Opening Statement to the Standing Committee on
Agriculture and Agri-Food

Great Lakes and St. Lawrence River Basin
(Chapter 1 - 2001 Report of the Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development)

Thank you Mr. Chairman for the opportunity to appear before this Committee. This is my first time appearing before your Committee, and I look forward to many more opportunities. With me are my colleagues John Reed and Peter Morrison.

The position of Commissioner was created in 1995 through amendments to the Auditor General Act. My group has a legislative mandate to audit environmental and sustainable development issues and to track and report on commitments made by departments in their sustainable development strategies. We also have an environmental petition process and have received some petitions on agricultural issues. One of my goals is to raise awareness among Canadians of this process.

I would like to present the key findings from our recent audit of the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence River basin. I plan to give a high-level overview of our main findings as well as some specifics on the portions related to agriculture. Agriculture is central to this story, in part because farm practices can affect the quality of the off-farm environment, but, just as importantly, because the livelihoods of farmers can be affected by their own on-farm practices and by activities in other sectors.

Our audit focussed on the federal government's management of sustainability in the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence River basin for two important reasons:

• the basin is a critical environmental resource for the world; and
• it is home to 16 million Canadians who depend on it for clean air and drinking water, and for personal health, employment, and recreation.

We focussed on four main subject areas—water, species and spaces at risk, fisheries, and agriculture. Our objective was to determine whether the government was meeting its commitments, was applying good management to the issues we examined, and was employing good governance overall. Several federal departments were part of this audit.

Although we focussed on the basin, many of the issues and federal programs we examined are national in scope and thus our findings have potential national implications. I'd also like to note that successful management of sustainability in the basin is not up to the federal government alone. This is an area of shared jurisdiction, and the provinces have a strong role to play, as do other levels of government, industry, farming organizations, scientists, and individuals.

One of the findings of my Report is that there have been some remarkable environmental successes and improvements over the past three decades in the basin. Our audit specifically credits the role of individuals in the federal government for bringing about these improvements.

While some aspects of the basin are improving, according to today's best science others are deteriorating right before our eyes. In the next generation, the basin's Canadian population is projected to grow by three million, and its GDP is expected to be 60 percent higher. The agriculture sector in particular is poised for substantial growth—the federal government supports a target to increase Canada's share of world exports to 4 percent by 2005.

And this brings me to why I am so concerned: The future of the basin is at risk. Federal efforts have lost momentum. The leadership, innovation, science, and diligence that served the basin in the past has diminished. There is an overwhelming sense of complacency and resignation, instead of urgency and inspiration.

Our audit's overall conclusion emphasized four major themes:

• First, important matters are being left to drift. Key domestic and international commitments are not being met due in part to reduced funding to departments. For example, of the $125 million in new funding announced by the Minister of Environment in 1994 to support the Great Lakes action plan, departments received less than 12 percent. The commitments made by the government and the resources allocated to them are out of sync.
• Second, long-term, basin-wide strategies for key threats are missing. There is no coordinated and consistent federal voice on key issues in the Great Lakes and the St Lawrence regions.
• Third, scientific research monitoring and measurement systems are impaired. There are major gaps in the information needed to make quality decisions in areas like wetlands, soils, and fish habitat.
• Fourth, the federal role is changing and waning. The government is not using the authorities and tools it has at its disposal to tackle the tough issues. It relies, increasingly, on partnerships to meet its objectives. Our audit raised fundamental questions about the government's role in overseeing the actions of its partners and in providing assurance that federal and national objectives are being met.

I'd like to now talk more specifically about the agriculture portion of our audit. Over 100,000 farms account for the largest single-use of land in the basin and contribute about 40 percent of the value of agricultural output in the Canadian economy.

At the highest level, farming practices are having effects on the environment that cannot be sustained. To manage the environmental effects of agriculture successfully, many farmers need to improve their practices. But our audit did not focus on farmers; it looked at the role played by the federal government.

Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada spends far more money on agricultural programs such as income support and stabilisation than it spends directly on programs to reduce the environmental effects of agriculture. For example, in 1998-99 it spent $211 million on agricultural programs and $5.4 million on environmental programs. Moreover, agricultural programs can unintentionally encourage farmers to take actions that harm the environment, countering the gains made by environmental programs. We examined the extent to which the Department properly assesses the environmental impacts of its various policies and programs.

We found that the Department has failed to fully meet its obligations to conduct program assessments. We found gaps in compliance with legislative requirements to assess income support programs under the Farm Income Protection Act. For example, the Net Income Stabilisation Account has not been assessed as required. On another note, in 1990 Cabinet directed all departments to assess the environmental implications of new policies and programs—known as strategic environmental assessments. However, we found that the Department has an ad hoc and incomplete approach to this task.

We also examined how Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada is responding to two specific and high-priority issues: soil erosion and management of manure and nutrients. With respect to soil erosion, close to half of Ontario's agricultural soil is at risk of washing away faster than it can form. This has severe potential impacts on a farmer's ability to grow crops, but it is also a serious environmental problem. Ten years of federal and provincial government intervention have slowed the rate of erosion somewhat, but at a rate that could take another ninety years to bring soil losses down to sustainable levels.

Although the Department has set objectives for reducing soil erosion, it has no plan of action to get there. To add to the problem, the scientific information on soil that is essential for good land management is becoming increasingly out of date and less useful. The soil issue demonstrates that sustainable development is as much an economic and social issue as it is an environmental one: How sustainable can farming be if there isn't any soil to grow crops on?

Our audit also examined manure and fertilizer management, in part because Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, Environment Canada, the provinces, and agricultural organizations have placed importance on this issue. The misuse of manure and fertilizer on farmland has damaged the ecosystem in the basin. The problem of how to manage manure and fertilizer safely is getting worse. Nutrients are accumulating in soil on farms, and the environmental impacts, mostly in the form of water contamination, are increasing. On over 30 percent of the farmland in the basin, residual nitrogen levels pose a risk of water contamination. For example, concentrations of phosphorus and inorganic nitrogen at the mouth of the Yamaska River in Quebec are higher than in any other tributary of the St. Lawrence River. The main cause is the growth in livestock production in the watershed—30 percent over the last twenty years. Many of the basin's rivers in south-western Ontario and Quebec have phosphorus concentrations higher than provincial water quality objectives. We concluded that it is time for the government to re-think its approach to this serious problem.

In conclusion Mr. Chairman, our audit clearly shows that the path the federal government is following in the basin is not sustainable and that it has yet to fully adopt sustainable development. The government does have good intentions and good ideas, and many of these are described in the departmental sustainable development strategies. I can tell you that the departments have accepted the accuracy of my Report and have agreed to implement the recommendations directed to them. I am sure that departments would welcome your support in helping them to define and achieve their goals. Your committee may wish to review the actions planned and underway by the department of Agriculture and Agri-Food in response to our recommendations.

Thank you Mr. Chairman and members of the Committee. I look forward to your questions and to continuing this discussion.