Opening Statement to the Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development

Canada's Implementation of the Kyoto Protocol

17 May 2005

Johanne Gélinas,
Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development

Mr. Chairman, thank you for inviting us here today. Joining me are Neil Maxwell and Richard Arseneault, both Principals responsible for our work on climate change, and Bob Pelland, the director responsible for several of our past audits related to climate change.

First, let me compliment the Committee on the thorough and diligent way you have pursued the issues surrounding climate change. My staff and I have been following the hearings with interest, and it is a privilege to come before you today with some summary comments.

We have decided to devote our entire Report in 2006 to the subject of climate change. Therefore, we too have been seeking information and the views of key people, as well as monitoring these hearings. The combination of your work and our meetings will help us to make decisions on what to audit for 2006. I will tell you what I can today about the architecture of the 2006 Report, but, as you will appreciate, I cannot be too specific. We have not yet made final decisions, and of course, we have no audit results to report.

Based on testimony to your Committee and our own research, we have identified a series of key questions on the climate change issue. Some we will be able to tackle in the 2006 report.

Among these questions are the following:

1. Are the government’s climate change plans based on solid data and analysis?
2. Is the government making the best use of all the tools at its disposal to deal with climate change, including economic instruments and regulations?
3. Does the government know if its tools are working and if results are cost-effective? For its various climate change initiatives, is it setting clear expected results, gathering information on actual results, reporting those results, and adjusting programming where necessary?
4. Is the government learning from the experiences of other countries?
5. Who is in charge? Are all key departments (such as Finance, Industry, Agriculture, NRCan, Transport as well as Environment Canada) doing their part on climate change? Do they have clear roles and the tools and authority they need? Does the government know how it will co-ordinate action among departments and with other levels of government?
6. With the emphasis of government spending on emissions reduction, i s the government also identifying and addressing the risks that require adaptation to climate change? Even the most wildly successful emissions-reduction program is not going to quickly stop, let alone reverse, the changes now underway.

The climate change audits in 2006 will be the first time my team has devoted an entire report to a single subject. In each of the 2006 audits, we will look at the data, the dollars spent to date, and the results. The experience of other countries can be used to identify best practices. We will try to include the government’s strategies and policies, the barriers and success factors, the tools available, and the use of the chosen tools. The government’s response to our previous recommendations, as well as its performance on commitments made to petitioners under the environmental petitions process, will also figure in the audits. Finally, we will look at progress with regards to climate change commitments made in sustainable development strategies from government departments. Several months ago, I provided the Committee with a listing of these commitments, and the list is long.

We will try to tell a single story focussing on results, through a series of audits. One audit would examine the federal government’s overall management of the climate change file, including issues like planning, funding, and co-ordination. Another audit would examine climate change impacts and adaptation, including monitoring, research, and risk management. Of course, we will also be looking at emissions reduction programs, focussing on both energy production and consumption. Over 80 percent of Canadian greenhouse gas emissions, according to published government data, relate to energy, and energy initiatives are key to lowering the carbon dependency of our economy.

The work of this Committee has assisted us in focussing our work, and we anxiously await the report of the Committee following these hearings to further assist us in this task. In turn, I hope that our comments and particularly our questions concerning analysis, results, tools, and leadership roles will be of help to the Committee in developing its report. I will add one further thought: your committee may wish to request status updates—say every six months—from departments as a means to hold them accountable for action on this key file. This would be useful to all of us.

This concludes my opening statement; we welcome any questions that the Committee may have. I would also appreciate any suggestions of issues we could examine in our climate change audits.