2015 Fall Reports of the Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development

Opening Statement to the Senate Standing Committee on Energy, Environment and Natural Resources

2015 Fall Reports of the Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development

18 February 2016

Julie Gelfand
Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development

Mr. Chair, thank you for inviting us. I am pleased to join you this morning to inform Honourable Senators about our ongoing work. With me today are Andrew Ferguson, Kimberley Leach and Kari Swarbrick, who were responsible for my Fall 2015 Reports.

Let me begin by giving you a brief overview of our mandate.

On behalf of the Auditor General of Canada, the Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development provides parliamentarians with objective, fact-based information and expert advice on the federal government’s efforts to protect the environment and foster sustainable development. We carry out these responsibilities under two acts.

First, under the Auditor General Act, our Office conducts performance audits and monitors departmental progress on whether activities designed to implement federal environment and sustainable development policies and programs are being implemented effectively and are delivering results. We also manage the environmental petitions process that enables Canadians to obtain responses directly from federal ministers on specific environmental and sustainable development issues under federal jurisdiction.

Under the Federal Sustainable Development Act, our Office reviews and comments on the federal government’s sustainable development strategy. We also monitor and report on the extent to which federal departments contribute to meeting the targets and goals set out in the federal sustainable development strategy.

I present my reports at least once a year to Parliament. Mr. Chair, if you allow me, I will now present the main findings of my Fall 2015 Reports that were tabled on January 26, 2016.

Report 1—Pesticide Safety

The first audit looked at how the Pest Management Regulatory Agency has managed selected aspects of its mandate. Although we choose our audits independently, we performed this audit in part because of great interest expressed by the Senate Committee on Agriculture and Forestry.

The Agency is tasked with determining which pesticide products should be registered for use in Canada, and under which conditions.

There are currently about 7,000 pesticides, containing some 600 active ingredients, available in the Canadian marketplace.

The Pest Management Regulatory Agency is required to re-evaluate the safety of registered pesticides every 15 years. Ninety-five percent of the Agency’s re-evaluations result in additional precautions to protect human health or the environment.

During the period under audit, the Agency completed some 14 re-evaluations per year. At the end of our audit, more than six times that number remained incomplete. With more re-evaluations due to start each year, the Agency needs to quicken its pace to prevent unacceptable risks to people and the environment from the unsafe use of pesticide products.

I am also concerned that it took the Agency an average of five years—and up to 11 years—to remove some pesticides from the market when it determined that they posed unacceptable risks for all uses.

The Pest Management Regulatory Agency may grant a conditional registration when it finds that it needs more information to confirm its assessment of a product’s value, and of the risks to human health or the environment. During the time that a pesticide is conditionally registered, it can be bought and used, and other products containing the same active ingredient may also be marketed.

We found that nine products remained conditionally registered for more than a decade. Eight of these belonged to the neonicotinoid class of pesticides. These products continue to be used extensively in Canada despite widespread concern that they may pose a threat to bees, other pollinators, and broader ecosystems. We did note that the Agency announced that it will no longer grant conditional registrations starting June 1 of this year.

Report 2—Oversight of Federally Regulated Pipelines

Our second audit examined the National Energy Board’s oversight of federally regulated pipelines. The Energy Board sets the requirements that companies must satisfy to ensure the safe operation of some 73,000 kilometers of pipelines that are used to transport oil and gas to customers in Canada and abroad.

Our audit concluded that the Board did not adequately track companies’ implementation of pipeline approval conditions, and that it was not consistently following up on company deficiencies. We found that the Board’s tracking systems were outdated and inefficient.

We also concluded that the National Energy Board is facing on-going challenges to recruit and retain specialists in pipeline integrity and regulatory compliance.

With the anticipated increase of pipeline capacity and the coming into force of the Pipeline Safety Act by June 2016, it is clear that the National Energy Board needs to do more to keep pace with the rapidly changing context in which it is operating.

Report 3—Departmental Progress in Implementing Sustainable Development Strategies

Our final audit examined selected departments’ progress in meeting the commitments made in their sustainable development strategies to strengthen their strategic environmental assessment practices.

Cabinet has required since 1990 that 26 government departments and agencies carry out strategic environmental assessments of the proposed programs and policies they submit to ministers when implementation could have important positive or negative impacts on the environment.

In our 2015 audit, we found that the current Cabinet directive was applied to only five of the more than 1,700 proposals submitted to ministers responsible for Agriculture Canada, the Canada Revenue Agency, Heritage Canada and the Department of Fisheries and Oceans. This means, for example, that no information about potential important environmental effects was provided to support the proposal for the 2015 Pan American and Parapan American Games. Similarly, the Cabinet directive was not applied to the proposed transfer, for the purposes of building a hospital, of 60 acres of land of designated historic importance.

Report 4—Environmental Petitions Annual Report

We also presented Parliament with our annual report on environmental petitions. This year, our Office received 15 environmental petitions on a range of topics, including the transport of hazardous substances and concerns about human and environmental health.

Honourable Senators, before concluding, I would like to take a minute to talk about sustainable development and climate change. I raise these two topics in the preface to our reports. I believe that these two issues are intertwined, and that they are among the most pressing of our times.

In September 2015, Canada and 192 other countries committed to the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, and to achieving the related 17 Sustainable Development goals.

In addition, prior to the UN Climate Change Conference which took place in Paris in December 2015, Canada indicated that it would reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 30 percent compared to 2005 levels, and that it would do so by 2030. Since then, the government has indicated that it considers this target to be a minimum, and it has committed to work with the provinces to develop a Canadian plan to tackle climate change.

This country’s next Federal Sustainable Development Strategy is due in 2016. The full integration into this next strategy of the 2030 United Nations sustainable development goals and the Paris climate change commitments will be a clear indicator of Canada’s commitment to sustainable development and responding to climate change. I look forward to reporting to Parliament on the government’s progress in achieving these all-important goals.

Finally, I have attached to my opening statement a list of questions you may wish to ask department officials should you decide to invite them to discuss the findings of my report. I hope you will find this information useful.

Mr. Chair that concludes my opening remarks. We are happy to answer any questions you may have.

List of questions that Parliamentarians may wish to ask department officials to help guide them in their review of the 2015 Fall Reports of the Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development

Report 1—Pesticide Safety

• The Pest Management Regulatory Agency (the Agency) has decided to eliminate the use of conditional registrations of pesticides. What will happen to existing pesticides that have been conditionally registered?

• How does the Agency plan on speeding up the number of re-evaluations it does each year given re-evaluations need to be done in a timely manner in order to prevent risks to human health and the environment?

• Can you explain why the Agency continues to allow the use of neonicotinoids while other jurisdictions have applied a precautionary approach and either banned or severely restricted their use?

• Has the Agency developed an action plan to address the issues identified in the audit?

Report 2—Oversight of Federally Regulated Pipelines

• Given the gaps identified in our audit, what has the National Energy Board (the Board) done in relation to its new responsibilities for emergency preparedness under the Pipeline Safety Act, which comes into force this spring?  Is the Board ready to take control of an incident if necessary?

• Why is the Board unable to adequately track company compliance with approval conditions and verification activities?  What has it done to address the issues raised by the audit report in this area?

• What can the Board do to address the capacity issues identified in the audit report to ensure that the right people are in the right job at the right time to deliver on their mandate?

Report 3—Departmental Progress in Implementing Sustainable Development Strategies

• Our audits have found that ministers were not provided with information about potential important environmental effects for the vast majority of policy, plan or program proposals as required by the Cabinet Directive on strategic environmental assessment. What is being done to ensure that department officials will properly apply the directive and provide ministers with the required appropriate information?

• Given the departments’ poor results in applying the Cabinet Directive, is there a need for central agencies, such as the Privy Council Office, to take on a more active role in the process?

• The departments’ responses indicate that they have not yet clarified several key concepts in the Cabinet Directive such as the following:

  • What is an important environmental effect?
  • What is a proposal?

  When will departments initiate action to clarify these and perhaps other important concepts?