Annex B:
Consultations and Issue Scan

The process: internal and external consultations

For the Department of Justice, as for other central agencies whose legislative mandate does not directly include an environmental subject matter, the SDS exercise needed first to raise awareness among employees about sustainable development before it could elicit input and receive endorsement of an SD Strategy text.

Accordingly, to inform and invite input from the broadest possible range of Justice employees, the following information documents were e-mailed to every Justice employee:

1. a message from the Deputy Minister of Justice (No. 232 97- 06-13) which clearly demonstrated senior management commitment to prepare an SDS for Justice;

2. a note from the Chair of the department's SDS Working Group which defined sustainable development and gave examples of actions (Info Justice No. 388 97- 06-18); and

3. an overview document by the departmental SDS Co-ordinator (Info Justice No. 390 97-06-20) which served: (a) to inform employees about sustainable development and what the Department of Justice needed to do about it; and (b) to invite and enable employees to indicate how they could contribute through their work.

Internal consultations were conducted on two separate tracks: (1) within the Corporate Management Sector, managers of materiel, information and staffing focused upon technical aspects of 'greening' operations and procurement; and (2) the more conceptually challenging task of linking sustainable development principles to the wide range of the Department's policies and programs and the legal and administrative work of employees was the subject of numerous information presentations, focus groups, and communications from the SDS Co-ordinator and SDS Working Group members.

To inform and receive endorsement from senior management, presentations and updates were made to the departmental Operations Committee (April, July 16, October 22, 1997), Policy Sector (June 10, Sept. 30, 1997, October 31, 1997), and to interested sectoral managers. Senior management discussed the possibility of linking the SDS and the departmental Business Plan in the future.

The Deputy Minister asked each Departmental Sector Head to designate representatives of the various services and divisions of their sector and all of the Regional Offices to provide input on the SD Strategy. From the wide dissemination of the above communications within the Department, numerous designates and volunteers participated in focus groups to scan the issues, set objectives, and propose actions. Participants also provided e-mail reactions to the issue scan and proposed elements of the SDS in the main 'consultation' document of June 20, 1997 entitled: Towards a Sustainable Development Strategy for Justice--Consultation Document. Follow-up documents were distributed at presentations, focus groups, and upon request.

External consultations were commenced after the internal consultations in July and August 1997 yielded emerging roles and actions for the Department of Justice (see the Issues and Actions section, below). At the invitation of the Canadian Bar Association (CBA), a presentation to the National Environmental Law Section of the CBA on August 26, 1997 elicited interest from lawyers in private and public practice. Feedback included a call for practical, tangible actions, including a call for collaboration between the Department and the CBA to develop a publication linking sustainable development principles with law reform proposals.

Legal experts in sustainable development were identified and requested to give their own recommendations on what role the law generally, and the Department of Justice specifically, could play to advance sustainable development in practice. The SDS coordinator interviewed selected professors of law and other relevant fields at various universities (Dalhousie, Ottawa, Montreal, Victoria, UBC, Alberta and Calgary). He also contacted non-governmental organizations with a known interest and expertise in the field, including the West Coast Environmental Law Association (WCELA), the Canadian Environmental Law Association (CELA) and the Environmental Law Centre (Edmonton). Information and some comments were also received from a number of contacts in international organizations, such as the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD, Winnipeg), the Commission on Environmental Cooperation (NAFTA/ CEC, Montreal), the Commission for Environmental Law of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN/ CEL, Switzerland), the World Bank and Global Environment Facility (GEF, Washington, DC, USA), and United Nations Environment Program (UNEP).

Much of the academic literature on sustainable development is in English, but an international colloquium held in Jonquière, Québec, September 10-14, 1997 served conveniently to publicize the federal government's SDS initiative, and to gather information published in French to better inform and elicit feedback from the francophone members of the Department.

Further external presentations were made during the annual meeting of federal and provincial government lawyers working in environmental law, held in Edmonton, Alberta, September 24-25, 1997. Like other professional meetings, this will serve as the first step in an iterative process of consultation and input, with numerous provincial colleagues interested in learning from and eventually following the federal initiative.

Within the federal government, the Department's SDS process benefited from advice from colleagues in other departments and from information provided by the Office of the Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development at various venues. A draft with the main elements of Justice's SDS objectives and proposed actions was presented to the Interdepartmental SDS Network on September 29, 1997, with an invitation for feedback. Revised drafts were sent to interested SDS coordinators after a second presentation to the SDS Network on November 4, 1997.

External consultations with the Department's clients were facilitated by the fact that Departmental Legal Services Units (DLSUs) are collocated with their client government departments which they serve. Thus, participants in the Justice SDS exercise could contact client staff to ascertain potential requirements for DLSU assistance on legal issues arising from the clients' SD plans. Networking with other SDS officers revealed potential roles for the Department of Justice, including interdepartmental cooperation on matters of shared interest and mandate: for example with the departments of Environment and Fisheries & Oceans regarding prosecutions for non-compliance with the Fisheries Act.

Input received on Issue Scan during Consultations: major points

While the links between their work and sustainable development were not always immediately evident or easily understood, most Department participants expressed enthusiasm for contributing, to the extent they were able within their work, to address the challenges identified in the Issue Scan part of the consultation document at the SDS presentations. Many of the wide range of comments made will be useful in the implementation stage of this SDS even if they have not been not specifically recorded in the general language of the SDS text. Suggestions included management enabling staff to take time for socially useful volunteer activities, practical tips to improve the work environment, and actual conservation initiatives such as installation of nesting boxes for endangered species such as peregrine falcons. Among the salient issues and points arising from consultations, both internal and external, were the following:

1. Research and awareness raising are required because the linkages between sustainable development principles, the law generally and the Department of Justice in particular, are not clear, or at least not yet generally well understood.

2. The Department of Justice works in a number of areas relevant to sustainable development. Most of the SD focus, at present, is upon legal services to the 'environment' mandated departments of Environment, Fisheries & Oceans, Agriculture, and international law, and, to a lesser extent, human rights and social policy such as gender equality and crime prevention.

3. Justice has useful experience in addressing and promoting similar cross-cutting themes, such as human rights law and the Charter, gender equality, bilingualism, and environmental issues.

4. At this first three-year stage, the focus is expected to be upon practical, tangible actions, primarily addressing the environmental dimension of SD; the Department of Justice should enhance its capacity to be in a position to take more of a lead role envisaged for the department in addressing the social dimensions of sustainable development.

5. As a central agency, Justice already acts as a mediator to integrate differing points of views and to resolve conflicts arising among departments when activities within their different mandates clash. Justice is in a position to vet proposals and integrate decision-making inputs. The requirement within the Department for one coherent position on disputed or controversial questions of law is a form of integrated decision-making.

6. The proper implementation of the Department's SDS will require various functions, including information dissemination, education and training, co-ordination to assure consistency, monitoring and follow-up, and liaison with other departments on SD.

7. A mechanism to perform, or at least facilitate, these functions may be desirable. Distinct from environmental questions which are normally addressed to Environment Canada's DSLU, a need was raised and endorsed for a Justice Sustainable Development organizational structure or mechanism, which would integrate SD issues from various sources as has been done for other cross-cutting issues, set up on an intradepartmental basis, like the former Environmental Issues Secretariat and the current Gender Equality office and network.

8. To provide the substantial information and education required, the Continuing Legal Education Division and the Legal Awareness Program could assist in the preparation of guides and checklists.

9. Each Justice legal service area whether at headquarters, located with a client or in a region, should have at least one lawyer as a resource person on sustainable development issues, as in the Gender Equality network.

10. The fact that the preparation of one SDS is a legislative obligation, shared with other federal departments, should ensure the allocation of resources required to implement it.

11. Since the Department of Justice is a service agency, an appropriate Departmental objective would be to provide the required legal support to assist its client departments to achieve their own SDS objectives and targets, through integrated decision-making processes, policy research, advice on legal issues, legislative review and reform. The Department's SDS should reflect this client service orientation.

Issues scanned; questions posed; emerging roles

Participants were asked to consider the following issues in respect of the core Justice roles which emerged during the consultations on the issue scan and presentation:

1. What are the basic knowledge and skills that we need in order to respond to requests (in house or by other departments) to implement sustainable development principles?

2. What are the existing means and obstacles to building capacity?

3. What steps do we need to take to build this capacity? e. g.: SD module in Continuing Legal Education Program and Legal Awareness Program, education and training, policy research to identify key relationships between law and SD.

1. In what kind of work, specifically, would consistency be most crucial?

2. What mechanisms/ practices have promoted consistency in the past with other initiatives? (e. g.: gender equality network, environmental issues secretariat)

3. Which of these proven mechanisms/ practices could be applied to promote consistency in the integration of sustainable development into departmental practices?

3. Identify and advise on federal government's legal SD obligations: Our federal clients may present the first challenge to our capacity to deliver consistent advice on SD-related issues.

1. What are the key areas where our advice is likely to be sought? (international treaty obligations, other departments' SDSs)

2. What areas would we like to pursue, proactively?

3. What steps could we take to address these areas?

4. Undertake SD-related law reform: What other SD-related issues within our mandate could we pursue within the three-year-time- frame of the first SD strategy?

1. Given the expected impact of integrating SD considerations into legislation and regulation, in what areas might law reform be needed or requested by client departments?

2. What steps could we take to address these areas within the first 3 years?

5. Other: What other concerns do we need to address when considering the Justice role in implementing SD?

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