Government On-Line

Environment Canada's Mandate and Vision

Environment Canada's e-Commitment

From Commitment to Reality

Enabling our Transformation to e-Government

Contacts

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 Environment Canada On-Line - 2001

Connecting Canadians to their Environment

1. Government On-Line

Modernizing government services is not new to Environment Canada. Over the course of our department's history, we have been at work making services more accessible, more integrated and more meaningful for Canadians. Environment Canada has a long-standing tradition of delivering effective, citizen-focused services and programs to Canadians and has established critical partnerships to make this possible.

Government On-Line is a priority for the Government of Canada and it is a priority for Environment Canada. We are committed to delivering timely, accurate, relevant information and services which respond to what Canadians need and want, when and how they want and need it.

Providing environmental information services on-line is an important way to empower Canadians on environmental issues, enabling Canadians to make environmentally-friendly decisions and to understand how to protect themselves from the environment based on credible and accurate environmental information. We are committed to providing seamless access to environmental information services for our full range of clients and partners, including the Canadian public, Canadian businesses, other government departments, other levels of government, and communities of interest. TOP

2. Environment Canada's Mandate and Vision

The mandate of Environment Canada is to:

• preserve and enhance the quality of the natural environment, including water, air and soil quality
• conserve Canada's renewable resources, including migratory birds and other non-domestic flora and fauna
• conserve and protect Canada's water resources
• carry out meteorology
• enforce the rules made by Canada-United States International Joint Commission relating to boundary waters
• coordinate environmental policies and programs for the federal government (Department of Environment Act).
  Details are available at: EnviroRegs

At Environment Canada, our vision is a Canada:

• where people make responsible decisions about the environment
• where the environment is thereby sustained for the benefit of present and future generations. TOP

3. Environment Canada's e-Commitment

New and emerging technologies are opening additional avenues through which Environment Canada can deliver its mandate and achieve its vision. Different relationships are now made possible by technologies that alter the way people and businesses communicate. Citizens and businesses want easy access to government services through a "single-window", by using self-serve kiosks and the Internet. They also expect improved traditional access through mail, telephone and personal service. Citizens expect to deal with government through the means that are most convenient for them.

At Environment Canada, we have spelled out, in concrete terms, our e-Commitment to Canadians. Simply put, our e-Commitment is as follows:

Our e-Commitment means:

Leadership - being recognized leaders in serving Canadians through the innovative use of technology.
Service - taking an outside in approach; always putting people at the center of what we do - giving Canadians the information, products, and services they want, when and how they want them.
Business Transformation - seizing the opportunity to leverage technology in order to transform the way we conduct our business
Knowledge Management - making integrated knowledge management a priority.
Integration - recognizing that our departmental website is an integrative facility offering a "single window" of access to all of our services and information products.
Alliances - pursuing with passion the creation of new and the enhancement of existing alliances, where it means we can better serve people in a seamless manner.
Delivery Options - recognizing that Canadians will continue to expect services in person, by mail and by telephone, as well as through the Internet.
Citizen Engagement - looking for new ways to consult people about issues of importance to them.

To ensure the effective implementation of our e-Commitment, we have developed an "e-Government Framework" that will be relied upon as our conceptual tool for managing all aspects of e-Government in the department. This framework outlines key elements and sub-elements, accountabilities and targets over the short, medium and long term. TOP

4. From Commitment to Reality

e-Government is fundamentally a "transformative" initiative which, if successful, will lead to better services to Canadians and increased constituency participation. But what exactly will it transform? And how? New technologies are opening up avenues for the transformation of relationships - between public sector institutions and between these institutions and the public. Through the creation of alliances and partnerships, various departments and agencies now have the tools they need to be able to provide their information and services to the intended clients in an integrated way, thereby increasing their relevance and usefulness. These same technologies are also creating a demand for and new ways for citizens to engage, directly or indirectly, in shaping and supporting their governments' goals and priorities as well as becoming involved in the delivery of some programs. In moving forward on its commitment to Canadians, Environment Canada will focus its energy on initiating and implementing initiatives to "transform" its relationships with others and the way it conducts its business to meet e-Government goals. TOP

Better Information Services On-line

Environment Canada's on-line presence is critical in meeting our e-Commitment.

Our departmental website, the "Green Lane", is an important component of this on-line presence, providing a well-established link to the public. It constitutes the primary channel through which the public can access Environment Canada's products and services. Significant effort is being invested in ensuring that this site is responsive to the needs of its users. We are updating its "look and feel", carrying out surveys to better understand who is using the site and what their needs are and focus testing planned improvements to the site to ensure that they do indeed respond to these needs. We are also creating "windows" into various topics of high interest to our users. One example is our initiative to improve weather services to Canadians. Environment Canada is in the process of creating a state of the art weather "single-window" which will provide rapid access to authoritative, real-time weather and environmental information. And we will move beyond simply providing access to our weather services. We will also be making use of available and emerging technologies to actively push severe weather warning messages to first-line emergency responders and the electronic media, thereby better enabling Canadians to protect themselves and their property against the destructive effects of severe weather.

The Environment, Natural Resources, Fisheries and Agriculture cluster on the Canada site, which Environment Canada is developing in partnership with Natural Resources Canada, Fisheries and Oceans Canada, Agriculture and Agri-food Canada and Health Canada, is a further stride along the path of focusing on the needs of citizens rather than on organizational structures. Through this initiative, over time, environmental, social and economic information will be brought together to explain and illustrate how the overall quality of life of Canadians can be improved without sacrificing Canada's rich natural legacy. This cluster will be developed in building blocks. Speed of development and delivery will be dependent on available funds.

Finally, we will be using the Canada site to the greatest extent possible to make our services and products readily available to Canadians where they might be looking for them. We will be seeking opportunities to channel our services through the Canada site through many other subject clusters to ensure seamless access to environmental services and information products. As such, we are adopting a "no wrong door" approach. TOP

Doing Business with Canadians On-line

Environment Canada deals very directly with a number of Canadian businesses and individuals. Whether it is a legislatively regulated enterprise required to notify authorities on new substances or individuals applying for a permit, the department is committed to advancing the availability of these services on the Internet. TOP

One example is our initiative to modernize the National Pollutant Release Inventory. We are actively working on streamlining and integrating the process through which Canadian businesses report information on pollutants and toxins to various levels of government. The objective is to create a secure on-line reporting system and to reduce the processing time and effort required from businesses in meeting their regulatory obligations.

Collaboration and Engagement

Environment Canada will experiment with various tools to engage Canadians on-line regarding environmental issues. We are committed to providing ways for Canadians to involve themselves with the environmental agenda, to make their views known, to provide input into the development of environmental policies and to join with others to influence the quality of their own environment.

One example is the current on-line consultation being carried out to define the Government of Canada's agenda at the 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development. Another example is our use of the Internet as a way of supporting the very direct engagement of Canadians who volunteer under our various "Watch" programs (e.g. IceWatch, FrogWatch, WormWatch).

5. Enabling our Transformation to e-Government

As Canadians reap the benefits of on-line programs and services, it is likely that their expectations for ever more timely and sophisticated information on environmental issues will continue to grow.

Environment Canada's long history of partnering with others is a strong foundation on which it can build to meet these expectations. The key to truly seamless delivery of governmental services and information products to Canadians lies in the creation and enhancement of partnerships and alliances with other government departments at the federal level as well as provincial and municipal governments, universities and non-government organizations. Environment Canada will draw on its long-standing experience in partnering to expand into new forms of alliances to better integrate its science and knowledge with that of others to increase the relevance and quality of its services to Canadians.

The global digital economy is a fact for all of us - citizens, governments and private organizations. Technology changes at an exponential rate. This represents a major challenge for our people who must translate ideas into reality in this fast-paced world. To ensure the relevance of government to its citizens, Environment Canada employees at all levels must think of all they do as a way of responding to what Canadians want and need, in essence, adopting an "outside-in" view of the world. For this to occur, we need to foster a culture of innovation in our department, to invest in learning and to develop tools to better enable our people to turn our e-Commitment into reality.

We recognize that we may not "get it right" the first time, but we are confident that the skill and dedication of our people to this endeavor will ultimately ensure our success.

We also recognize that the department's transformation to e-Government will stand on its information management and information technology infrastructure. This is why, over the past year, Environment Canada has focused on developing a strategy and a multi-year program for restoring this infrastructure across the department and transforming the way it manages its information and its people. As part of the restoration process, over $12 million in investments are planned.

Finally, Environment Canada understands that only by truly transforming its business processes will it achieve major advances in increasing the relevance and integration of its services to clients, and, in doing so, improve their efficiency. Again, this is something to which we are deeply committed. Business or service transformation is a process that takes time and effort. Results will only be achieved through determined effort. TOP

6. Contacts

For general information on the programs and services of Environment Canada, please contact:

Inquiry Centre 351 St. Joseph Boulevard Gatineau, Quebec K1A 0H3 Telephone: (819) 997-2800 or 1-800-668-6767 (Canada) Fax: (819) 953-2225 Email: enviroinfo@ec.gc.ca