Description
Clear, consistent, and integrated departmental policy advice, coordinated
interactions with partners and stakeholders and effective communication are
important tools to help Environment Canada deliver on its mandate and
commitments.
Environment Canada is leading the development of federal strategies to
integrate environmental sustainability into government-wide policy priorities in
a concrete manner. As part of this work, the Department is advancing a policy
framework that recognizes the inextricable linkages between the environment, our
economic competitiveness, and the health of Canadians.
Environmental Canada's work to develop a unified departmental policy approach
is organized into two program areas:
- Integrated policy advice, communications and information strategies enable
effective decision-making; and
- Partnerships with other governments and partners are effectively managed
in support of environmental priorities.
Plans and Priorities
Over the next three years, Environment Canada plans to focus on:
- Achieving departmental coherence in delivering and communicating
environmental policy and program outcomes. Work will include developing
strategic plans for the Department's science and technology; developing an
international environment framework; developing a natural capital framework
and a health framework, communicating environmental policy and program goals
and outcomes to target audiences; conducting policy research and leading on
the development of a federal sustainable development strategy; working
interdepartmentally toward better-integrated federal science and technology;
and advancing the competitiveness and environmental sustainability framework
as a means to integrate, guide, and promote the federal government's
environmental agenda.
- Improving how Environment Canada engages provincial and territorial
governments, stakeholders, and citizens in policy development and sustainable
actions. The Department plans to advance the development of a national
approach through collaboration with provinces and territories to achieve
results; develop a strategy and tools to systematically and consistently
engage key stakeholders in policy development and environmental education;
develop a sector table strategy; and effectively communicate the strategic
environmental framework to Canadians.
- Advancing a Canadian environmental sustainability indicators initiative as
a first component of a broader state-of-the-environment indicator and
information strategy and moving forward on national environmental objectives
as core policy tools to guide long-term departmental priority-setting and
specific policy deliverables.
- Delivering analytical and evidentiary support to demonstrate explicit
linkages between the environment and the economy to allow for informed
decision-making on environmental issues and the building of a
policy-research-communications strategy to proactively communicate important
environmental information to Canadians.
Planning Context
Integrated policy advice, communications, and information strategies enable
effective decision-making
A key priority is to improve the coordination of the existing but dispersed
policy capacity of the Department in order to work more effectively and bring
department-wide perspectives and scientific evidence to bear on all major policy
work. Increased focus will be placed on policy research and economic analysis,
and on strengthening the linkages between science and policy.
Better coordination and strategic direction for Environment Canada's
education and engagement activities is also an important priority. Emphasis will
be placed on particular target groups (such as consumers, small and medium sized
enterprises, youth, educators, and communities) where greater return can be
expected by understanding their needs and challenges, and working to address
them. Key partners will be identified and approached, in particular those that
are better positioned than Environment Canada to deliver education and
engagement activities because they have deeper and broader reach.
Environment Canada's indicator related work is being repositioned to provide
better management of environmental and environmentally-related data within the
Department; enhanced comparability of the available data and the mechanisms by
which that data is available; and data and information that is more relevant to
departmental priorities and indicators that can be used to communicate
environmental implications to citizens, policy-makers and decision-makers. The
Department will continue to develop the partnerships, principles, and
technologies required to integrate disparate environmental data and information
in a consistent, credible, and timely manner.
Relations with other governments and partners are effectively managed in
support of environmental priorities
Environment Canada doesn't achieve environmental outcomes on its own. A more
consistent approach within and amongst governments and collaborative
partnerships with other governments will help the Department deliver more
effectively on its mandate. This program area focuses on managing partnerships
and working relationships with provincial and territorial governments,
protecting and promoting Canada's environmental interests internationally and
engaging stakeholders.
Environment Canada's partnerships and consultations work is aimed at
transforming our relationships with key stakeholders (including NGOs, business
leaders, the financial community, academia, and the general public) and
advancing constructive consultations and participation in Environment Canada
priorities. This includes: having clear polices and guidelines to inform the
consultations Environment Canada does in developing programs and policies;
providing logistical and analytic support to one of Environment Canada's main
consultative vehicles, Sector Sustainability Tables; and a new strategy on how
we engage with a key partner in sustainability – Aboriginal Peoples.
Many planned activities are new for Environment Canada and stem directly from
the Department's vision of helping Canada to build a globally competitive and
sustainable economy. Realizing this vision means integrating environmental
decision-making into all aspects of our economy. This level of integration will
require all players to be more engaged in sustainable development policy
development and implementation. The Department's agenda commits the Government
to improve its decision-making structures and give stakeholders a more coherent
agenda around which to engage, thus reducing conflicting policy signals and
burdensome demands on stakeholders time and resources. Effective partnerships
and consultations provide critical vehicles for advancing departmental
priorities, many of which are best achieved in close cooperation with external
economic and societal players.
The oversight and coordination of federal/provincial/territorial relations is
key to supporting the implementation of Environment Canada's agenda both on a
national basis and on a regional or bilateral basis within a national context.
Because provinces and territories share responsibility for environmental
management with the federal government, their active engagement is essential to
ensure the successful implementation of policy across Canada. Strong
relationships and close communication with each province and territory are
instrumental to working constructively and achieving common goals in an
efficient manner. Work under this program is being repositioned to focus on the
most important departmental priorities and to provide a more consistent
departmental approach to intergovernmental affairs.
Description
Integrated and effective corporate services help Environment Canada deliver
on its mandate. The Department is continuing to transform the way it does its
business in order to be better positioned to play the central role it was given
by Parliament to coordinate the policies and programs of the Government of
Canada with respect to the preservation and enhancement of the quality of the
natural environment. Environment Canada's internal transformation agenda helps
the Department deliver on its goal to protect the health of Canadians, preserve
our natural environment and strengthen Canada's long-term competitiveness.
Environment Canada is putting significant effort into repositioning its
enabling programs and services in order to better support results-based
management and internal governance changes in a way that allows the Department
to successfully address the environmental priorities of Canadians. This work is
organized into two program areas:
- High quality corporate services and advice enable the Department to meet
its strategic objectives.
- Strategic management support enables the Department to meet its
objectives.
Plans and Priorities
Over the next three years, Environment Canada plans to:
- Establish a viable foundation for its enabling programs and services, with
a focus on high-risk areas in human resources, finance, administration, and
IM/IT. Environment Canada continues to build management and staff capacity in
human resources, finance, administration and IM/IT so that corporate functions
can build internal capacity, appropriately assist other parts of the
Department and implement strategies to address the immediate capacity
concerns. This work is expected to include implementing strategies to address
critical departmental risks including better recruitment and retention plans,
training for enabling staff and departmental managers, and implementation of a
one-department approach for the provision of core services.
- Ensure the delivery of essential financial, administrative, human
resources, corporate management, and information management and information
technology services to address mission critical, operational and key
governance needs across Environment Canada. Work to support the greening of
federal government operations and the government-wide Corporate Administrative
Shared Services (CASS) initiative are also priorities.
Planning Context
The Department is continuing with its process of transformation that will
enable it to fully plan, manage, and report by results. The transformation has
involved the re-definition of the results structure (Program Activity
Architecture), the establishment of new management structures and processes, and
the re-structuring of the organization.
These changes promote integrated management and decision-making in the
context of a clearer view of results and strategic direction. Financial and
human resources are clearly linked to results through a planning process that
connects capacity to work. Performance information will support informed
departmental decisions and transparent and balanced public reporting.
Results in this area are aimed at transforming Environment Canada's
management framework in order to strengthen control and accountability, provide
high quality service, support and systems related to governance and program
delivery, and support key departmental and government-wide management
initiatives. The Department's corporate services activities are organized as
follows:
- Corporate management and planning support departmental progress on
results;
- Financial management frameworks are established and high quality financial
services are provided;
- Administration and assets management enable effective, efficient and
accountable departmental activities;
- Information and technology are managed as critical enabling assets; and
- Human resources are managed effectively and strategically in support of
departmental objectives.
Department-wide Services
Planning
Environment Canada has significantly revised and improved its overall
approach to planning. The former decentralized approach has given way to a
centralized "one-department" approach that aligns planning, priority-setting and
resource allocation functions to the new Program Activity Architecture. The
revised approach significantly enhances the overall transparency of proposed
plans and priorities enabling senior executive direction, engagement, and
strategic decision-making.
The planning process incorporates corporate planning and decision-making and
ensures that internal decision-making on priorities is aligned to annual
reporting to Parliament through the Report on Plans and Priorities (RPP). Senior
managers undertake business planning through results-based committees and teams.
Managers at all levels from across the Department are engaged in the process to
ensure consistent application of planning and reporting requirements. National
management meetings are held to provide opportunities for managers to work
through significant planning tasks on a collaborative basis.
An important focus of the planning process is to fully integrate the
financial planning, human resource planning, and business planning. The
Department's human resource capacity has been aligned along functional lines
through the organizational structure to bring together communities of practice
and build collective skills and expertise. The planning of work is done through
a series of projects defined through the results structure. The planning process
provides the means to connect the skills and expertise of people from across the
Department with the work project where those skills are needed and can best be
used. The allocation of financial resources to work projects according to
priority completes the integration of the planning process. Management tools
have been developed and are being deployed to facilitate the integrated process.
These tools help identify skill needs and gaps at a working level for business
planning. They also provide the means to identify longer-term skills development
and recruitment needs and support the development of strategic human resource
plans. The management tools also will provide for the planning and tracking of
financial, HR, and results related information across the results management
structure.
Information Management and Information Technology (IM-IT)
The IM-IT function in Environment Canada is presently in the midst of moving
from a decentralized operational structure where associated resources were
embedded in program areas to one in which the large majority of our IM-IT staff
work under the direction of a Chief Information Officer (CIO). The objective in
making this change is to provide more effective, efficient and equitable levels
of IM-IT services to all areas of program delivery across the Department, and to
develop the capacity needed to provide coherent, authoritative and trusted
information systems needed to achieve Government and departmental objectives.
Management efforts in this domain will be directed towards re-alignment of
our IM-IT resources to ensure the best outcomes from existing and evolving
technological capacities. They will also be highly focused on ensuring that
Environment Canada's data and information holdings can be and are treated as
critical departmental assets. This will involve providing leadership in
Information Management through the development of an integrated IM plan for the
Department, by developing and promoting policies and best practices for the
management of information, and implementing and maintaining technologies to
support the function.
Another key area of focus will be ensuring that the informatics systems used
in support of our mission critical and other service support requirements
continue to operate without interruption. This will be particularly true for the
systems used on a 24-7 basis in support of weather prediction, environmental
emergency response, etc given their direct link to the safety and well-being of
Canadians. A prime example of such a system is the Departmental supercomputer
and related infrastructure used in the production of weather warnings and
forecasts.
IM-IT remains a key enabler of program delivery in all strategic outcome
areas through the provision of email, processing data storage and network
infrastructure and the development and maintenance of software tools to
facilitate data and information collection, analysis and dissemination.
Ongoing investment will be required to support the existing infrastructure as
well as to respond to new work requirements and evolving technologies being
introduced in the workplace. The ongoing development of a comprehensive IM-IT
architecture will help in guiding these efforts as it will help in adopting and
utilizing consistent policies, standards and technologies that are compliant
with those in use in the Government of Canada. The architecture will be
supplemented by other efforts to ensure the efficient and effective application
of IM-IT in the Department. These efforts include a software management board
along with new "greening" policies to promote the effective use and life cycle
management of IT while reducing the potential negative environmental impacts
associated with that use. Through these policies, we hope to establish
Environment Canada as a leader in this area.
Legal Services
The Department of Justice is responsible for the legal affairs of the
Government as a whole and for providing legal services to individual departments
and agencies. Services provided by Justice Canada include providing legal
advice, preparing legal documents, drafting legislation, regulating or
conducting litigation, and overseeing the legal mechanisms used to achieve the
overall objectives of the Government.
Justice Canada provides legal services to Environment Canada primarily
through Environment Canada's Legal Services Unit (Environment Canada Legal
Services). Justice Canada also provides services through its Environmental
Drafting Services Section, the Federal Prosecution Services and other units
located at Justice Headquarters and in the regions.
High-quality legal advice enables Environment Canada to take decisions that
are based on a thorough understanding of its legal authorities and relevant
legal risks. Legal Services is committed to deliver results by ensuring that
Environment Canada has access to appropriate levels of legal expertise; by
identifying primary legal risks to the Department; and by making legal training
available to Environment Canada officials where needs arise.
Like Environment Canada's other corporate functions, Environment Canada Legal
Services is moving towards a "one-department" model with the aim of providing
effective and efficient legal support of departmental priorities and objectives.
Audit and Evaluation
Audits and evaluations are used to improve the effectiveness and efficiency
of departmental policies, programs, and management. The November 2004 Report of
Auditor General outlined the need to improve the quality of the internal audit
function across Government and a new government-wide Policy on Internal Audit
came into effect on April 1, 2006. The TBS Evaluation Policy requires
departments to evaluate programs, policies and initiatives, to use a risk-based
planning approach in identifying projects, to use structured and disciplined
approaches in carrying out evaluations, and to ensure the four key evaluation
issues are addressed (i.e., relevance, success, cost-effectiveness, and design
and delivery).
Audits and evaluations are particularly important in the context of the
implementation of the new governance framework. To reflect a stronger commitment
to the audit and evaluation functions across the federal government, internal
audit and evaluation has been bolstered to ensure a comprehensive audit and
evaluation program based on sound risk analysis of all departmental activities.
To accomplish this, the Department is renewing and strengthening the capacity of
the audit and evaluation function to ensure it is well-positioned to provide
assurance and advice to senior management.
Integrated Departmental Enforcement
Environment Canada's policy and program initiatives require credible
backstops to compel compliance with the law where voluntary behaviour change
encouraged through program incentives, education and compliance promotion is not
occurring, or not meeting identified goals. A credible capacity to enforce
regulations and legislation in a fair, predictable and consistent manner is
required to protect Canadians and the environment, and ensure a level playing
field for those subject to regulation.
Enforcement activity is aligned with Environment Canada Program Activities of
"Biodiversity is Conserved and Protected" and "Risks Posed by Pollutants or
Other Harmful or Dangerous Substances in the Environment are Reduced."
An immediate priority is to continue with the integration of two previously
distinct enforcement programs while ensuring that enforcement activities
continue to be delivered to the highest standards. In the medium term, progress
will be made towards the establishment of a more effective and efficient
environment and wildlife protection law enforcement function in fulfillment of
statutory requirements under the Acts administered by the Department.
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