:
Madam Chair, thank you so much for inviting us. I was just saying to Mr. Cullen that we have done a lot of audits in the last 20 years and we have a lot of expertise that will hopefully help the committee, so please feel completely free to call upon us at any time. Our job is to serve parliamentarians. We enjoy doing this and would like to be at your service in whatever way we can.
I'm pleased to be here today to present the findings of my fall 2015 reports, which were tabled in the House of Commons on January 26. I'm accompanied by Andrew, Kim, and Joe, and they were responsible for the actual reports.
The first audit we looked at examined how the Pest Management Regulatory Agency has managed selected aspects of its mandate. The agency is tasked with determining which pesticide products should be registered for use in Canada and under which conditions. There are currently 7,000 pesticides containing some 600 active ingredients available in the Canadian marketplace.
[Translation]
The agency is required to re-evaluate the safety of registered pesticides every 15 years. Ninety-five per cent of the agency's re-evaluations have resulted in additional precautions to protect human health or the environment.
During the period under audit, the agency completed some 14 re-evaluations per year. At the end of our audit, more than six times that number remained incomplete. With more re-evaluations due to start each year, the agency needs to quicken its pace to prevent unacceptable risks to people and the environment from the unsafe use of pesticide products.
I am also concerned that it took the agency an average of five years—and up to eleven years—to remove some pesticides from the market when it determined that they posed unacceptable risks for all uses.
[English]
The Pest Management Regulatory Agency may grant a conditional registration when it finds it needs more information to confirm its assessment of a product's value and of the risks to human health or the environment. During the time a pesticide is conditionally registered, it can be bought and used, and other products containing the same active ingredient may also be marketed.
We found that nine products remained conditionally registered for more than a decade. Eight of these belong to the neonicotinoid class of pesticides. These products continue to be used extensively in Canada despite widespread concern that they may pose a threat to bees, other pollinators, and broader ecosystems. We did note that the agency announced it will no longer grant conditional registrations starting June 1 of this year.
Our second audit examined the National Energy Board's oversight of federally regulated pipelines. The energy board sets the requirements that companies must satisfy to ensure the safe operation of some 73,000 kilometres of pipelines that are used to transport oil and gas to customers in Canada and abroad.
Our audit concluded that the board did not adequately track companies' implementation of pipeline approval conditions, and that it was not consistently following up on company deficiencies. We found that the board's tracking systems were outdated and inefficient.
[Translation]
We also concluded that the National Energy Board is facing ongoing challenges to recruit and retain specialists in pipeline integrity and regulatory compliance.
With the anticipated increase of pipeline capacity and the coming into force of the Pipeline Safety Act by June 2016, it is clear that the National Energy Board needs to do more to keep pace with the rapidly changing context in which it is operating.
Our final audit examined selected departments' progress in meeting the commitments made in their sustainable development strategies to strengthen their strategic environmental assessment practices.
Cabinet has required, since 1990, that 26 government departments and agencies carry out strategic environmental assessments of the proposed programs and policies they submit to ministers when implementation could have important positive or negative impacts on the environment.
[English]
In our 2015 audit we found that the current cabinet directive was applied to only five of the more than 1,700 proposals submitted to the ministers responsible for Agriculture Canada, the Canada Revenue Agency, Canadian Heritage, and the Department of Fisheries and Oceans.
This means, for example, that no information about potentially important environmental effects was provided to support the proposal for the 2015 Pan American and Parapan American Games. Similarly, the cabinet directive was not applied to the proposed transfer for the purposes of building a hospital on 60 acres of land of designated historical importance.
We also presented parliamentarians with our annual report on environmental petitions. These petitions are important mechanisms created by Parliament as a way for Canadians to get answers from federal ministers to their questions relating to the environment and sustainable development.
[Translation]
Our office received 15 environmental petitions on a range of topics, including the transport of hazardous substances and concerns about human and environmental health. In 97% of cases, departments and agencies provided their responses within the 120-day statutory deadline. Overall, these responses were complete and relevant.
Past petitions have prompted such action by federal departments as new environmental projects, follow-up on alleged violations, and changes or clarifications in policies and practices. I encourage all Canadians to use this important mechanism.
[English]
Finally, as you know, we provide Parliament with information that can be used by parliamentary committees when they conduct hearings on our reports or on audit-related topics. To help you in this capacity I've attached to my opening statement a list of questions you may wish to ask department officials should such hearings take place.
I hope you will find this information useful. It was another member of Parliament who indicated to me in the past that these questions were very helpful to them.
Madam Chair, that concludes my opening remarks. We are happy to answer any questions you may have.
[Translation]
Thank you.
:
Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you very much, Commissioner.
What is a concern to me is the issue of apparent communication or the lack thereof when you're talking about the updating and the briefing of ministers and the cabinet directive. I see this as something that's absolutely imperative, and it shocks me.
I don't know whether.... You spoke about resources. I don't know if it's the lack of resources or a directive from somebody else or some other office, but isn't it absolutely imperative that the cabinet ministers are told and that there's clarity on what is an important environmental effect?
That's the thing that jumped out at me when I was reading these notes. I was thinking, “Really? We have this occurring every day where we have no communication or briefings or updates of the ministers on what could be an environmental impact in our country?”
:
In our audits, we've been looking at this for several years. We are going through every department to see how well they're doing on this, so you'll hear about another four or five departments next year until we've done all of them.
Generally, we have found that this cabinet directive is not being followed when proposals go to ministers, even when there's good news. There have been some “good news” stories. The Canada Revenue Agency, through changing something in the tax code, has saved 18 million pieces of paper a year, and nobody even celebrates that. There are positive environmental effects that are not being communicated as well as negative environmental effects.
I would absolutely agree that the tool is really important. I bring up the example of trying to decide whether you should put solar panels up on your house. Most people, when they're making that decision, are looking at the economics. What's the payback and how long will I live in this house? The second thing they're going to think of is what to do when it's not sunny. How is my family going to get on the Internet or use the fridge if there's no sun? What's the social impact? You also hope that everybody is thinking about their carbon footprint and what it means, and including that when they're trying to make that decision.
In the past, most decisions have been made looking at social and economic aspects and not thinking about environmental aspects. The whole purpose of environment and sustainable development is to bring in that environmental lens. It doesn't mean you make the decision based on environmental aspects, but they are given the same weight as the social, environmental, and economic aspects.
We will continue to look at this year after year.
:
Thank you very much, Madam Chair.
I'm going to pick up on what we were just talking about on sustainable development and implementation. I liked your example of the solar panels and the three different things that people consider.
However, my sense is that the third one, the environmental impact, is not so much a variable that helps people with the decision process as it is something that makes people feel good about what they're doing. You have the economic one, you have the social part of it, and then you say, “And by doing this, I'm doing something good for the environment.” I don't think it's necessarily a breaking point or a tipping point, but it makes people feel good about what they're doing.
I think this speaks to the underlying culture, and that's something you brought up earlier about culture and how things are done. To be fair to Mr. Cullen's point about only seven of the 1,500, I think you hit the nail on the head when you talked about the fact that.... I'm by no means trying to defend any government over the past 20 or 25 years. I think it's more about the fact that the culture isn't there to bring this forward and to make people want to celebrate it.
My question is about how we change the culture, which I know is a very difficult thing, so that people start defaulting to that, so that people start saying we have to look at it through this lens. What's your recommendation on that? Seven out of 1,500—these are just the times when people actually took the time to record the fact that it was happening. How do we start to make a change in the culture so that it becomes a default that people go to?
I'd like to go back to the National Energy Board and tracking compliance. I was quite interested in your comments about the 50% done and the 50% not done. We could criticize or we could have some questions.
First, of the 50% they did track, and during your audit, was there any clear picture of companies not complying with the policies and procedures as they went ahead with their projects?
Second, following through the discussion of everybody needing more people in their departments, can part of the assumption be, because they only got 50% done, they are having a hard time in that department recruiting personnel with the expertise to do that type work in the field? Government is always competing against industry, and industry is always paying larger amounts of money for those people. I'm wondering if that was indicated in part of your review, if you saw some trends that way.
:
Thank you very much for getting into position so quickly.
I want to recognize quite a few people who have come forward to meet with us today. I'm just trying to think who's here. You're spread all around, so why don't I just read the list and then you can let us know who's going to be talking.
We have, from the Department of Health, Paul Glover and Richard Aucoin; from the National Energy Board, Sandy Lapointe, Josée Touchette, and Robert Steedman; from the Department of Natural Resources, Jeff Labonté; from the Department of Agriculture and Agri-Food, Greg Meredith; from the Department of Canadian Heritage, Jérôme Moisan; from the Canada Revenue Agency, Yves Giroux; and from the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, Tom Rosser.
We're going to start with the Department of Health, Paul Glover. Thank you very much.
:
Thank you, Madam Chair. I have to say I'm not used to being on this side of the table. I'm used to the end.
The Chair: Yes, there are a lot of you at the table.
Mr. Paul Glover: This is a little unusual, but bear with me.
[Translation]
Thank you for this invitation.
[English]
I'm really happy to be here today to tell you what we're doing in response to the commissioner's report on pesticides. I have just a few brief remarks given the report, its tone. I wanted to share with you a number of critical facts.
The Pest Management Regulatory Agency, as you know, has a responsibility to protect both health and the environment as it relates to pesticides. A bit of information with respect to our performance, generally.... We have performance targets that are published and available, and we are meeting those and have been meeting them for the last three years for all of the new chemicals that we have to deal with.
To put that into perspective, there were over 80 applications for new chemicals of major uses. We met our performance targets. There were 400 submissions for new products, 1,400 administrative submissions for things like label updates—very important. We did 14 joint reviews with partners around the country, five of which were with the EPA and others were global.
Turning specifically to the commissioner's report, there were a number of very helpful findings, and we thank the commissioner for her report. We fully agree with them, and in all cases, we have already taken action to begin to address the recommendations.
One area is conditional registrations. While this is a common practice in OECD countries, as well as in the U.S. and Europe, it has been used less than 1% of the time in Canada for all pesticides that have been approved. We noted there were some issues with respect to conditional registrations. Most notably we felt that, as a result of delaying the normal public consultations, conditional registrations were not as transparent as we felt they needed to be.
In January, we published our intent to stop granting conditional registrations as of June 1 this year. With respect to all conditional registrations that have previously been granted, we have a plan in place to address all of those by the end of 2017.
With respect to the audit's concern regarding the timeliness of the re-evaluation of older pesticides, we just want to confirm with you that we have all of these already under way, Of the 401 older pesticides, 90% of the pesticides have been looked at, and for the remaining 45, or 10%, we have a plan in place to address those by 2020.
Specifically, because you probably hear a lot of this and we're not trying to back-end this all to 2020, we will have six re-evaluations completed by the end of this fiscal year of 2015-16. We'll have an additional six completed in 2016-17, 10 planned for 2017-18, and 12 planned for 2018-19, with the final 11 completed by 2019-20. We have a very specific plan to address the remaining 45 substances over the next few years and that plan will be published on our website in the coming weeks as we move forward.
Some people have questioned how, given the length of time it's taken us to get this done, we can speed up and accelerate that quickly, and we just want to reassure the committee that we continue to do full due diligence on the science. We are looking to make sure that we are protecting health and the environment in all of these assessments.
We have been able to move to efficiencies to better use predictive analytics about where the risks are and allow us to focus our re-evaluation efforts on where we feel the risks are greatest to health and the environment, and by working with international partners.
The commissioner also made some recommendations with respect to the cancellation of registrations when they propose an unacceptable risk. I just want to reassure the committee that when risks are found to be unacceptable they are being addressed in a timely way. Phase-out measures are put in place, uses are cancelled, and actions are taken to protect workers' safety, to protect human health, and to protect the environment.
There is a lead time necessary for the industry to develop new, safer products. On average, we typically phase-out a product within two to five years, for the committee's information. That is similar to the U.S., which does it in about two to six years, so we are right in there, or certainly better than where our trading partners are with respect to that.
For the sake of time, I'll conclude my comments there, other than to say that we very much welcome the commissioner's report and have an action plan to respond to all of its recommendations.
In closing, I would just note that while not specifically mentioned in the report, one of the areas is fees. The Pest Management Regulatory Agency is cost-recovered. Its fees were last updated in 1997, so it is working with fees that are significantly out of date. We have signalled and begun the process to update the fees, which will help us to ensure we have the resources necessary to work with industry to protect the health and safety of Canadians.
We certainly would welcome working with this committee as we move forward to advance new, updated fees and bring them in line with the reality of 2015-16, and not 1997.
Thank you, Madam Chair.
:
Thank you very much for the opportunity to appear before the committee today. It's a great pleasure for me.
[English]
I'll perhaps keep my remarks quite brief, so that my colleagues from the National Energy Board can follow.
Let's start by indicating that we all recognize that Canada's pipeline infrastructure is critically important to the country. Certainly every day, the pipelines deliver energy to Canadians, businesses, our trading partners, and support many facets of our economy.
Before we get into the specifics and before we get into the details, perhaps it would be useful to draw out the distinctions between the department and the National Energy Board and how we're orchestrated and organized. That would be for the benefit of committee members who perhaps have not yet had the full brief on that.
The Department of Natural Resources provides advice to the and helps to set the government's approach to energy and energy policies in those areas of federal jurisdiction. This includes advice to the minister on the National Energy Board Act, which provides the fundamental authorities that the board operates under.
The National Energy Board is an independent regulator. It reports to Parliament through the . Its primary responsibilities are set out in the act, and these responsibilities include the regulation, construction, operation, and abandonment or decommissioning of pipelines across interprovincial and international boundaries. Any of these regulatory oversight roles directly support the objectives of the safety and protection of the environment, and the safe operation of pipelines.
Natural Resources Canada appreciates the work that the commissioner has done to report on this oversight of pipelines. We consider it both timely and relevant in the current context, and certainly in the context of looking at all of the perspectives related to pipeline operations and safety. I think my colleagues will report on this further, but the NEB has publicly accepted the recommendations of the commissioner and has already implemented action plans, many of which are well along the path to addressing a number of the audit findings.
I'd like at this point, as well, to make reference to one of the points that was raised in the audit report that related to the Pipeline Safety Act, which received royal assent well over a year ago in Parliament, and will come into force in June of this year. That particular piece of legislation changes the number of the authorities. It has several references within the audit report, and should there be any questions about that and how it relates to this particular audit, we'd be happy to take those questions as well.
Thank you very much, Madam Chair.
:
Thank you, Madam Chair.
My name is Josée Touchette, and I am the Chief Operating Officer of the National Energy Board.
I am joined today by Sandy Lapointe, the NEB's Executive Vice President, Regulatory, and Dr. Robert Steedman, our Chief Environment Officer.
[English]
Let me offer a quick overview of the NEB, because I guess we're going to be the subject of a few questions.
The NEB is an independent regulator of pipelines, energy development, and trade. It has three key roles: adjudicating energy projects, supporting the safety of Canadians and the environment through oversight, and engaging Canadians on energy information. As my colleague indicated, the NEB reports to Parliament through the .
Canadians know us mainly for the hearings that we conduct on the development of energy infrastructure. But we regulate that infrastructure over its entire life cycle, from project proposal, to construction and operation, through to abandonment.
We oversee 73,000 kilometres of pipelines. That's nearly enough to wrap around the earth twice. We also oversee 1,400 kilometres of power lines, which is about the distance from Yellowknife to Regina.
Our annual budget for 2015-16 is $91 million, 37% of which is temporary, including roughly $12 million for safety. We cost-recover 95% of this from the companies that we regulate.
[Translation]
In my role as chief operating officer, I run the day-to-day business of the organization. I report to Peter Watson, in his role as CEO.
[English]
About 18 months ago, Peter Watson was appointed chair and CEO. I joined about six months later.
When we began to work at the board, we were already aware that the NEB needed to change to respond to a growing issue of public trust. We quickly learned that the 475 NEB staff are well qualified, talented, and dedicated, but it was evident that the energy and environment discussion in Canada had changed dramatically over a short period of time and that the NEB was not prepared. Notably, there were systemic deficiencies in our IT and information management processes that were inhibiting our ability to be transparent and to show Canadians that we are on the job of keeping pipelines safe every single day.
Therefore, we were not surprised when the commissioner noted those deficiencies. We immediately embarked on an aggressive agenda of modernization that is aligned with our three strategic priorities, namely, regulatory excellence, safety, and engaging Canadians, and we began to implement changes.
First, we made changes to our leadership team. Of the 10 most senior staff members in the organization, six are either new or new in their positions. We achieved key milestones to make our oversight work more robust, to improve our IM/IT capabilities, to make information more transparent, and to better engage with Canadians.
Canadians can now find an interactive map of all pipeline incidents on our website. Our inspection reports and our evaluations of emergency exercises conducted by pipeline companies are now posted online. In the spring of 2015, we launched a public consultation on the transparency of pipeline emergency management information, and in the next few weeks we'll outline how pipeline companies will post their energy procedure manuals online.
In response to the audit, we've developed two information management tools that better enable our systems to talk to each other—to use the words of the commissioner—and as promised to the in a letter dated February 4, we are posting on our website all 2,869 pipeline approval conditions that have been issued since January, 2010, along with the associated compliance information.
[Translation]
The audit confirmed our diagnostic and helped guide the changes we are undertaking that will, we believe, lead to more robust oversight, greater transparency and, we trust, greater public confidence and engagement in the decisions of the board.
[English]
Thank you. I look forward to the committee's questions.
[Translation]
It is a pleasure to be here today to provide the committee with information on how Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada supports the government's goals of sustainable development and environmental protection.
[English]
At Agriculture Canada, we recognize the importance of providing government decision makers with the potential environmental consequences of the proposals that we've put forward. As the commissioner said earlier, these are consequences that could be positive or negative. We do have processes in place to achieve this, as per the directive on environmental assessment of policy, plan, and program proposals.
We've had a strategic environmental assessment process in place since 1990, which was the initiative of the SEA directive. We have a very broad mandate, as the committee can appreciate, so strategic environmental assessments apply to a wide range of proposals within Agriculture Canada, ranging from governance proposals to those that deal with new research, and proposals on risk management.
[Translation]
This is why my department has dedicated technical experts who perform both project and strategic level environmental assessments. These experts have developed, and over the years improved, internal strategic environmental assessment guidance documents, as well as templates for both preliminary scans and detailed level assessments, to ensure we are consistent and complete in meeting the requirements of the cabinet directive.
[English]
Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada has always considered these assessments to be an important tool in helping sustainable development, and that's why we agree completely with and welcome the advice from the commissioner of the environment and sustainable development on how to strengthen our internal processes.
In her report, the commissioner notes that Agriculture Canada's strategic environmental assessment process with respect to cabinet is fairly robust. However, the commissioner did identify important gaps with respect to other types of advice that we provide to the minister. We have taken note of those recommendations in areas where our strategic environmental process can be improved and appreciate the points of clarification provided by the commissioner.
[Translation]
My department has developed and provided to the commissioner a management response action plan that identifies the steps we will take—in fact, steps we are already taking—to address these recommendations and to make our processes more effective and transparent.
[English]
These steps involve identifying all types of strategic-level documents and proposals within the department to which the directive should apply, revising our guidance materials, and ensuring that our public reporting is complete, pursuant to the commissioner's recommendations. Similar to what has been done in other departments, I understand, we've developed clear rationales for when to exclude a particular proposal from a strategic environmental assessment, and that has to do with administrative, duplicative, or emergency situations.
We're now adjusting our internal processes in order to roll out these improvements and ensure that all actions related to SEAs, including exceptions, are properly documented and made public so that the public has confidence that we're paying attention to sustainable development objectives.
In Agriculture Canada, we're confident that we'll have a stronger strategic environmental process as a result of this report and audit within the year, and we will fully address the recommendations of the commissioner's report.
Merci.
:
Madam Chair, thank you for the opportunity to appear before the committee today.
The Department of Canadian Heritage agrees with the findings of the commissioner's report and is now implementing its recommendations. At the time of the audit, the department had not finalized a comprehensive approach to implement the cabinet directive. The department did consider issues of sustainable development on an ongoing, case-by-case basis, but a formal process to track and document the consideration of these issues had not been put into place until now.
By nature of its mandate, Canadian Heritage's environmental footprint is most often minimal or null, except in cases of large-scale events such as the 2010 Vancouver Olympic and Paralympic Games. As is usually the case, and as was the case for the games in Vancouver, Canadian Heritage always considers issues of sustainable development and the environment.
Environmental considerations have long been part of the department's decision-making process, but now a process to track and document environmental considerations has been formalized. A Canadian Heritage strategic environmental assessment process with guidance material and a tracking database has been implemented and is actively in use. The department is also finalizing an online questionnaire to accompany the implementation of the process.
Department officials have actively implemented the report's recommendations to ensure that the and the are informed of the potential important environmental effects of all policy, plan and program proposals.
Thank you very much.
:
I'll try to be even faster than Jérôme.
[Translation]
Good morning, Madam Chair and esteemed members of the committee.
[English]
My name is Yves Giroux, and I'm the assistant commissioner of the strategy and integration branch at the Canada Revenue Agency. Among many other things, I am responsible for sustainable development at the CRA.
As you know, the CRA's mandate is to administer taxes and benefits to Canadians. Few of the proposals submitted to our minister or to cabinet have important environmental effects. However, where there are environmental impacts, they are usually positive and they relate to the reduction of paper use as a result of CRA's efforts to increase electronic filing and self-service options.
The CRA agrees with all applicable recommendations in the audit report by the commissioner and is updating its processes and templates in response.
I'd be pleased to answer any questions you may have.
Merci beaucoup.
:
Thank you very much, Madam Chair, and I promise I too will be very brief.
[Translation]
I would like to begin by thanking you, ladies and gentlemen, for inviting me to make a presentation before you today.
My name is Tom Rosser, and I am the Senior Assistant Deputy Minister of Strategic Policy at the Department of Fisheries and Oceans.
[English]
DFO agrees with all the recommendations put forth in the 2015 Fall Reports of the Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development as they pertain to strategic environmental assessment. We've taken steps to ensure full compliance with her recommendations.
For example, DFO has recently updated its internal guidance documents and processes as they concern strategic environmental assessment and has undertaken a significant training and awareness initiative across the organization.
Finally we've created a new web page and posted outstanding public statements for detailed strategic environmental assessments that were completed during the period of the commissioner's audit, which was January 2011 to December 2014.
Going forward, DFO is committed to full compliance with the directive.
I'll leave my remarks there. Thank you.
Thank you for the presentations. It's really great to have the NEB before us. We really appreciate your public service. I've had wonderful interactions both with Natural Resources Canada and with the National Energy Board, and I would agree entirely that the NEB staff are exceptional. There are some really exceptional people there.
I want to zone in on a piece that isn't really included in this commissioner's review but that I think is an elephant in the room.
[Translation]
Ms. Touchette, you talked about the issue of public confidence. The emphasis was placed on change and on a modernization program. You talked about regulatory excellence, safety and engaging Canadians, but you did not say anything about the relationship between the National Energy Board and aboriginal communities.
[English]
Engaging Canadians is broadly written, and you could throw it into that category, but there's a question that I would like to ask today. Do you feel that the National Energy Board, in its position not only as the regulator but also the body statutorily obligated to conduct environmental assessments, is in a strong position to engage in consultation?
I know, Madam Touchette, that you're an expert in this area. You've taught in this area at the University of Ottawa. You were formerly with the Department of Aboriginal and Northern Affairs. You know this area well. I'm very curious to hear your remarks in that regard.
:
Thank you for assuming my expertise here. Hopefully, I won't disappoint.
Let me perhaps step back a little bit and talk about how there are a number of processes and circles within circles in what you referred to, Mr. Amos.
[Translation]
First, when we talk about consultations or mobilization, a distinction should be made between mobilization as part of the request process—which is quasi-judicial—and mobilization as part of our daily pipeline oversight activities. Consultations and mobilization will take place in both cases. In the case of a pipeline construction request, that will generally be done through a very long process. In the other case, it may be more specific to a particular site.
When it comes to requests, the government turns to the National Energy Board and trusts its processes as much as possible. For example, among our activities are meetings where we hear from aboriginal community representatives in order to obtain what is called oral aboriginal traditional evidence. We want to add that to the file and consider it as the file progresses.
However, as part of this—and I am talking about requests here—the Department of National Resources will seek the mobilization of aboriginal communities to ensure that everything is complete, in addition to the consultations it holds. So there are files where the process will start even before the request is considered, even before it is completed and before the file is finalized, since we all think that it is very important, as is this dialogue.
As far as pipeline regulation and oversight go, we want to do more. Peter Watson, our CEO and Chair, recently attended the First Nations Forum on Energy. That meeting was held earlier this month in Vancouver. One of the things he said was that we had to do a better job and learn to collaborate with aboriginal peoples on ongoing issues. How can we have a better dialogue when ensuring pipeline oversight and regulation? We have initiated processes to be able to better respond to aboriginal groups' concerns.
Of course, this is a learning process. If you have not done so already, I suggest that you read our report on the National Mobilization Initiative, which is available on our website.
Last year, our CEO undertook some mobilization initiatives. He met with more than 80 communities across Canada, several of which were aboriginal groups, in order to find out how the situation could be improved. We will never achieve perfection, but we are trying to do the best we can. There is a proverb that says, “If at first you don't succeed, try, try again”. We will go back and try to improve things.
Is there a willingness to move forward and to be better mobilized? Yes. Is what we are currently doing perfect? Of course not, but we are striving toward constant improvement, and we are really listening to people.
I would add that, in the particular case of the energy east project, the draft principles make it possible to appoint three temporary members who would carry out more consultations or put forth more mobilization efforts, especially with communities.
:
Actually this is very interesting, because I don't think it's quite as severe as it may have come across.
It is true that in 2008 we had issues in the order of a 29% rate of attrition for our engineers. However, the private sector found the same thing. We have taken some very specific and very aggressive measures, and the attrition rates are now in the order of 5%, which is kind of across the board.
What's interesting is that a recent study by Hays, who are a specialist recruitment firm in Canada, found that a third of the companies were saying they are facing the same recruitment challenges even in an environment like this one, where layoffs are occurring.
You talk about culture. I want to point out that, for seven years in a row, we have been named one of the top 100 employers in Canada, so I think there are some things we're—
:
Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you all for coming today. I especially want to thank Madame Touchette, because she's getting the bulk of the questions.
I'm very encouraged by a lot of the things you're saying. You agree with the audit, you understand there were some major issues, and you're going to rectify them. Mr. Gerretsen touched on some of the timing of it.
You will agree that the conversation around the environment has certainly changed with this new government, will you not? It's pretty clear, right?
Do you feel you're able to adapt to that new attention to the environment? Are you going to be able to adapt to that new reality with the things you're trying to accomplish now, the changes and the recommendations?
:
Thank you very much for that question.
I think I'd start by saying that environmental protection and safety are pretty much hardwired into our processes. As you know, the National Energy Board conducts environmental assessments that are fully compliant with the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act, 2012, in all of our major projects. In addition to that, all of the minor projects undergo an environmental assessment along with the economic, safety, and other kinds of things the board has to look at when it considers a project.
Nothing has changed in terms of the focus and the intensity of our environment work. We have about 70 staff who are directly involved in environmental assessment and environmental compliance verification, so it's a very big deal at the board. It's our largest technical job family. I think we have great tools in the legislation that we have. We have very powerful enforcement abilities, and we take a life-cycle approach to environmental oversight as well as safety oversight.
That's something that is a feature of having a dedicated regulator in a sector like interprovincial and international energy transport. That means that, when we look at a project, we can consider optimizing the design from an environmental perspective. That's the purpose of environmental assessment. But through management system oversight, audits, inspections, and other kinds of techniques, we make sure that the outcomes we're looking for are delivered through the life of those projects.
It is a challenge. Some of broader context of the environment has changed, as you quite well know. I think we're very well equipped to do that, and we have a very passionate staff in that area.
:
Thank you for the question.
First, to clarify, not 100% of the Pest Management Regulatory Agency's activities are funded through cost recovery. Right now it is about 15% of the total, and the rest is funded through appropriations of the government. We continue to do the best with the resources that the government chooses to dedicate towards the agency.
There is no attempt to make excuses for the amount of time it has taken us to do re-evaluations of some of the older pesticides. We understand we're behind the commitments we made. We feel that this was something that the international community has struggled with overall. These are very complex legacy chemicals that we've been working to address. We are hopeful that, with advances in technology, we're better able to use predictive analytics and other tools to focus where those risks are in order to be able to get caught up.
We actually think that with the update in the fees it will move us into new service lines, things that industry is looking for from the PMRA that we have not been able to actively engage in. This won't just be an increase in fees. It will be an expansion of the services we provide to help industry and to ensure that we're doing an appropriate job—
:
Thank you very much, Madam Chair and committee members engaged in this. This is certainly somewhat relevant to the conversation we were just having about a repository of some large amounts of contaminated material near Kincardine.
There's been some updating on this, as you know, Madam Chair.
The government has sought more information and has suspended the decision. We've heard from a number of the people who first approached us on this—on both sides of the Canada-U.S. border—that they have a story to tell. There's a certain lack of enthusiasm even for the suspension, because they feel like it's just going to be going over the same things.
I think it would behoove the committee to spend some time listening to what they have to say. These are people who are experts on the containment of contaminated materials, as well as some of the local representatives, the mayors and such. I know that Mark might be worried about just a mayors' committee. We wouldn't do that.
I think this would certainly not be a waste of the committee's time and in fact would respond to something that's quite important, because if and once this gets approved, it's forever. You don't bury this stuff for the mandate of a government. You bury it for hundreds of thousands of years, which is obviously why there's concern from the citizens in these communities. Again, to assuage anyone's fears—if they exist—the folks we've been hearing from have been from right across the so-called political spectrum. It would be a good representation of folks who are impacted by this.
I move the motion. Certainly, we can amend it. We didn't have time, Chair, in our process, to amend it based on the government's extension.
:
Very briefly, I appreciate Mr. Fast's support to Mr. Bossio's comment. We'd be willing to suspend this in order to bring it into the mix. I understand committee members all have different proposals, including Mr. Fast and ourselves.
To Mr. Gerretsen's and Mr. Amos's point, I think this is the exact way to do this, actually. As legislators, it is what makes those policy decisions real. Has this process been sufficient and adequate in bringing in the public? Has it observed the science?
It is not meant to interfere with the ministerial process but parliamentary committees do this all the time. This is a real application of policy. One can go on an esoteric three month study of nuclear waste management policy across Canada or one can deal with the practical. I'm a more practically oriented person. I like the idea of its application in the real world.
To expedite what we're doing here now, Chair, I think it's procedurally okay for me to simply suspend this motion because I realize we're over time. I know the committee is going to be seized with—
:
I'll suspend debate, then, at this point in time. We'll adjourn that discussion and potentially take it up on Thursday.
I do want to ask the committee two things.
First, in terms of the information that you're getting, I just want to make sure you know that everything that is being handed out in paper is going up on SharePoint. Is everybody aware that's it's on SharePoint?
We're trying to be environmentally responsible here and we're seeing a lot of duplication of material. The briefing notes and the presentation that follows are going up on SharePoint, as are the meeting notices. Please make a point of checking your SharePoint before the meetings.
On another note, this morning I was at a sort of open house with environmental leaders. I don't know about the rest of you, but I have found the process we're going through to be incredibly helpful to get an understanding of the problems within the departments and to get an understanding of the framework the departments under our jurisdiction are working with, and to have our own brainstorming about the things that are of concern and of importance to us.
There are a whole bunch of groups out there that are environmental advocates. They were on the Hill; they are on the Hill. There are quite a few of them. I can give you the names: Environmental Defence, Nature Canada, World Wildlife Fund.... There are a whole bunch of people here on the Hill basically connecting with MPs and trying to advocate for their issues. I think that before we make our decisions about which way we're going, it would be fair to make sure they have had a chance to come and have a chat with us. They are on the Hill this week. They are prepared to come on Thursday. We have a full agenda for Thursday with our motions, but I don't know if we should be moving forward with those motions until we have had at least a chance to hear what the leading environmental groups would like us to be considering at this committee.
I would like to hear them. I just want to ask the committee's opinion.
Mr. Cullen.