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Report of Seminar on
National Enforcement Management Information System
and Intelligence System- NEMISIS
September 14-17, 2004 – Gatineau, Quebec
From September 14-17, 2004, officials from Chile and Canada met in Ottawa
to discuss the potential implementation of some features and technical
aspects of Canada’s National Enforcement Management Information
System and Intelligence Systems (NEMISIS) in Chile. To this end, Ms.
Cecilia Soto and Mr. Gonzalo Asencio, officials of the Chilean CONAMA,
visited Canada. These meetings are part of the cooperative activities
under the theme “Public Participation in Environmental Management” of
the 4th work programme of the Canada-Chile Commission on Environmental
Cooperation.
CONAMA’s officials had the chance to continue their analysis of
the feasibility of transferring the NEMISIS platform to Chile. During
the visit they had the chance to learn more about the design and use
of NEMISIS.
Canada’s National Enforcement Management Information System and
Intelligence Systems (NEMISIS) is an electronic information data base
for tracking and managing the department’s enforcement activities
under federal environmental and wildlife legislation enforced by Environment
Canada (EC). As a management tool, NEMISIS can be used to monitor trends,
set priorities and prepare regular and special purpose reports. It is
available to inspectors, investigators, wildlife officers and managers
to record all pertinent information related to occurrence reports, inspections
and investigations.
Mr. Agustí Bordas-i-Cuscó, member of the International
Relations directorate at Environment Canada, initiated the afternoon
session by explaining the purpose of the NEMISIS seminar and giving the
opportunity to all attendants to introduce themselves.
Mr. Gonzalo Asencio followed Mr. Bordas-i-Cusco’s opening remarks
by giving a short presentation on the Current System for Managing Enforcement
Information currently in operation in Chile.
Mr. Chris Free from the Enforcement Support Division gave a general
overview of Environment Canada’s Enforcement Program, covering
issues such as: Federal legislations regulated by EC; overview of enforcement
(inspection/investigation) processes; and, finally, Ms. Lynn Walters
from Information Management Services Division presented how NEMISIS is
used to follow the enforcement processes. In the last part of the session,
Ms. Katherine Blais, Manager of Information Management Systems at Environment
Canada, gave a presentation on the Impacts of NEMISIS on Enforcement
at Environment Canada. Ms. Blais explained the state of information management
prior to NEMISIS and compared it to the current state of the information
management with NEMISIS.
On Wednesday morning, Ms. Walters, provided a demonstration on how the
NEMISIS application works. Discussions were around different features
of the application; mainly on the collection and reporting of companies.
In the afternoon, Mr. Shawn Leafloor from Information Management Services
Division presented a technical overview of NEMISIS. An in-depth explanation
of the data model and software components was provided. By the end of
day, a standalone demonstration copy of NEMISIS was prepared and installed
onto a laptop for Mr. Ascencio.
On Thursday morning, September 16, Mr. Jonathan Gee from Information
Management Services Division presented on the challenges of bringing
in disparate data sources. Mr. Martin Brassard from Systems and Integration
Directorate and Ms. Katherine Blais gave a presentation on system hardware,
software and the infrastructure. Later on, the Chilean officials had
the chance to visit the IT operation rooms where the Terminal Server
and SQL Servers were hosted.
In the afternoon, Mr. Charles Burgeons from Systems and Integration Directorate
provided an overview of the wide area network used by Environment Canada.
In the last session on Thursday, Ms. Jennifer Bernt, from Regional Support
Services Division, gave a presentation on inspections and investigations
techniques and how informatics applications are used to support the enforcement
program. She discussed in depth, the procedures that follows in conducting
inspections and investigations.
On Friday, September 17, Katherine Blais gave a presentation on Business/Administrative
aspects which included identifying user requirements to the development
process touching on resource and financial requirements as well as training
requirements in terms of planning, designing and delivering. Mr. Chris
Free, as Head of the national Environmental Protection Intelligence Program,
provided a presentation on how EC’s Intelligence program functions
and on the use of the “Watson” application as a tool for
analysing information and transforming it into intelligence. In the afternoon
session, Ms. Nadine Levin, Policy Specialist at National Programs, offered
a glimpse into Canada’s legal framework for enforcement.
The week long set of seminars was concluded with closing remarks made
by Ms. Katherine Blais, Manager of Information Management Systems at
Environment Canada. The Chilean delegation presented the specific areas
for which further exchange of information would be beneficial to their
endeavours. Nadine Levin on behalf of the Enforcement Branch presented
token gifts to the Chilean delegation.
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