We are back to FSDA. Pursuant to the order of reference of Thursday, October 19, the committee resumes consideration of Bill , an act to amend the Federal Sustainable Development Act.
We have in front of us some guests from the Office of the Auditor General of Canada.
We have Julie Gelfand, commissioner of the environment and sustainable development. Welcome back.
We also have Andrew Ferguson, principal; Andrew Hayes, principal; and James McKenzie, principal.
We will open the floor to you. You know the drill: when you have a minute left, I'll hold up the yellow card; when I hold up the red card, I don't mean for you to just stop, but to wrap up.
[Translation]
Madam Chair, it is a pleasure for us to be here today to share our views on the Federal Sustainable Development Act.
As you indicated, I am joined by senior colleagues from the Office of the Auditor General, Andrew Hayes, James McKenzie and Andrew Ferguson. Mr. McKenzie and Mr. Ferguson worked for a very long time with the previous version of the Federal Sustainable Development Act. They are experts in this matter.
As Canada's Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development, I feel a special responsibility to support your review of Bill . My remarks are informed by our office's 20 years of audit work on the federal sustainable development strategies and will cover the following issues: expanding the focus of the act to include the social and economic aspects of sustainable development; the proposed new principles; and reporting on sustainable development progress and improving accountability.
[English]
I was pleased to see that the purpose of the proposed new act is to provide for a federal sustainable development strategy that makes decision-making related to sustainable development more transparent and subject to accountability.
I understand from the proposed section 3 in Bill and the Minister of Environment and Climate Change Canada's comments before this committee that the federal sustainable development strategy required under the act must respect and support Canada's international commitments. These include the United Nations agenda 2030 and the sustainable development goals, the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, and the Paris convention, as examples.
Although some of the amendments to the act appear to embrace the three aspects of sustainable development, I am concerned about the limited scope of proposed section 10.1, which is focused solely on environmental impacts.
In addition, it is my view that the implementation of the Federal Sustainable Development Act will require a whole-of-government approach. In this regard, strong governance is crucial.
I would recommend that the committee consider whether an amendment can be made to proposed section 10.1 to authorize the Treasury Board and potentially the Minister of Environment and Climate Change Canada to establish policies and directives relating to the sustainable development impact of government operations and to report on sustainable development progress.
[Translation]
I am pleased to see that the new bill introduces several principles that must be considered when the Federal Sustainable Development Strategy and departmental sustainable development strategies are prepared. My office will use these principles when we audit the Federal Sustainable Development Strategy and the 90 departmental sustainable development strategies.
That said, we anticipate that we may have difficulty assessing whether the principles have been put into practice, because several are open to interpretation.
In accordance with the principles that are set out in the amendments to subsection 5a), the committee may wish to consider the merits of entrenching the cabinet directive on strategic environmental assessment in the Federal Sustainable Development Act. This could be a tool to support the consideration of economic, social, and environmental impacts of all decisions.
[English]
Our office supports the amendments which will require more than 90 departments and agencies to prepare, implement, and report each year on their sustainable development strategies. I see this as a positive step towards the integration of sustainable development considerations across government.
I plan to assess the departmental sustainable development strategies against the FSDS, the principles as outlined in proposed section 5, as well as the international commitments as outlined in proposed section 3, the purpose, of the new bill. I will be looking to see how departmental sustainable development strategies support Canada's international commitments, in particular, the United Nations agenda 2030 and the sustainable development goals. I expect that most departments will need to go beyond greening of government operations. I will be looking to see how departments assess their policies and programs to achieve these international commitments and how they apply the principles to all of their activities.
With these amendments, I will continue to fulfill my statutory role with respect to monitoring sustainable development strategies. That said, I would have nearly 70 more entities to audit. The committee should be aware that this change will have significant resource implications for the office.
As a result of the increase in the number of entities that will be preparing progress reports, I highly recommend that reporting on departmental sustainable development strategies be standardized across government. By standardized, I mean that the results for all departments and agencies should be presented at the same time each year and in a common format, so that Canadians can understand the results that have been achieved and so that my office can provide a meaningful assessment of those results for parliamentarians.
As auditors, we support the idea of strengthening accountability for results. One way to achieve this would be for the act to specifically require deputy heads or ministers to acknowledge their accountability by signing off on the completeness and accuracy of their progress report on their sustainable development activities, much as you would see in financial statements.
[Translation]
You could also strengthen accountability, which was discussed at length during the committee's previous study of the Federal Sustainable Development Act, by incorporating accountability for sustainable development results in the performance agreements of deputy heads.
Madam Chair, I commend the committee for its work and hope that my suggestions will be helpful to you.
This concludes my opening remarks. We would be happy to answer the committee's questions.
:
I recall that when I was part of Premier Gary Filmon's sustainable development effort, that effort was located in the premier's office and it ensured an equality of the ministers.
This is something that concerns me greatly. If the environment minister's office publishes a—quote, unquote—“bad report” on a department, that's essentially a veto.
In terms of socio-economic impacts, Commissioner, in your view, does that also include an evaluation of lost economic and job opportunities if a project does not proceed? For example, we know Canada builds pipelines in a very environmentally sound way. When energy east was lost, thousands of jobs were lost, and I use that as one example. Don't you think that an evaluation of the opportunity costs of the loss of environmentally sound projects should be part of the evaluation?
I'll go back to the location of the responsibility. It is a great concern that the responsible minister is the environment minister. I could see there being a lot of tension around the cabinet table if the minister plunks down a negative report on, let's say, the Department of Natural Resources, a true development department.
Obviously, we can't describe what's going to happen around the cabinet table, but can you see that being an area of tension between project proponents, development departments, and the environment minister's office?
It's always a pleasure to have you and your gang here. We really appreciate your work.
I see a lot of consistency in the recommendations you're bringing forward, Commissioner, as you testified more than a year ago, when I wasn't on the committee.
There are a number of things that I find really odd about this bill. It was an opportunity, in fact, to update the law so that the departments and agencies have to assess based on sustainable development, and not the narrow factor of environment. Yet, even in the bill and remaining in the existing act, we still have this inconsistency. Sometimes we're looking at environment and sometimes we're looking at sustainable development, so I appreciate your bringing that to our attention.
I think they should have started over again, but I've made a number of proposals for change. Unfortunately, we can't propose some of the changes you're recommending, because they're not in the bill.
One of the things I find odd is that this bill recommends that Treasury Board be authorized to issue guidelines, and yet section 6 of the act appoints the Privy Council to provide oversight but no power to issue guidelines.
I've noted your previous sensible recommendation that the cabinet directive be entrenched in this act to try to connect the two. It remains a mystery to me that the minister is responsible for sustainable development policy for a whole entity and yet the Privy Council is saying that, for any policy, any directive, any spending, or any decision, you have to do a sustainable development assessment.
Do you think there is a need to take a second look and to bring those two together to have consistency?
:
That may be one way that the cabinet directive can be made binding in law, clearly, through regulations in the act. In all these years that we've had this act, no regulations have ever been issued, so that might be a simple way of addressing this if we can't make the amendments to the act.
I want to thank you for noting some of the missing elements in the principles. The has now said that the UNDRIP will be binding on all decisions of the government, so it's very critical that it also be specifically referenced in here.
Unfortunately, because the government did not come forward to change the provision that appoints a Department of the Environment official to provide the guidance, we can't propose an amendment by the rules of amendment, but certainly that is something you identified previously. When the committee reviewed this act previously, all the other nations seemed to have gone in that direction, so it's a good recommendation. Unfortunately, our hands are tied because of the rules of the statutory process. Hopefully we can have some additional amendments and shift that over.
I think the overall problem remains that, if the environment department is providing the direction, then it will also be seen as this being just about environmental assessment. That shift probably would send the message that when we do a strategy we have to go beyond environment, and we also have to do the socio-economic, but I think until that happens....
You seem to be indicating that, but you continue to make the same very sensible, constructive recommendations. Unfortunately, I think our hands are going to be tied on what amendments we can bring forward. I'd welcome any recommendations within the framework we have of how we might do that. One option might be through regulations that the cabinet issues.
:
At the national level, Canada is the only country that has a commissioner of environment and sustainable development located in the office of the supreme audit institution. There are seven or eight other commissioners of environment and sustainable development at a national level, and they are not found in the audit office.
It's true that in the definition in the Auditor General Act, there is a clause that says that taking care of the needs of future generations is within our mandate. When you're in an audit office, however, you must stick to audit methodology. You must remain objective and deal only with the facts of the audits that you do, so there are advantages and disadvantages to the model. In terms of taking care of the needs of future generations, I would suggest that I could do that by trying to select really good audits that deal with that, but oftentimes, I can't give you an opinion based on 30-odd years of working in this area, because I am in the audit office. There are pros and cons.
The commissioners of environment and sustainable development who are outside the audit office, however, have the disadvantage that it's much easier to say, “Oh, that person's just a greenie, and we can disregard whatever he or she says,” whereas when you're listening to me talk about an audit, I am effectively the auditor general talking about that audit. It's very difficult to dismiss it because we use the exact same methodology as the auditor general.
That was a long and complicated answer to say that it's not clear and that there are both advantages and disadvantages to having the commissioner's office in the audit office. Does that help?
:
I know that back in the 1990s there was a big debate about where the commissioner of environment and sustainable development should be. Should it be a separate officer of Parliament? That was quite a large debate, and the then auditor general, Denis Desautels, argued that it should be in the audit office.
I know that members have asked me throughout the three and a half, almost four years that I've been commissioner what I think about that decision, and I say that it's up to Parliament to decide. I can tell you the advantages and disadvantages of having it in the audit office. There are big advantages to being in the audit office, but it limits me to talking about the audit that I've done. However, I do have the discretion to pick audits.
If the government said, “We're going to meet the needs of future generations,” I guess I could somehow figure how to audit on whether the government is ready to meet the needs of future generations, and to see if we can figure that out. It's not crystal clear. I don't have any specific recommendation. Those of you who have lived with the commissioner for 20 years—
:
Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you, Ms. Gelfand. It is always a pleasure to welcome you here. I always like to discuss things with representatives of the Office of the Auditor General, because I feel safe. I commend your directors and you, and I thank you for being with us.
In your presentation, you spoke of the new principles being proposed. When you speak about principles, these are intergenerational equity, prudence, the polluter pays principle, internalization of costs, openness and transparency, the contribution of aboriginal peoples, collaboration, and a results-based approach.
My question will be very simple, Commissioner. Are we not muddying the waters? Is there not too much here? At a certain point, are we not losing sight of things by casting too broad a net, which may mean that we will not reach our objectives? When we introduce a law, our purpose is to improve it. However, if we ride off in all directions and want to satisfy everyone and every principle, I think we may lose sight of the objectives.
I'd like to hear what you have to say.
:
That is a very interesting question.
Until now, we examined the principles and came to some conclusions.
First, it is sometimes difficult to be very precise. For instance, with regard to the principle of prudence or the polluter pays principle, are we really going to calculate the cost of all the pollution? That is what the polluter pays principle means.
We were somewhat concerned. We thought two things. First, we wondered if we could be more precise in expressing what we wanted to say. That would help.
Secondly, we are going to audit the Federal Sustainable Strategy and the strategies in each department. We will have to audit them with these filters. We are going to examine all of the programs and strategies of the departments and verify whether they incorporated all of these principles into their work. It's a considerable task.
If I were at the Department of Health, for instance, and heard the commissioner say this publicly in front of everyone, I think this might cause some panic, because in my opinion, every department considers that the goal of its sustainable development strategy is simply the greening of government activities. However, it is much broader than that.
And so I will examine the principles. I would like them to be more specific, but I can tell you that we will achieve this. We are not exactly sure of how we will proceed. However, I will ask my colleagues, who are very brilliant, to prepare a methodology that will allow us to audit the federal strategy as well as the departmental strategies.
In another connection, you probably know that I used to sit on the Standing Committee on Public Accounts. I have a lot of respect for the Auditor General, and for you and the members of his team. Once again, I will ask you if you have the necessary means to impose—and I did say “impose”—the need to respect the rules on the departments. The Auditor General, and you, as commissioner, make recommendations. The departments say that they agree with them and indicate that they intend to comply.
Of course after a year, you can verify what has been done or not, but are any sanctions applied? Do the departments have to be accountable?
That is where the problem lies. Everyone here is full of good will.
:
As always, thank you so much for being here. It's always enlightening and enjoyable to have you at our committee.
I want to follow on from Monsieur Godin and Ms. Duncan.
Under the principles, targets are established that are measurable. If we are too prescriptive in that, it doesn't allow the breadth of the ability of our function to measure against those principles. You pointed out there are some departments that are doing a good job with this, and you're able to point to that on the sustainable front. If we're able to have a greater breadth in that ability to measure that, we're able to actually look at certain departments and say, “Okay, they're doing a good job on this and this. They could improve here and here”, and then we can actually use that as the breadth of those best practices, and we can then look at other departments and use those to measure others. We can't think of every scenario or every aspect of sustainability that we need to measure over time as it evolves.
Could you comment on that aspect of it?
I would suggest the committee look quite seriously at the sustainable development goals, including the targets and the indicators, and the Statistics Canada indicators, which are not yet complete. The sustainable development goals, targets, and indicators give you a very good, broad, and full definition of “sustainable development”, including good jobs, infrastructure, innovation, energy, all that kind of stuff. We will be auditing the federal government on whether or not it's achieving very specific targets and indicators of the SDGs. That's part of our sustainable development strategy. Our goal is to try to get as many of both the Auditor General and my audits to look at very specific indicators within the sustainable development goal targets and indicators, and audit against those.
I believe if you're looking for a very big, broad set of indicators and targets, the SDGs could provide that for you. At this point, Stats Canada, I'm going to guess, has maybe around 50% of the indicators at a Canadian level. Once it gets those indicators for all the SDG targets, those will provide a very good framework for identifying whether or not departments, or Canada, are getting to a place of achieving sustainability.
Standardization is an interesting topic. I spent a year on a committee in Alberta where we were working with wetlands and the government wanted a policy. It took us a year to get a definition of what wetlands are, to be able to have something as a criteria.
To get something at grassroots to develop up so people will do more than just a little greening of whatever else, I think is a challenge for you. I'm very familiar with ACT, SAT, MCAT, LSAT and the development of those and input into creating them. It's post-secondary education and developing standardized mechanisms to deal with students. Those are always an extreme challenge. You're talking about, at 20% doing something and 80% not doing something, yet referring to a greening as superficial.
I'm a carrot guy. How do we incentivize an approach? I'm not into the penalty and the hammer because I don't think that gets you what you need or what you want. Accounting has had a long history of centuries of numbers and principles and we're moving into a new area. However, for you to do your job—and you talk about reporting back to parliamentarians and meaningful assessment. I'm saying, what's the meaning of feedback to the departments and staff, so they understand it?
To me, that's the most critical piece. Acts are irrelevant to me. I want those guys in the department to have some meaningful feedback, so they can see how they've changed or what they need to do. To me, that's what an audit is for.
How would you envision developing criteria from the grassroots that are going to be meaningful? I like standardized. I like a common date. You've mentioned a few things, but how would you see this happening?
:
I think that, as the commissioner suggested, this might be a question the Treasury Board Secretariat might be best positioned to answer. What we are required to do is evaluate and examine the contributions that the departmental sustainable development strategies will make to the achievement of the goals of the federal strategy. In so doing, when we're looking at the 26 right now, we have an idea of how we are going to do it. With 90, it becomes a bit more challenging.
What's important is to recognize that we will do that work in the context of the way the strategies are prepared, and we haven't seen them yet.
I think, then, that when the commissioner is talking about standardization, there are two elements. The first is the timing of the reporting. If reports are coming in at different times across the board, it will be difficult for us to grab results, make them comparable, and make the messages clear to everybody. The second part is, as the commissioner mentioned, to have some consistent topics or consistent information coming through.
:
Thank you, with the support of the committee.
We did the study and we made recommendations as a committee to take it up a level and have it go to a higher, over-arching department or government operation that would oversee this. The government has said no, that it would like to have it in the department of the environment.
I'm listening to you say that looking at the socio-economic impact has been standard, that we got that right, but we really haven't been looking at environment. I'm seeing the benefit of having an environment minister making sure that this other piece gets in there, so I'm seeing why the government may be doing what they're doing. I also understand how we made recommendations to take it to another level.
Can you just comment on this? I'm trying to rationalize it in my mind. It's very important to me and to the committee, because we made that recommendation, but I also understand in what way there may be value in the way the government is doing this. I want to get your opinion on the matter.
:
Thank you, Madam Chair.
I'm pleased to have this opportunity to talk about the work that the Treasury Board Secretariat centre for greening government is undertaking to meet the commitment under the federal sustainable development strategy to realize a low-carbon government.
As you know, Bill would formally recognize the leadership role of the Treasury Board Secretariat in greening government operations.
It is important to note that the centre for greening government will complement the leadership role that Environment and Climate Change Canada plays on sustainable development writ large for the Government of Canada.
Specifically, the centre will provide guidance and coordination to departments on the low-carbon government commitment under the FSDS.
[Translation]
The proposed amendments to the Federal Sustainable Development Act would increase the number of organizations that report on the strategy and, therefore, on the low-carbon government commitment of the FSDS. This is consistent with the Centre for Greening Government expanding the inventory it maintains of federal greenhouse gas emissions to cover more departments and organizations.
[English]
Reducing the country's greenhouse gas emissions has been a priority for the Government of Canada. Canada committed to reducing its national emissions by 30% from 2005 levels by the year 2030.
In the 2016-19 FSDS, the Government of Canada committed to leading by example by making its own operations low carbon. The federal government set a target to reduce emissions by 40% by 2030.
Under the pan-Canadian framework on clean growth and climate change, the government also committed to using 100% clean electricity by 2025.
[Translation]
The Centre for Greening Government was established within the Treasury Board Secretariat in the fall of 2016 to meet these low-carbon government commitments.
[English]
The centre has a mandate to track and report on federal emissions, to coordinate the government's overall efforts to green its operations, and to drive results to meet the government's greening objectives.
Earlier this year, we organized two round tables to explore two important topics. The first one was with federal employees on greening government operations to help mobilize employees. The second brought together our partners in business and academia to learn from their experiences in greening procurement and adopting clean technologies.
In July, the centre posted a dataset on the greening government section of Canada.ca showing that the government's GHG emissions were reduced by 19% in 2014-15 from 2005-06 levels. The inventory is made public through the government's open data portal, giving Canadians single-window access to tracking information on the government's emissions.
[Translation]
We are working to further expand this inventory to achieve a more complete picture of federal greenhouse gas emissions and energy use, to gain a better understanding of resources of emissions and identify areas of opportunity to take action. The centre is tabulating emissions reductions from the last two years and will report them as soon as they are available.
[English]
Going forward, we will update the emissions annually, and the data will include more departments and agencies, as well as an expanded scope of activities.
Drawing on the expertise of expert departments such as the National Research Council, Public Services and Procurement Canada, and Natural Resources Canada, the centre is providing guidance to departments on greening real property, fleet, and procurement. Departments are making progress in advancing energy efficiency and low-carbon projects. The largest federal emitter, for example, the Department of National Defence, published its energy and environment strategy and is purchasing renewable energy in Alberta. It's hiring energy managers for its major bases, purchasing energy performance contracts, and greening its administrative fleet.
[Translation]
The second-largest emitter, Public Services and Procurement Canada, is updating the heating and cooling plants that serve the Parliamentary Precinct and other federal buildings, working to make its office space and leases low-carbon and piloting a zero-carbon retrofit in one building.
[English]
By collaborating with the private sector and other stakeholders, the government will implement programs aimed at greening its operations and adopting green technologies, and it will mobilize federal employees to find new ways to reduce our environmental footprint.
Looking ahead, we'll continue reviewing the government's policies to strengthen greening and achieve its low-carbon goals.
[Translation]
The centre looks forward to continuing to work with government departments and agencies to do this.
[English]
Thank you for the opportunity to describe the work of the centre for greening government at the Treasury Board Secretariat and how that contributes to the government's efforts to achieve sustainable development.
[Translation]
I welcome your views, comments and questions.
:
Of course I'm aware of the commissioner's report.
Just to be clear, the centre for greening government is one part of the Treasury Board. Obviously, across Treasury Board, submissions are looked at in all aspects, whether economic, social, environment, or others, but our centre is really focused on greening government operations. There are many parts to Treasury Board Secretariat as well.
Concerning the commissioner's report on strategic environmental assessment, the commissioner recognized that TBS has in place guidance and tools on the SEA. But of course, more is needed; that was clear. Treasury Board thus committed to developing additional guidance for departments to confirm and give clear demonstration that the cabinet directive was considered. We agreed with the commissioner's recommendations.
Your objective for 2030 is 40%, if I understood correctly. That means that from 2005 to 2014, there was a 19% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions from the various departments. The work was well done over the nine-year period. Now you say that the target for 2005 to 2030, so for a 25-year period, is 40%, which means that we have reached the halfway point. Is that correct?
At the national level, you spoke of a 30% reduction from 2005 to 2030. I would like this to be clear, so that we understand each other well and can show that the previous government did good work. Now the centre which was created in 2016 is there to do the follow-up, coordination and research.
Mr. Xenos, with all due respect, I would like to know what the value added is for Canadian taxpayers here. Good work was done in the past, and we are adding a structure to do the follow-up, coordination and research.
Once again, there is nothing concrete. There is nothing that will allow us to reach our objectives faster, which would be desirable. Personally, I am not convinced that this centre will allow us to attain our objectives. Isn't it just an additional administrative structure that will make it harder to reach the objective?
Earlier, the commissioner was here with us. Everyone has the same objective, which is to reduce greenhouse gases, improve our planet, do sustainable development and respect the environment.
But what will this additional structure add to that?
I will begin by providing a few concrete examples.
First, our centre is responsible for the inventory of greenhouse gases emitted by government operations. We address the requests to the departments and develop the definitions, protocols, methodology and so on, in line with all international standards. We are the ones who ask the departments for their inventory, we tabulate the information and publish it. The centre manages all of that to report on our progress in meeting the target.
Secondly, since we have the inventory and the data, we can do an analysis to see exactly where in the departments there are opportunities to reduce greenhouse gases in a more cost-effective manner. We can see where these opportunities are. We can also coordinate activities such as the purchase of electricity. We can gather the right people so that they can coordinate things the government could do better, and see where there are more economies of scale, rather than proceeding one department at a time. Those are a few examples.
In addition, we can bring together the departments that are experts and make sure that we work with them and the client departments—if I can call them that—that have less expertise, but manage a lot of properties, in order to accelerate the adoption of best practices, and the implementation and attainment of the target.
Since we are also at Treasury Board, we can also analyze recommendations and adjust policies that are directly related to greenhouse gases. I am speaking here in particular of policies related to our car fleet or to real estate, for instance. This gives us the opportunity to examine Treasury Board tools at the administrative level and at the government operational level, from the angle of reducing greenhouse gases. Those are a few examples of what we do.
:
In terms of the heritage and greening, for example, those heritage buildings pose a particular challenge, of course, because their heritage aspect is really important, and of course we'd want to preserve that as much as we can. I think the heritage of the Parliament Buildings and of a lot of the things the government owns is critical, and I don't think we want to take anything away from that.
On the other hand, for heritage buildings, as they're older, you can go hand in hand to protect heritage and lower your energy requirements for those buildings. Often, they're quite old, and just a general refurbishment of the buildings or a retrofit keeping their heritage character will get you a lot of carbon emissions savings. Upgrading the water and those facilities will get you a much greener building in the end. I think it's very consistent. I think you can do both.
In terms of the greening government part, we have instruments. In terms of the broader heritage components, my counterpart Ms. Kathleen Owens was here on October 19, and she spoke at length on the heritage considerations. I would defer to her. She would be the expert in that area of heritage and real property. In terms of greening, I think we're okay.
:
From my point of view, if you're talking about the public, people, parliamentarians, and a broad understanding, I think you need a definition for that word, because it's not in this document that we did. There's no definition of the word “greening”. If you're from Saskatchewan, it means the Saskatchewan Roughriders—
Voices: Oh, oh!
Mr. Martin Shields: —and we all bleed green, right? I'm not from Saskatchewan, so....
Words mean things. Without that clear definition, I think it leads to some confusion about what actually it is that you're doing. That would be an encouragement on my part.
When you talked about doing workshops, you said that you did two round tables, one with staff. Can you describe the length of this, where it occurred, and who was involved?
:
Madam Chair, I'll be quick, because I think I'm going to pass my time to Mr. Bossio when I'm done.
We talk about greening government services all the time. I speak about greening government services because I think we need to show some leadership from here.
I'm happy with the success that the country has had with the 19% reduction. Regardless of who was at the helm when this happened, I think this is great. A 19% reduction over 10 years is good, but there's a lot of work to do.
I'd like to focus on your comments about the single-window access to tracking information about the government's GHG emissions. I think Canadians want to know about these success stories, and I don't think we're telling the story well enough.
With regard to Canada.ca, direct us on exactly how we would be able to go in on a regular basis, if someone is sitting at home and wants to do a checkup on our report card.
:
Ultimately you can just google “Government of Canada greenhouse gas inventory”, and it will lead you right there.
I agree with you that dissemination is a key area in which we can always do better. We have put up infographics to make it simpler and clearer on summarizing the data. We've done very clear infographics at a high level, and then we've tweeted the results and used social media. We've also posted the actual data—the inventory of data by department, by province, by year—so that Canadians who wish to can go even deeper into the data and find out exactly how departments are doing and where.
We've tried to span that communication side from high-level infographics to the data sheets of the data, if you will, and used social media to get it out.
Of course, I'm happy to take ideas on how to do better.