Our Great Lakes

PART 1:INTRODUCTION AND BACKGROUND

The current Canada-Ontario Agreement (COA) Respecting the Great Lakes Basin Ecosystem, signed in 2002,expires in March, 2007.  In the fall of 2005, Canada and Ontario launched a Review to inquire into how the current Agreement has worked and how well it has been implemented. Background on the COA and the Review are included in Part 1 of this report.  Part 2 describes the findings and recommendations of the Review.

1.1 THE GREAT LAKES ARE A SHARED RESOURCE

The Great Lakes are magnificent inland seas.  In their basin are large cities with millions of residents, small towns and farm fields, crowded beaches and remote forests, industrial smokestacks and towering rock cliffs.  The five lakes – Superior, Michigan, Huron, Erie and Ontario – hold about 20 percent of all the surface freshwater in the world and stretch east-west more than 1,200 kilometers.  The Great Lakes support a variety of human uses, including drinking water, sewage treatment, shipping, fishing, light and heavy industry, recreation, tourism and power generation. 

The Great Lakes Basin, which includes the rivers, lakes and streams draining into the big lakes and the land around them, covers about 775,000 square kilometers.  The Basin contains many species of fish, plants and wildlife, some rare, a variety of natural habitats.

The economic, social and environmental interests in the Great Lakes Basin are complex and diverse.  So too are the political interests in a lakes system that straddles the border between Canada and the United States.  There are two nations, two provinces, eight states, an array of urban and rural municipalities and several First Nations with a direct stake in the Basin.

With all these interests to be recognized and reconciled, getting things done in the Great Lakes Basin has its challenges.  This is a shared resource, inhabited by 33 million people and counting.  Ensuring that it will still be providing multiple benefits 20 or 50 years from now means that we have to work together today.

For the past 35 years, the governments of Canada and Ontario have cooperated, under a series of formal signed agreements, to restore, protect and conserve the health of the Great Lakes Basin ecosystem on the Canadian side of the border.  These agreements have provided a vehicle for Canada to fulfill commitments under the Canada-United States Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement (GLWQA).

1.2 THE CANADA-ONTARIO AGREEMENT

The 2002 COA notes that since the first Canada-Ontario agreement was signed in 1971, the work accomplished, along with the efforts of residents of the Great Lakes Basin, have contributed to:

• reducing the amount of pollution that enters the Basin;

• improving and protecting the habitat of fish and wildlife;

• working toward the goal of water that is safe to swim in and to drink; and,

• fostering a sense of stewardship throughout the region for the Basin Ecosystem.

Purpose and Vision

The Purpose of the 2002 five-year Agreement is to build on the longstanding commitment of the Parties to restore, protect and conserve the Basin Ecosystem.  It commits the two governments to continue to work in a cooperative, coordinated and integrated fashion with each other and with others in the Basin to achieve the vision of a “healthy, prosperous and sustainable Great Lakes Basin Ecosystem for present and future generations”. 

To achieve the vision, the COA sets out:

• Principles to guide the delivery of programs and initiatives (See next box);
• Annexes to describe the Parties’ response to specific issues, and
• Administrative and management structures and processes for implementation.

Annexes include joint and separate commitments

The four Annexes to the Agreement specify goals and anticipated results and list the actions that have been agreed upon by the Parties.  There are both joint and separate commitments by the two governments (Canada will…  Ontario will…) for activities to achieve the results.  The Annexes encourage collaboration with other levels of government, organizations and Basin residents and information-sharing and knowledge-building.  The four Annexes cover:

• Areas of Concern (AOCs) – cleanup of these locations where environmental quality is degraded and beneficial uses as defined in the GLWQA are impaired;

• Harmful Pollutants – virtual elimination of persistent bioaccumulative toxic substances and significant reduction of other harmful substances within the Basin;

• Lakewide Management – a series of initiatives to address lake-specific ecological problems;

• Monitoring and Information Management – including coordinated federal-provincial scientific monitoring and systematic tracking of environmental change and progress.

Governance and Management

The Agreement provides for a Management Committee, co-chaired by one representative from Environment Canada and one from the Ontario Ministry of the Environment. The Management Committee, which has representatives from all the participating departments and ministries, is responsible for implementation of the Agreement.  The Management Committee established two committees to report to it.

• The Annex Implementation Committee (AIC) coordinates the development and implementation of the work planning process and reports on the progress made under all four Annexes.  The AIC has established four task forces to address specific issues, with the eight federal departments and three provincial ministries that are Parties to the Agreement taking leading or supporting roles in meeting responsibilities for the 181 commitments under the Annexes.

• The Great Lakes Innovation Committee (GLIC) was created to improve cooperation and coordination between governments and interested parties. It includes representatives from municipalities, academia, forestry, fisheries, public health, conservation, industry, and environmental and other interested organizations.  The GLIC is mandated to bring innovative approaches to overcoming barriers and take advantage of opportunities to make progress on the COA goals and results.

Administrative Support

There were two Secretariats established to provide staff support (part-time) to the Management Committee and to the Annex Implementation Committee.  In 2005, the Secretariats were merged into one, which has a staff member from Environment Canada and a staff member from the Ontario Ministry of the Environment.  COA is a part-time work assignment, in addition to other job responsibilities, for both Secretariat staff and Committee members. 

1.3 THE REVIEW'S PURPOSE AND PROCESS

The Canada-Ontario Agreement requires a comprehensive review of the effectiveness of the Agreement in the fifth year.  The COA states:

The review will be completed within six months.  The Parties will consult with the public on the review and make public the findings and outcomes of the review 60 days thereafter.

The review must be completed by March 2007. The Management Committee is responsible for the review.  The Agreement makes the Management Committee accountable for “conducting ongoing evaluations of the administration and implementation of the Agreement as well as promoting any actions needed for continuous improvement.”

Part of the comprehensive review is an evaluation of the Purpose of the Agreement and of the effectiveness and efficiency of the administrative processes established by the Management Committee to fulfill its responsibilities for implementation.  According to the Terms of Reference for the Review:

The first step in this evaluation is to gather information and experiences about implementation since 2002 from the Parties, their partners in delivery, and Great Lakes Basin stakeholders. The results would be analyzed and distilled to generate an initial report card on implementation of the current Agreement, which would provide a basis for efforts to develop recommendations for improvement in subsequent agreements.

An internal Review Team of Program Coordinators not involved in COA was created to manage this objective Review.  An independent consulting firm (Ogilvie, Ogilvie & Company) was retained to design and conduct the Review. 

The Review process included the following:

Survey of Internal and External Participants – A set of questions was designed to solicit information and opinions on COA from a cross-section of participants, including:

• Staff from the federal and provincial government departments and ministries that are Parties to the Agreement (Internal Survey).

• Selected staff of environmental and other non-government organizations (NGOs), municipalities, the private sector, academic institutions and others (External Survey). 

The response rate was 52% on the Internal Survey and 46% on the External Survey.  A survey software package was used to capture and analyze responses from 63 internal and 42 external participants during December 2005 and January 2006.

Analysis of Other Agreements and Mechanisms – Other international and federal-provincial agreements, as well as evaluations and audits of related programs by Auditors and Environmental Commissioners at both levels of government, were examined with a view to assessing best practices in governance and implementation.  This work has provided a further basis for evaluating the current COA and for offering advice to improve the next COA.

Interviews and Focus Groups – In January and February of 2006, about a dozen in-depth interviews were conducted with a cross-section of people who have considerable experience with the COA and in Great Lakes management in general.  The interviewees included senior public servants from federal and provincial agencies, academics, and representatives of NGOs.  There were asked for their input on the survey findings and their thoughts on implications for the future of the COA. 

In addition, four focus groups were held to encourage discussion of the results of the survey and other issues of concern among people involved and engaged at both the management and project delivery levels.  Almost 100 people participated in this part of the Review.  The range of participants included:

• senior government managers responsible for COA programs,

• lake managers,

• local program coordinators,

• scientists from all levels of government, and

• representatives of NGOs that are involved with the Great Lakes. 

There was some overlap among survey respondents and participants in the interviews and focus groups.  Overall, close to 200 people gave generously of their time to provide thoughtful comments and advice to inform this report.

Reporting – After public consultation to gather comments and feedback on an Interim Report, a Final Report will be submitted to the COA Management Committee. 

Appendices provide more in-depth information on the Review, including:

• Appendix A – The Survey Instrument

• Appendix B – The Survey Data

• Appendix C – Interview and Focus Group Questions

• Appendix D – List of interviewees and other contributors to the Review.

• Appendix E – Summary of research.

Focus of the Review

In producing this initial report card on the 2002 COA, the Review explored with participants whether they felt the COA partnership is helping to realize the vision of a “healthy, prosperous and sustainable” ecosystem for present and future generations and how a new COA could be made more effective and efficient in reaching desired objectives for the Basin ecosystem. 

Participants were asked a series of questions which are documented in the Appendices of this Report.  In general, the questions were to learn participants’ views on the following:

• Is the COA making a difference to the Great Lakes Basin environment?

• Does the Purpose of the Agreement continue to make sense in terms of current conditions, needs or problems?

• What are the major challenges and opportunities for improving the effectiveness and/or efficiency of Agreement?

• Are the goals and results clear to the people who are challenged to reach them?

• Do the actions that the governments have agreed to implement help achieve the goals?

• Do the decision-making structures and processes set up under the COA work well?

• Do the Parties to the COA coordinate what they do? 

• Do they work well with other partners?

• Are stakeholders satisfied with their involvement?

• How well are the Parties anticipating and responding to change?

This Review did not conduct an evaluation of the outcomes or results of the projects that have been carried out under the auspices of the Agreement since 2002 (i.e. which actions resulted in what outcomes?)  The reasons have to do with timing. 

The COA has a five-year timeline and some of the work will not be completed until next year.  In the meantime, the projects undertaken as part of the commitments under the COA are being tracked by the Annex Implementation Committee, which reports to the Management Committee.  A COA Progress Report was issued for 2002-03.  A report covering 2004-05 is being prepared. 

But even when the current Agreement expires in 2007, it will be some time before it will be possible to evaluate the outcomes of some of the initiatives carried out during this five-year period.  It may be several years into the future before the outcomes of a rehabilitation program, for example, take hold in the natural environment. 

In examining the implementation of the Agreement, the reviewers felt it was important to distinguish between the role of governance and the role of management or administration.  For guidance, the reviewers turned to the Institute on Governance, a non-profit organization promoting good governance in Canada and abroad.  It provided the following definitions.

Work: Performing the tasks to fulfill the mission.

Governance: The interface with stakeholders, the source of strategic decisions that shape the organization and its work, and ultimate accountability for the work and actions of the organization.

Management: The link between governance and work.  The organization of tasks, people, relationships and technology to get the job done.     (Institute on Governance at www.iog.ca)

The Institute notes that, in theory, divisions between these roles are clear; in practice, they tend to become blurred or confused or disappear altogether.  “The real danger is not the mixing of these roles, but unclear definition of responsibilities and lost lines of accountability.” 

For accountability, the Panel on Accountability and Governance in the Voluntary Sector, provided a helpful description in its 1999 report, Building on Strength.  The Panel defined accountability as: “the requirement to explain and accept responsibility for carrying out an assigned mandate in light of agreed upon expectations. The application of accountability involves:

• taking into consideration the public trust in the exercise of responsibilities;

• providing detailed information showing how responsibilities have been carried out and what outcomes have been achieved; and

• accepting the responsibility for outcomes, including problems created or not corrected by an organization or its official and staff.” (p. 11)

These concepts are discussed further in the relevant context in Part 2 of this report.