that. In fact, when I was the head of law and enforcement there, I led a whole dialogue and agreement on how the three governments were going to measure and report on effective enforcement and compliance. My understanding is that the department developed that almost 10 years ago.
I think it gives credibility to this to reference documents and the good work departments have already done. You don't have to reply. I'm just pointing that out.
On page 25 of your draft strategy, “Protecting Nature”, I'm a little concerned with article 5.1.1, “Enabling Capacity”. DFO is reporting that they'll develop 100% of recovery strategies under mandated requirements by 2012. In fact, in many cases, that may mean they're not in compliance with the law because they are actually not complying with requirements, so it's a little awkward there to say that they're going to comply with this instead of what the law requires. Actually and amazingly, SARA prescribes deadlines for when they have to produce these strategies and so forth.
I have one other point. You said that actually it'll be in.... I think the document is useful because it points out areas that aren't there yet, where we don't have targets. One of the things I noticed under the section on water is that there is no target for or mention whatsoever of dealing with lakes and rivers. It talks about quality, but it doesn't talk about management, except for the Great Lakes. I would have hoped.... There is some kind of vague thing towards the end about things to do, but it doesn't actually mention what the government will do under the Canada Water Act, let's say, where they have a lot of powers to manage waters.
Also, it doesn't mention where they might be stepping up the monitoring programs in the field in specified areas. For example, we looked at the impact of the tar sands on water, and there are going to be recommendations out of this committee, but I would have anticipated that they would have said they're going to do something--that they're going to do targeted rivers or lakes or something. There doesn't seem to be anything there outside of the Great Lakes that talks about targeting.
You know, there used to be a huge program in Environment Canada called the Canada Water.... Does anybody remember what it was called? It was done away with. There is increasing pressure on the federal government, particularly for transboundary waters or where there is some kind of international obligation. What is the government doing? It's not always Environment Canada. Sometimes it's DFO and so forth. I was kind of surprised that there was nothing there at all, particularly in view of the review we've been doing in this committee.
I'm finished.
Mr. McGuinty was quite right that it was a previous Liberal government that appointed the Commissioner of the Environment. I had a chance to review some of the summary reports that the commissioner did provide to Parliament on that. Back in 1998 she said:
the federal government is failing to meet its policy commitments.
In 1999 she said there's:
additional evidence of the gap between the federal government's intentions and its domestic actions.
In 2000 she said the government:
continues to have difficulty turning that commitment into action.
In 2001 she said:
The continued upward trend of Canada's emissions demonstrates that the government has not transformed its promises into results.
In 2002 she said the government's:
sustainable development deficit continues to grow
In 2003 she said:
My review found a gap between the commitments made and the results achieved.
Good intentions are not enough.
In 2004 she said: Why is progress so slow? I am left to conclude that the reasons are lack of leadership, lack of priority, and lack of will.
In 2005 she said: When it comes to protecting the environment bold announcements are often made and then often forgotten as soon as the confetti hits the ground.
Mr. Speaker, the current leader said:
I think our party has gotten into a mess on the environment
I guess the important question is, why couldn't Mr. Godfrey get his sustainable development legislation through under a previous Liberal government? Mr. Speaker, it's because we're a government of action and getting it done.
Thank you very much.