ENSU Committee Meeting

STANDING COMMITTEE ON ENVIRONMENT AND SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT

COMITÉ PERMANENT DE L'ENVIRONNEMENT ET DU DÉVELOPPEMENT DURABLE

EVIDENCE

[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]

Tuesday, May 25, 1999

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[Translation]

The Chairman (The Hon. Charles Caccia (Davenport, Lib.)): Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. I call this meeting to order. Pursuant to Standing Order 108(2), today we will be examining the annual report of the Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development, Mr. Brian Emmett.

[English]

We are very fortunate today to have this sitting in an appropriate room. This is being televised, so I would like to ask the media now to conclude their indispensable operations so the committee can start its work. Thank you.

The report before us today, colleagues and ladies and gentlemen, is one that requires a very thorough study, and I congratulate members who have been in this room since 8 a.m. to examine it. The 10-minute presentation by Mr. Emmett will certainly help to reinforce the understanding of the document, but we'll certainly require a number of questions today, and if necessary in other meetings. The committee has been informed there is a press conference on the part of the commissioner, which will require him to leave this room around 12.45, so we have an hour and a half for our exchange this morning.

Those who have had an opportunity to examine the report quickly will see that it includes in its examination a chapter on understanding the risks from toxic substances and also a chapter on managing the risk of toxic substances. These two chapters are of particular interest to this committee because of its work on Bill C-32, which is now in the House, and also because of its work ahead on the pesticide management agency due to start next week.

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I would like to draw the attention of interested members to specific pages in the report, because they may be useful to them as we start next week. I'm referring, in particular, to chapters 3 and 4, and pages 315 and onwards. I would urge you and your assistants or your researchers to examine those pages, because they provide some general concepts that will be very useful in the examination of the pest management regime in Canada today.

Having said that, Mr. Emmett, we welcome you cordially. We are glad to find you in good health. You and your officials at the table I'm sure will provide us with interesting insights. If you'd like to start right away, the floor is yours.

Mr. Brian Emmett (Commissioner of Environment and Sustainable Development, Office of the Auditor General of Canada): Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for your words of welcome. At least I'm starting today in good health.

It's a pleasure to be here to discuss my third report to Parliament, which was tabled earlier today. With me are my colleagues Wayne Cluskey and Richard Smith, and we have other staff available to answer detailed questions, whom I will introduce as required.

After some brief introductory remarks, we'd be certainly pleased to answer any questions you may have and certainly to return at any time.

Last year, as you may recall, we took an international perspective, looking at climate change, biodiversity, and other agreements. In our report we focused on the implementation gap—the gap between talk and action on the federal government's international environmental and sustainable development agenda.

However, sustainable development is not simply an international issue—a distant, global problem. If you are in the fishing industry on the east or west coast, you know that unsustainable development affects you where you live and where you work. If you are an aboriginal person living in the north who has to think twice about eating traditional foods, you know that unsustainable development affects you where you live and where you work. If you are a parent whose child's asthma is aggravated by bouts of urban smog, you know that unsustainable development affects you where you live and where you work.

[Translation]

The phrase "sustainable development" might not be part of most Canadians' vocabulary, but Canadians know intuitively what it means—it means taking care of people and, at the same time, the environment that supports them—and they know why it is important to take care of both.

[English]

So this year we move closer to home and examine important domestic environmental and sustainable development issues. The main message of my report is this. There continues to be a substantial gap between talk and action on the federal government's agenda. The gap is a costly one. We pay the price in terms of our health, our environment, our standard of living, and our legacy to our children and grandchildren.

If we step back for a moment, we can see that the trend lines for environmental pressures are clear. Growing population, growing consumption, growing resource use worldwide—we can safely predict that these trends will continue.

To me, it can seem at times as if we are running up the down escalator. We know we have to work harder and smarter over a longer period of time just to stay in the same place. This makes our lack of action even more puzzling and troublesome. Where we do move fast and efficiently, we can see some successes—the virtual disappearance of lead from Canadian air, the reduction and elimination of substances that destroy the ozone layer in the earth's atmosphere. But if we slow down or become complacent, problems grow and we move backward, with predictable results—rising levels of greenhouse gas emissions, overuse of renewable resources, and toxic substances in our air and water.

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[Translation]

And as I said earlier, these problems affect us where we live and where we work.

I remain convinced that we can do better, by applying sound management practices to our environmental and sustainable development objectives. As organizations around the world—in both the public and private sectors—have demonstrated, there are solutions, if not always quick ones. What we need is persistence—sustained and focussed effort.

[English]

Each of the chapters in my report has important things to say about the federal government's management of environmental issues, including consulting the public, international commitments to the Arctic, and building environmental considerations into the government's policies, programs, and day-to-day operations. Today I wanted to focus on three key parts of my report: the management of toxic substances, federal-provincial environmental agreements, and departmental sustainable development strategies.

First, on toxic substances, as the committee very well knows, the federal government's policy objective is to permit the safe and productive use of chemical substances while safeguarding Canadians and their environment from unacceptable risks. Our examination considered the federal government's ability to detect and understand the effects of toxic substances on our health and on our environment. In other words, question one: can we do the science? We also looked at how the risks posed by toxic substances are being managed. Can we manage those risks?

Although releases of many toxic substances have been reduced, we identified a number of cracks in the federal scientific infrastructure. A partial list of our findings includes poor interdepartmental coordination of research efforts, incomplete monitoring networks, unfulfilled commitments, a lack of re-evaluation of pesticides against new health and environmental standards, and a growing gap between the demands placed upon departments and the availability of resources to meet these demands. This adds up to a serious problem.

Members of the committee will be familiar with the key facts. The number of substances of potential concern is growing. There are 23,000 chemical substances used in Canada. By the year 2000, after 10 years of effort, fewer than 70 of these 23,000 substances will have been assessed. Serious concerns about issues like endocrine disrupters and the cumulative effect of exposure to mixtures of toxic substances are triggering demands for new research. There is a backlog of existing pesticides requiring re-evaluation. Many were evaluated and approved as long as 40 years ago, against less stringent standards than exist today. At the same time, resources dedicated to scientific investigation have declined.

There are also obstacles to effective management of risk, and we conclude that the action being taken is insufficient. The toxic substances management policy is the cornerstone of the federal policy, providing the basis for a preventative and precautionary approach to substances that could harm human health or the environment. But it is not being implemented as intended. Few departments have established the implementation plans required under the policy, and risk management strategies for many toxic substances have not been developed.

We found that federal departments are deeply divided on many key issues. They do not share a common vision of how toxic substances should be managed. They disagree strongly on the degree of risk posed by some industrial chemicals, the interpretation of federal policy and the actions required to implement it, the relative merits of voluntary and regulatory controls, and the respective roles and responsibilities of departments.

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Let's look for a moment at the case of acrolein, the active ingredient in an aquatic herbicide, which is an example presented in exhibit 3.5 of our chapter 3. Since 1994, the Department of Fisheries and Oceans and the Pest Management Regulatory Agency have been unable to agree on whether irrigation canals fall under the Fisheries Act, and thus whether the use of acrolein near them is a violation of the act. This issue remains unresolved to day and the use of acrolein continues.

Another example is exhibit 3.7 in the same chapter, a second case study, on the issue of mercury. Federal departments disagree about the relative contribution of natural versus human-made releases in the environment. As a result, Canada presents a divided opinion in international negotiations on mercury and heavy metals.

I can only conclude that the behaviour demonstrated by some departments is a major impediment to the effectiveness of federal programs. Conflicts have surpassed a healthy level of debate and have led to strained relations, indecision, inaction, inefficient use of federal resources and expertise, and, in at least one case, Canada's international embarrassment.

[Translation]

There are no easy answers to the problems we identified. Some arise because of conflicts between departmental constituencies and between legislation. Many others are the result of departments just not working well together. Mechanisms are put in place, but when departments reach an impasse there is no one to resolve it.

[English]

Taken together, these problems threaten the federal government's ability to detect, understand and prevent the harmful effects of toxic substances on the health of Canadians and their environment.

We've made 27 recommendations. Some of them are as follows: the departments need to assess the gaps between projected demands for scientific research on toxic substances and existing capacity; they need to better integrate and collaborate on research; they need to work together to identify current and projected monitoring needs and establish a national monitoring system; they need to develop a process for incorporating new information into previous decisions, including pesticide re-evaluation; they need to develop plans for implementing the toxic substances management policy; they need to promote pollution prevention in industry; they need to define objectives and establish and implement plans for reducing the risk of industrial chemicals to public health and the environment; they need to develop a policy outlining conditions necessary for entering into voluntary agreements and increase their rigour; and finally, they need to develop a policy for pesticide risk reduction and establish a database of pesticide sales and releases.

I would certainly appreciate the opportunity to discuss this in more detail with the committee.

Turning to federal-provincial agreements, in the committee's December 1997 report on harmonization and environmental protection you asked us to evaluate the federal government's performance under existing bilateral agreements. In response, we examined seven under the Canadian Environmental Protection Act and under the Fisheries Act, in four provinces: Alberta, British Columbia, Quebec, and Saskatchewan.

[Translation]

We concluded that, in general, federal-provincial agreements do offer potential for increased protection of the environment and for streamlining administrative and regulatory activities between the two levels of government. However, we found that these specific agreements are not working as intended.

[English]

First, there are significant weaknesses in their design. The links to improved environmental performance are not made, and there are no audit provisions to verify information, no accounting of federal funds transferred, no requirement to report on evaluation results, and only limited guidelines for annual reporting.

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Before entering into these agreements the federal government did not formally analyse or document the associated risks, including whether parties could do what they agreed to do.

Third, we found that many key features of the agreements have simply not been implemented. In some cases federal-provincial committees designed to manage the agreements were never established. There is no ongoing analysis of the impact of agreements on environmental performance or on industries affected by the agreements.

Finally, the federal government does not have a documented plan should a province be unable to carry out its responsibility or should an agreement be terminated. As members know, the federal government is planning to enter into more bilateral agreements under the recent Canada-wide accord on environmental harmonization.

Through our 14 recommendations we want the important lessons learned to be incorporated. I am sure the committee shares this perspective. In my view, to strengthen agreements Environment Canada needs to involve stakeholders fully in the design of new agreements, and improve the design of new agreements—for example, with provisions for audit, with provision for performance standards, with clear and measurable objectives and specific reporting requirements. Environment Canada needs to evaluate the agreements to see if they are working properly, report the results of these evaluations, and incorporate the lessons learned into any new agreements.

The department needs to review the capacity of both parties to deliver on their responsibilities. It needs to develop a plan that would indicate how the federal government would resume its responsibilities should provinces be unable to carry out assigned responsibilities or terminate an agreement. Finally, it needs to be able to gather information on administration of the agreements and report annually to Parliament on the results achieved.

Again, I would be delighted to discuss these issues further with the committee.

Finally, I want to talk about sustainable development strategies. The departmental sustainable development strategies and annual progress reports are a new tool for improving the federal government's management of sustainable development issues. While departments are now midway through their first three-year strategy cycle, when we conducted our audit they were still in the early stages of implementing their strategies.

[Translation]

Although departments report that they are implementing their strategies, in my view the information being provided to parliamentarians and the public is inadequate to judge whether the strategies as a whole are on track or whether corrective action is required.

Departments are also just beginning to establish practices to support implementation of their strategies. Exhibit 1.6 in Chapter 1 provides an interesting perspective on the "implementation gap" that I have talked about in this and previous reports.

[English]

Using the ISO 14001 standard as our benchmark environmental management system, we found that departments have established about one-third of the relevant management practices necessary to provide assurance that strategies will be reliably implemented. Management practices are relatively stronger at the front end of the management planning cycle and they become progressively weaker with implementation, then monitoring, and corrective action stages.

We make two recommendations here. The Treasury Board Secretariat has provided departments with useful guidelines for reporting on their strategies. Departments should make better use of it. Departments also need to accelerate their plans to put appropriate management systems in place, paying particular attention to training, periodic self-assessments, and management review.

Departments are required to update their strategies every three years, with the first update due by December 31, 2000. Later this year I plan to issue a special report, a paper setting out my expectations for the strategy update. Before doing so I would very much like to talk with committee members to see that their views are incorporated.

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In conclusion, Mr. Chairman, I would first like to thank the committee for its ongoing interest and support. The main message in my report is that there continues to be a substantial gap between talk and action on the federal government's environment and sustainable development agenda, and we are paying the price. We are paying the price in terms of our health, our environment, our standard of living, and our legacy to our children and grandchildren.

In 1997, at the United Nations, Canada joined the international community in reaffirming its commitment to sustainable development and to making measurable progress by 2002. There are just three years to go, Mr. Chairman.

Organizations around the world have shown how their environmental performance can be improved by strengthening basic management practices. Canada's federal government needs to do the same.

As I said last year, the work of this committee is vital to Canada's success in meeting its environment and sustainable development goals. I look forward to a continuing productive relationship.

We will be delighted to answer any questions you might have. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

The Chairman: Yes, and we thank you, Mr. Emmett, for delivering once again a very substantive and comprehensive report, which we intend to study and then perhaps examine more in depth later on with you.

On the list we have Mr. Gilmour, Madam Girard-Bujold, Mr. Herron, Mr. Lincoln, and Mr. Laliberte. Mr. Gilmour, please.

Mr. Bill Gilmour (Nanaimo—Alberni, Ref.): Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and welcome again, Mr. Emmett.

I take your comments about your health very seriously. This is a candid report, and I would expect there would be a number of departments that won't be all that thrilled with it, but we certainly appreciate your being very frank and candid with this committee.

When you talk about federal departments that are deeply divided in key issues, departments that strongly disagree on the degree of risk posed by some chemicals, some behaviour demonstrated by departments where there's a major impediment, and finally causing embarrassment to Canada, I guess the question I'd like to ask is did you come across instances where departments are purposely going against policy, doing this in their departments' own interests, or was it more just a lack of policy direction from the top?

Mr. Brian Emmett: Thank you for your question, Mr. Gilmour.

I think it's really important to recognize that when you're dealing with things like chemicals, as last year we dealt with climate change, we're dealing with something called the precautionary principle: that you don't have to have exact scientific certainty before taking action on a chemical of concern, let's say. That leaves a lot of area for judgment.

How much scientific evidence is enough? We know science advances by vigorous debate between different groups of people, peer-reviewed articles taking issue with each other, and that a certain amount of debate and discussion is highly valuable in increasing our understanding. So when you're using things like the precautionary principle and looking at subjects as complicated as toxic substances, there's a lot of room for debate.

I don't think we're saying there shouldn't be any debate. We're saying it's possible to reach a level at which the result is not advancement but paralysis. I think that's encouraged to a certain extent by the fact that the government has chosen, on toxic substances, to take an approach based on consensus, involving a variety of departments—six or seven departments.

The idea of consensus has become more than consensus, unanimity. That results in a situation I think we observe where everybody has a veto and the incentive to take creative action is limited. There are very few rewards to it, since you can be stopped by anyone.

Are departments purposely failing to implement government policy? I think that's a very difficult question to answer particularly clearly. Or is there a lack of direction?

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My own view, in doing this work, reading these chapters, and being involved with this over a period of a year, is the toxic substance management plan, the major federal approach to this, makes sense from a kind of sustainable development perspective—a two-track approach, trying to schedule the most dangerous substances for virtual elimination, and others for management plans.

We found ourselves a little surprised, not by the fact that departments wilfully failed to implement the management plan, but more by the kind of attitude that it's optional, as opposed to the policy of the Government of Canada that should guide a department's action.

The Chairman: Thank you, Mr. Gilmour.

[Translation]

Ms. Girard-Bujold, please.

Ms. Jocelyne Girard-Bujold (Jonquière, BQ): Good afternoon, Mr. Commissioner.

This morning, I focussed on Chapter 4, which is entitled "Managing the Risks of Toxic Substances: Obstacles to Progress". As I read it, I was really sickened when I realized to what extent the government has not done its homework since the start, despite everything it tells the people.

There are a lot of examples that we could talk about, but I would like to zero in on Exhibit 4.3, which is called "Selected International Programs Supporting Pollution Prevention of Toxic Substances". You stated that some countries have moved away from end-of-pipe pollution management techniques toward pollution prevention. You also said that Canada has to be able to compete globally.

This exhibit, which can be found on page 4-16, is a table subdivided into six sections, each representing various examples of foreign programs supporting pollution prevention of toxic substances. Canada is active in only one of these six programs, namely, the Pollutant Release Inventory. Does this Pollutant Release Inventory take federal-provincial agreements into account?

This table also indicates programs that have been implemented in the European Union, in Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden...

The Chairman: One question at a time, please.

Ms. Jocelyne Girard-Bujold: Mr. Commissioner, does this Pollutant Release Inventory include the inventory prepared by the provinces? What should the federal government do so that Canada can catch up with the other countries? What strategy should it use?

[English]

The Chairman: And all this possibly in three minutes.

[Translation]

Mr. Brian Emmett: Thank, Mr. Chairman.

Exhibit 4.3 gives examples of tools that we can use to prevent pollution stemming from chemicals. We have noted that there are hardly any of these tools available in Canada. We don't have any financial instruments to support pollution prevention, nor do we have any legal agreements with industry.

The Pollutant Release Inventory does not include the agreements with the provinces since these agreements are simply mechanisms used for applying the federal instruments at the provincial level.

The Chairman: Thank you, Ms. Girard-Bujold.

[English]

Mr. Herron, please.

Mr. John Herron (Fundy—Royal, PC): Thank you, Mr. Chair.

The first question I have relates to your release related to the government's handling of toxic substances. You go on to state there's an insufficient understanding and inadequate management of risks posed to Canadians.

The government does not collect data on the release of many toxic substances, and there's no reliable data on the sale and use of pesticides. You went on to say that of countries responding to an OECD survey, only Canada and the Slovak Republic do not track pesticide sales. What was Health Canada's response to that particular issue?

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Mr. Brian Emmett: Thank you for the question, Mr. Herron.

One of the things we point out in the report is that the decision-making authority with respect to issues such as re-evaluation and the registration of pesticides rests with the pesticide management regulatory authority. They draw on the departments of health, environment, and other government departments for scientific research.

We also noted that the relationships between those institutions were a little shaky and strained. As recently as 1995, the gap was recognized that we need better information on pesticide sales and releases, and there was a commitment to begin to do something about it. Again, what we haven't seen in these areas is action.

Mr. John Herron: My next comment is on point 26 of your brief. One of your principal recommendations was that the government needed to access the gaps between projected demands for scientific research on toxic substances and existing capacity.

Where I'm leading with this is in one of your releases with respect to the Arctic you mentioned that to a large degree the success we've had, in terms of coordinating or managing pollutants that found their way into the Arctic, has been through the research done through the good work of the scientists and individual managers who have been working on those individual programs.

I'm concerned about the level of capacity we have within the federal government to do research on toxic substances, but I also understand there's an age concern. Many of those in our scientific community working for the federal government may be nearing retirement era. They haven't been very proactive in ensuring we have some of our best and brightest to follow in their footsteps as they start to retire. So I'm concerned about the scientific capacity we currently have, and also projected down the road.

Mr. Brian Emmett: Thank you, Mr. Herron.

Yes, we raise questions in this report about capacity. We note that at a time when the number of chemicals one wants to use in the modern industrial economy and the modern agricultural economy are increasing, there's an overall decline of 17% in the federal government's capacity to do science. I think that is the gap we're looking at.

I'm not sure it's necessarily the case that it needs to be built up through hiring more federal scientists. We look at the option of working together in partnerships. I think the northern programs you mentioned also include examples of not just partnerships between departments, but partnerships between other institutions and scientists that have provided support for research.

I guess a lot of our concern arises from the fact it doesn't form a coherent plan, and you end up being held hostage by individual department budgetary constraints. The clearest example of that in the north is that budget constraints at the Department of National Defence may lead to the closure of the Alert observation station. That may have a domino effect on the capacity to do science in the north. We would have preferred to have seen a better overall coordination and strategy in the north.

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On the second point you raise, I'm not sure of the extent to which we get into the demographics of aging bureaucrats. But this was actually on the radio as I was driving into work this morning—the question of morale, capacity, and so on. I know that's there. We've looked at some departments that have lost up to one-third of their most experienced scientists.

I believe the government is aware of those pressures and is trying to look at new ways of bringing people into the public service and new sorts of partnerships to bring scientific expertise into the public service. But we're certainly concerned about the gap in both senses—in terms of morale and experience, and in terms of the raw resources available.

The Chairman: Thank you, Mr. Herron.

Mr. Lincoln, you have five minutes.

Mr. Clifford Lincoln (Lac-Saint-Louis, Lib.): Mr. Commissioner, as you know, this committee pronounced itself very clearly on the harmonization agreement, giving a caution to the federal government not to proceed too fast and pointing out many flaws in the existing agreements.

In your chapter on the harmonization agreement, some examples strike me, because I've been asking questions about these very things now for three or four years and getting the runaround.

On pulp and paper in Quebec, there are 61 mills and 40% of the total production in Canada, as you state yourself. In 1995, 12 mills were having problems; in 1996 it was 13; and in 1997 there were 20. Yet the province made interventions in only four in 1995, three in 1996 and seven in 1997. There was only one prosecution throughout the three years.

Then you state that where the province did so-called corrective plans, Environment Canada couldn't provide any information about them. It didn't use its federal enforcement response authority, which we are told always exists.

I'm coming to my question now.

I've been raising the question of the Fisheries Act in regard to provincial inspectors that are not signed on as having authority under the Fisheries Act. I've raised this several times. In other words, the Quebec inspectors are not signed on under the Fisheries Act and have no authority. As you point out yourself, to the knowledge of the fisheries ministry and the environment ministry the agreement was renewed, although we knew full well the Quebec inspectors had not signed on and didn't have authority to enforce the Fisheries Act.

As a result, the fisheries department itself expressed concerns to Environment Canada that through administrative agreements Environment Canada had created circumstances that hampered or could hamper the responsibility to seek redress through the courts for violations of the Fisheries Act, section 36.

We know that section 36 is our most important tool in environment enforcement. This is what led to the toxoid case succeeding in Quebec. Don't you agree that this poses a very serious flaw? We now have agreements where we can't use the provincial inspectors because they can't be signed on, for various reasons I don't know or suspect, but are not official? The fact is we're sitting between two stools today. The Quebec inspectors are not certified, and we are not able to enforce the Fisheries Act because on the other side we've signed administrative agreements.

Mr. Brian Emmett: Thank you, Mr. Lincoln.

I agree that's a specific problem we have identified in the case of Quebec. It does not seem to be a problem that's incapable of resolution. We've noted that the people working with the provincial government need to take a course and an examination in order to be able to provide valid testimony for Fisheries Act violations.

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This is one of the things that strikes me about all of the provincial agreements we looked at. Some of the basic commonsense elements aren't there. If you or I went out and hired someone to do something around our house that had an impact on the environment—I'm replacing my septic tank right now—we'd really want to know that person is qualified, registered, and certified to do that particular job. I think what we have here is an example of people entering into agreements without the assurance that the people who are actually going to be involved in doing the job are certified and qualified to do so.

I think those are the sorts of issues that can be resolved. They just require the will, the application, and the discipline. The fisheries department and Environment Canada have indicated that they will work together to resolve that problem.

The Chairman: Thank you, Mr. Lincoln.

Next we'll turn to Mr. Laliberte, followed by Mr. Charbonneau, Madam Kraft Sloan, and the chair. Then we'll have a second round. Mr. Laliberte, five minutes.

Mr. Rick Laliberte (Churchill River, NDP): Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I guess congratulations are in order. Having just gone through the CEPA process this past year, it would have been just great to have this report a year ago. It would have supplied all the ammunition for us to keep Bill C-32 strengthened, as we would have liked to have envisioned it.

Mr. John Herron: But it's not too late.

Mr. Rick Laliberte: But it ain't too late, that's right. The vote is coming up next week. I hope this report smartens up 301 MPs here.

I'm still very troubled that at the outset our minister said that zero emission was not measurable by law, when rationalizing why virtual elimination was predominant in Bill C-32. There was a statement in your report that dealt with the fisheries department saying zero effluent was possible. In terms of the auditor role and the legal role, zero emissions or zero effluent, how does that conflict with legally binding acts and the government's ability to enforce?

Mr. Brian Emmett: Thank you, Mr. Laliberte.

Certainly one of the things we noted in the work is the kind of fragmentation of the acts that govern substances that can harm the environment and our health. We looked specifically at three. The first is CEPA, which puts in place a process for detecting harmful chemicals and then managing them. Second is the toxic substances management plan, which creates virtual elimination and management regimes. The Fisheries Act just says that no effluent that's deleterious to fish should be put in our waterways. Perhaps that “no effluent” would be one definition of elimination. The third is the pesticides control act, which says that pesticides are designed to be distributed into the environment to achieve a certain end. There is a certain amount of confusion in the different sorts of definitions and what act applies to what and so on.

Our problem is that where you have good policies in place, such as the toxic substances management plan, they seem to run up against a bit of a brick wall when departments can't agree on what virtual elimination means. I recognize that virtual elimination is a bit of an illusive concept, because measurement techniques are improving so much every day and there can be a lot of debate about what is the appropriate approach to take.

By the year 2000, after 10 years' worth of effort, we will have assessed fewer than 70 substances and not taken action on any of them under CEPA. I find that to be disturbing.

The Chairman: Thank you, Mr. Laliberte.

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[Translation]

Mr. Charbonneau, you have five minutes.

Mr. Yvon Charbonneau (Anjou—Rivière-des-Prairies, Lib.): My first question pertains to Chapter 4 of your report, which deals with the management of toxic substances. After raising a certain number of problems with respect to the behaviour of some departments, which is a major obstacle to the effectiveness of Federal programs, and after pointing out the existence of conflicts that lead to, among other things, indecision and inaction and inefficient use of federal resources, you state, in paragraph 24 of this morning's brief, the following:

24. There is no easy answer to the problems we identified. Some arise because of conflicts between departmental constituencies and between legislation. Many others are the result of departments just not working well together. Mechanisms are put in place, but when departments reach an impasse, there is no one to resolve it.

Based on your review of the situation, both here in Canada and in other countries—and your report did talk about the importance of learning from others and of being able to incorporate useful practices that have been implemented elsewhere—could you provide us with some suggestions or some avenues to follow that will help us break this impasse? I share the concern you described in your report with respect to the strategy for greening government activities. You are not particularly impressed by the coordination that exists between the departments. I too have the same concern.

Could you suggest any avenues that we could follow to improve this type of situation, where we are at times at an impasse or facing obstacles where the environment is not really giving any consideration, where it is not really taken into account? Have you thought about any formula for committees, new instruments, new institutions or new ways of doing things that would enable the government to ensure that these situations stop occurring year after year?

[English]

The Chairman: Mr. Emmett, briefly, please.

[Translation]

Mr. Brian Emmett: As we stated in our brief, this is a difficult question. There is no easy answer. I would suggest that we create a department that would be responsible for conflict resolution. In my opinion, it doesn't matter which department would be given this responsibility for decision-making. Perhaps this approach is somewhat naive.

When we looked at the performance of foreign governments, we noted certain cases where other governments, such as the Netherlands, had adopted an approach that works better than ours, where the relations between the Department of the Environment and the economic departments of the country appear to be better. I don't know whether this approach would have the same success in other countries or if this is something that is unique to the Netherlands.

We are also worried about the greening of government activities, about deficiencies in coordination and standards and about the absence of a shared vision with respect to government activities. The solution, to my mind, is more or less the same: we should designate a person or a department that will establish standards for the reports that departments have to submit with respect to their environmental activities. I think that Treasury Board would be a good candidate to meet this challenge.

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The Chairman: Thank you, Mr. Charbonneau.

Ms. Kraft Sloan, five minutes, please.

[English]

Mrs. Karen Kraft Sloan (York North, Lib.): Thank you, Mr. Chair.

In taking a look at your overview report, on page 10 you talk about the same issue Mr. Charbonneau raised; that is, the lack of common vision as to how toxic substances can be managed and how different departments see different issues being handled so radically differently. You go on to say that the situation has gone beyond the healthy and constructive debate that is integral to public policy process and that this is a major impediment to the effectiveness of federal programs. I think any of us who have worked so diligently on the current Canadian Environmental Protection Act can attest to that. We have seen an erosion of the quality of this bill over the past few years simply because of the different competing and conflicting visions.

What I wanted to ask you about, however, was the Canada-wide accord on environmental harmonization. Both in your report and in your opening remarks you identified a number of areas you are concerned about in terms of bilateral agreements.

Two areas that were of particular concern to the standing committee last year included, number one, an understanding or review of the capacity of both parties to deliver on their responsibilities. We can take a look at your excellent report on the lack of scientific capacity within the government and a number of other issues related to that, as well as the number of cutbacks at the provincial level. In Ontario the cutbacks have been 40% to 45%, so how can we assume that this particular provincial government can do anything to protect the environment? Number two, of great concern to us was understanding how the federal government would reassume its responsibilities when a province is unable or unwilling to carry out its assigned responsibilities.

Those are the two key points that greatly concerned many members of the standing committee about this Canada-wide accord on environmental harmonization. In terms of the second point, in your opinion what are some of the elements the federal government must address in developing a plan to reassume its responsibility if a province is unable or unwilling to act for environmental protection?

Mr. Brian Emmett: I've found the case of the federal-provincial agreements very disappointing, because there's the potential here, where you have two willing partners, to reduce burdens on taxpayers, use the resources more effectively, and kind of make this partnership greater than the sum of the parts. What we find instead is that everybody turns out to be unhappy with these. There's no guarantee that the environment is being protected, and industry still complains about overlap and duplication. They just don't seem to be working.

I think I'm just talking about basic, normal contingency planning. Before 1993, 1994, 1995, when these agreements were signed, the federal government enforced the Fisheries Act and the Canadian Environmental Protection Act in those provinces. The agreements we have give the provinces a role in partnering in that. I think one common sense element of contingency planning for the private or public sector is to ask, what would happen if tomorrow that partner disappeared? I think that is the sort of thing you have to do. What resources do we need in place in order to gear back up? What kind of people do we need on the ground doing inspections? What kind of money? I think you would just have to have in your back pocket an understanding of how you would continue to meet the need of Canadians to be assured that their environment is being protected.

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The Chairman: Thank you, Madam Kraft Sloan.

We have time for a good second round, and I will recognize you all as I did in the first round. There is one question from the chair, though.

In yesterday's Globe and Mail there was an article entitled “Level of pesticide residue up on Canadian produce”, and the first sentence reads:

The amount of pesticide left on fresh fruit and vegetables grown in Canada has more than doubled since 1994, according to unpublished government studies obtained through the Access to Information Act.

That article was circulated to each one of you at the beginning of this meeting.

Mr. Emmett, on page 3-5 you have a statement that reads:

Many pesticides used in Canada today were evaluated against previous and less stringent human health and environmental standards. The federal government has not met its long-standing commitment to implement a program to re-evaluate those existing pesticides against the newer standards. Re-evaluations of three groups of pesticides, under way now for close to 20 years, have not been concluded.

Then on page 3-14, I believe, of the same report, in the centre page under the Pest Control Products Act section, under the last bullet, you write:

A product must be denied registration in Canada if the Minister of Health finds there to be “an unacceptable risk of harm to public health, plants, animals or the environment”. “Unacceptable risk” is not defined in the legislation, regulations, or any formal document.

This is a rather disturbing observation that you make. Would you like to confirm it, and perhaps expand on it briefly?

Mr. Brian Emmett: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

First of all, we did not look at Health Canada's residue programs. We did note that there were no data on pesticide sales or use in Canada, which is something that actually quite surprised me.

With respect to the re-evaluation, I think the numbers actually speak for themselves. There are something like 500 active ingredients used in pesticides in Canada today. If I recall the numbers correctly, 300 of those were approved before 1981, something like 150 were approved before 1960, and our understanding of health, environment, and the sorts of problems that one might expect to see linked to these has changed quite a bit over that period of time. I think counterbalancing that, one must recognize that at least the pesticides have been evaluated at some point in time. Many of the other substances we deal with in this report, such as the chemicals on the domestic substances list under CEPA, have not been evaluated at all. A handful of them, a small number of them, are in the process of being examined and evaluated under CEPA.

So as I say, I think the numbers speak for themselves. The agency, when it was created, did make a commitment on re-evaluation and did put items in its budget, but because of a shortfall in user fees, they have been unable to fund those programs to date.

The Chairman: Thank you.

We'll have the second round. Mr. Casson, would you like to start?

Mr. Rick Casson (Lethbridge, Ref.): Thanks, Mr. Chairman.

Welcome, Mr. Emmett. It's always a pleasure to have you here. I appreciate your report and all the work you and your staff have put into it.

You talk about the conflict between departments—I don't know if conflict is the right word, or whether it's lack of coordination or lack of information flow. And you say that the Treasury Board Secretariat has provided the departments with useful guidelines. What they need to know is how to make better use of that.

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Now, it seems to me that with all the departments that are involved, what's happening is that nobody is really taking the bull by the horns and taking control of the sustainable development aspect of government operations. Can you make a suggestion about whether the Department of Environment should lead the charge? Obviously it should. If it's not, what needs to be done? Should there be another umbrella organization to get everybody involved? All departments aren't involved, from what I read in here.

You also indicate that energy consumption savings over the next number of years could be quite significant. Maybe I could get just a short comment from you on how you came up with that $300 million figure over 20 years. Did you include all departments in that figure? In what way are they being attained, or how are we reaching them?

Mr. Brian Emmett: Thank you, Mr. Casson.

This is a pretty complicated question in terms of the machinery of government. A few years ago we had a system that is very much like what most countries use; that is, they have a ministry of the environment, and that ministry's represented in cabinet and participates in making decisions about the overall priorities and so on of the Government of Canada. With the changes, the amendments to the Auditor General Act and the creation of the idea that every department needs to do a sustainable development strategy, there was a deliberate decentralization of responsibility for the environment. I think that's related to the idea that we can achieve sustainable development only if each and every department thinks of itself as a “department of the environment”. To my way of thinking, that would leave the ministry of the environment as a focal point for policy and regulations.

Every department of government had a department that had to prepare a green business plan each year and be very explicit about the choices and thinking it was doing on the environment, and then a commissioner would come in and look at that process and see how those sustainable development strategies were working.

So in a sense, the idea of leadership versus decentralization is not really a very easy question to answer, because we've deliberately dispersed this to a different department.

You know, it's a really, really interesting question. When you get all of these 24 sustainable development strategies in and you array them all together, do they add up to a sustainable development strategy for the Government of Canada, given the conflicts and the differences that we've observed? I think my guess would be that they do not. A question in my mind is who would take a lead role in seeing that the pieces of that particular puzzle fit together? Again, I don't think there's an easy answer to that. I think naming a department and giving them the job of doing it is probably more important than which of those departments that might be.

So in terms of the umbrella or the focal point for environmental policy and regulation, I think it remains Environment Canada. In terms of somebody to bring all the sustainable development strategies together and resolve conflicts, I don't know who that would be, but I would certainly like it to be someone, perhaps a central agency.

On energy consumption, there is a small appendix, appendix B in our chapter 8, which shows how that calculation was arrived at and what we assumed was incremental. It's in that present value number. Basically, it indicates that what gets measured gets done and gets saved. At the moment, we're not measuring these things particularly well, and therefore not saving them.

The other thing is that the incentives in the government for saving resources are not as clear as they are in some other areas. The question is, what happens to the money you save, and what are the incentives for people who run buildings to actually be innovative, creative, and aggressive about saving resources? I think a really good question is whether those incentives to behave well, from an environmental point of view, are there or not.

The Chairman: Thank you, Mr. Casson.

Mr. Gilmour.

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Mr. Bill Gilmour: Carrying on from Mr. Casson's question and my original one about departments that may purposely not be following the general policy direction, you answered part of it as seeing a central agency. Do you see this as a political decision, or is it more of a policy decision? Governments come and governments go, but something that's going to last, in my mind, has to be at the departmental level.

Again, as you said, it's not working, because by moving it into 24 departments there's no heart. There's no agency that says “We are in charge; if you don't do it, then someone will come along and basically drag you kicking and screaming to the table.”

So there are a number of conflicting ideas of how to make this work. I would like to see Environment Canada take a lead role, but clearly in many areas the other departments will not answer to Environment Canada. So where do you see this central agency? Who are they, in your mind, and how do they get their mandate?

Mr. Brian Emmett: Mr. Gilmour, that raises some really hard questions again on machinery of government.

Let me just take a step back and talk about the sustainable development strategies that I think are really, really important. They're unique to Canada; it's important to make them work.

The content of sustainable development strategies is up to departments, and ministers are responsible for departments. All I can do is evaluate sustainable development strategies against the priorities departments have chosen themselves. You know, I can't say that's not good enough or that's not a high enough standard or that's not a priority I agree with—that's simply not my job. Ministers are responsible to the House for those sorts of decisions.

The one thing I would say.... I do agree with you that it would be useful to have a focal point that was setting policy standards, the sort of the thing one looks to in a sustainable development strategy.

Earlier in my opening remarks, I said that in the fall we would be putting out a paper giving suggestions and guidance to departments on what should be in their next sustainable development strategies. By that, what I meant was we're going to tell people how to score ten out of ten on their report card. My problem is who sets the curriculum against which that report card is going to be judged.

I don't set the curriculum and at the moment there's no focal point that sets that curriculum, and I don't really have any clear ideas on who it should be. It could be Environment Canada, it could be PCO, it could be another central agency. There are a variety of institutional solutions to it.

Alternatively, again these are early days for sustainable development strategies, and perhaps the pressure of public examination and ongoing reporting is going to force them to reach a more harmonized standard just through the marketplace for ideas in Ottawa.

Again, as I say, it's early days yet, and a lot of these things are to be worked out.

The Chairman: Thank you, Mr. Gilmour.

[Translation]

Ms. Girard-Bujold, please.

Ms. Jocelyne Girard-Bujold: Mr. Commissioner, you said that the assessment program for priority substances according to CEPA had been undertaken 10 years ago and that little had been done to reduce the release into the environment of most of these substances that had been declared toxic. Furthermore, you said that it took five years to assess these substances and that some of these evaluations had not yet been completed when you had finished your audit.

Since 1994, the Department of the Environment has had its budget slashed by more than 40%, as we know. We also know that there are fewer and fewer inspectors to ensure that standards are enforced. How is the government going to be able to bridge the gap between what it says and what it does in order to implement the provisions of the legislation currently in effect? How will it be able to enforce the provisions of the legislation that will soon be adopted? Will the 50 million dollars that it had earmarked for the next three fiscal years really enable the government to do something about the environment and sustainable development? Thank you, Mr. Commissioner.

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Mr. Brian Emmett: In our report, we expressed some concern about the fact that the federal government had reduced its scientific capacity. However, we must remember that the government spends a hundred million dollars on research and on strengthening its capacity to manage chemicals. I agree that there is a gap between requirements and resources, but we must not forget that it does have considerable resources available to it. We observed that the departments were having difficulty working together in order to use available resources as efficiently as possible.

To answer your question, I would like to emphasize two aspects. First of all, there is the issue of capacity and increasing this capacity and, secondly, there is the issue of using existing resources effectively. Despite the reductions, the resources available are still substantial.

Ms. Jocelyne Girard-Bujold: Mr. Commissioner, am I to understand that the departments have adequate staff? You appear to be saying that they have everything they need, but that they do not know how to work together, explaining the poor results. You were suggesting that an individual or a department be in charge of all these departments so that they will finally all strive for the same objective.

Mr. Brian Emmett: If I may, Ms. Girard-Bujold, I would like to state that I did not say that the departments had all of the required resources. Rather, I said that the government could adopt two approaches. It could strive for greater efficiencies with existing resources. However, capacity was slashed by approximately one third, which is a big cut. Increasing this capacity is also important. The government must ensure that it focusses on both of these aspects.

The Chairman: Thank you, Ms. Girard-Bujold. Mr. Herron, please.

[English]

Mr. John Herron: Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Before I begin, I do want to thank Mr. Emmett and your team for the contribution you've made with this report. It will give us something to mull over for the weeks ahead, for sure.

The Chairman: This is all being deducted from your time, you know.

Mr. John Herron: I understand, but it's fair to be generous in that regard.

Mr. Chairman, my question is going to be concerning the issue of mercury in a second, but in your press releases on toxic substances and that of the federal-provincial agreement, the theme I'm seeing here is insufficient understanding and inadequate management, not working as well as they could, which becomes very much a leadership issue as well.

With respect to mercury, could you go into a little bit more detail with that? The fact is mercury is very much a cross-boundary pollutant, and the burning of biomedical waste is something we see here within our Canadian borders from cross-boundary pollutants with respect to mercury on an ongoing basis.

Now, when we were able to take on the Americans and deliver the country an acid rain accord back in 1987, we were able to do that by first getting our own act together and then taking the Americans on. Do we have an implementation gap with respect to getting our own act together, first, on mercury? Second, is that, and the fact that our departments are squabbling among themselves, inhibiting our being able to do a similar thing with respect to mercury in our international negotiations?

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Mr. Brian Emmett: I'm not sure whether the two are different. In international negotiations I think it's extremely important to have the approach that you're going to take agreed upon and shared before your delegation leaves the country to go and negotiate with others.

In recent negotiations on other subjects I've heard on the radio foreign negotiators saying they've noticed divisions in the Canadian approach, and it would be a foolish negotiator who didn't exploit that type of gap. I think we need mechanisms to make sure that when Canadians go abroad to discuss issues and get involved in decision-making negotiations, there is a unified as opposed to a divided approach.

Mr. John Herron: When the chair's not looking I'll try to sneak in a second question.

If we had been in a similar situation from a leadership perspective and a management perspective, would we have been able to negotiate an acid rain accord with the Americans in 1987?

Mr. Brian Emmett: That, I'm sorry, is not an auditable question. I'm sorry; that's kind of an inside joke where I work.

It's so hypothetical, it's very difficult to answer, but certainly I think when you have a divided delegation you have much less impact in negotiations that you're conducting.

The Chairman: Thank you, Mr. Herron.

[Translation]

Mr. Lincoln, followed by Mr. Laliberte, Mr. Charbonneau and Ms. Kraft Sloan.

[English]

Mr. Clifford Lincoln: To come back to the issue of reporting on harmonization agreements and delegations of authority, I notice that in spite of the committee's having clearly suggested in 1995 that reports should be done on a systematic basis annually to Parliament about the results and data from delegated agreements, you make a comment that in regard to CEPA, which is the main tool of the environment ministry, the reports to Parliament were two years out of date and incomplete, and the last one was 1995-96. Also, you report that under the Fisheries Act there has been submission of no reports in regard to Saskatchewan and Alberta.

The fisheries department has given a response that it's going to see to it that the reports are updated and filed with Parliament every year. Did you get a response from the environment ministry as to whether it was going to bring CEPA up to date and file complete reports on the harmonization agreement to Parliament?

Mr. Brian Emmett: No, we didn't receive that sort of response.

Mr. Clifford Lincoln: Did you ask for that response?

Mr. Brian Emmett: We send departments chapters and they choose which elements of them are important to them and which they choose to respond to.

Mr. Clifford Lincoln: If I were playing devil's advocate I would say it's surprising that they don't consider this important to respond to.

Is there any feeling within your organization that the reports are going to be updated? Do you have an assurance that there's going to be some change? Or do we sit on non-reporting and incomplete reports?

Mr. Brian Emmett: Can I just take one step back on this? My previous answer I think might have been a little bit less sharp than it should be. One of the things that is a recurring theme in our reports is the absence of reporting to parliamentarians that parliamentarians can understand and use to become engaged in a useful way in these very complicated issues. It's not something on which we ask for a response, but it's such a dominant theme of almost every chapter, including the one on federal-provincial agreements, that it's very hard to miss.

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I'm kind of personally embarrassed at the number of times we have to come up and make reports to this committee and others that we simply don't know what's going on in some of these areas and that we can't report to you on them. I think that's a very serious problem, and it's a very important theme in my work. The department, reading from the report, indicates that they are committed to ensuring a thorough and complete flow of information to the public and to Parliament. That is on page 5-5 of our chapter on federal-provincial agreements.

Mr. Clifford Lincoln: I really hope that it goes from page whatever it is back to us, because we've been asking for these things since 1995. We just don't know what's happening with these delegated agreements. Obviously, from all you describe, the flaws are huge and very numerous, and it's a real shame.

The Chairman: Thank you, Mr. Lincoln.

Mr. Laliberte, please.

Mr. Rick Laliberte: There are a couple of points I'd like to raise. One is on harmonization. I'll lead off from what the honourable member stated.

When we first reviewed this, the issue was about overlaps between federal and provincial responsibilities. This committee had requested, under the CCME or under the environment minister, that the documentation of these overlaps be tabled.

Have you any evidence of overlaps? Your report talks to the gap between talk and action within the federal responsibilities. This is a damning report to this federal government. On the responsibilities of leadership and vision of the environment and sustainable development in this country, this is it. This is a knock on the head, a wake-up call. The guilty parties and the usual suspects, of course, are the Minister of Environment, as we stated, but also the Prime Minister's Office. You mentioned the Privy Council, Treasury Board, the government, and the cabinet. All of these serve a function, but in terms of responsibilities, environment is directed under a specific department. The term “sustainable development” is not; it kind of echoes into these halls, and it's missing.

One example I'd like to raise is about federal responsibility. There's nothing in the Constitution that states that the environment is a national or federal responsibility or highlights provincial responsibilities, which are muddled up with the Natural Resources Transfer Act. But in terms of sustainable development, which is the environment, the economy, and social responsibilities, should the Prime Minister's Office or the Deputy Prime Minister maybe take that responsibility?

We just had an example of the British government, in which the deputy prime minister's office is responsible for environment and sustainable development. Maybe that sort of leadership role should take place. Since the Deputy Prime Minister should be done partying with the millennium in a year or so, maybe sustainable development should be a responsibility in this next millennium.

I'm saying on responsibilities and harmonization, I have a grave concern about that, because, specifically in my area, “northern” falls under the territorial governments, so you look at Arctic studies. But the northern half of the provinces are missed. You expect a province and the federal government to come up with responsibilities there, and I think it's basically missing. There are huge populations that depend on natural foods, fish, and wildlife in our northern provinces, and there are no studies being conducted. The studies are born from the Arctic side, north of 55 degrees. So this whole responsibility side is the crux of your report, and it has to be addressed.

Mr. Brian Emmett: Thank you, Mr. Laliberte.

On overlap and duplication, certainly that was a major mover at the time these agreements were discussed. What we noted in the chapter was that when the agreements were being put in place, there wasn't an analysis of the situation surrounding them, in general terms, from an environmental point of view or other points of view.

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Secondly, industry still complains that there's overlap and duplication. So at the end of the day we find there are shortcomings with respect to ensuring environmental protection and with respect to overlap and duplication.

With respect to leadership, again, this is a really complicated question, because I have two models of the world at war in my own thinking. One is that we all have to behave in different ways. Each of us is responsible for our own role in achieving sustainable development, as citizens and in our jobs in the Government of Canada.

Therefore, the idea of decentralizing and insisting that departments recognize explicitly their own responsibilities is one that coincides with my own view of what really needs to be done in terms of working together to achieve a joint objective. On the other hand, it's really useful in getting people to work together to have a focal point that is articulating a vision, that is attractive and that can galvanize people into those individual actions we need to have. Having said that, I certainly don't have any clear-cut suggestions on whom that role should fall to.

The Chairman: Thank you, Mr. Laliberte.

[Translation]

Mr. Charbonneau and Ms. Kraft Sloan.

Mr. Yvon Charbonneau: Mr. Chairman, I would like to address a question to the Commissioner of the Environment, who is the most eminent critic with respect to government environmental policy and also our advisor. I would like to know how our advisor is himself advised. I'd like to take a look at Appendix D with you, which is entitled "Panel of Advisors to the Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development", which is found on page 36 in the French version and pages 34 and 35 in the English version.

There are four representatives from major industrial sectors, two representatives from accounting firms, two representatives from environmental groups, two academics and three environmental consultants. I would like to ask the Commissioner to explain how much influence these people have on the preparation of his report. Are these people consulted collectively or individually, on the basis of particular questions? In general, how are these advisors used? Is there a permanent list or an annual list applicable only for this year's report?

I notice that there aren't any people with a background in labour or health, or who have any knowledge of the municipal area. Mr. Commissioner, don't you think that it would be useful to include, in your panel of advisors, people who are very familiar with health and work safety issues, with health in general and with the municipal area?

[English]

Mr. Brian Emmett: The panel of advisers is absolutely invaluable to me. We make extensive use of advisers in our work. The panel meets twice a year, and I've tried to divide it fairly evenly between four groups: people with an environmental orientation, people with a university orientation, people with an accounting orientation, and people with an industrial orientation. Generally, we try to use them almost as a focus group to test our ideas on them to see how they are going to be received. In my work as a commissioner I've found this absolutely invaluable.

This is not a multi-stakeholder, consensus-building exercise in the sense that people get together and we all come up with a work program for the commissioner. I have my own work program. I try it out on people. Sometimes it works; sometimes it doesn't. There's a critical audience there. We need the technical imput from universities, from the accounting profession, given our location.

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I would go on further to say that if you look at toxic substances, federal-provincial agreements, the work we did last year, every one of those audits also benefits from outside advisers. You always have this problem of talking among yourselves, of getting a single idea and then convincing yourself it's right, and there's no other way of looking at the problem.

We bring in outside advisers very routinely in our work and we benefit from it in terms of making sure we're asking the right questions in the right way. It's not a fixed list. Some people have been on the list from the beginning; it tends to turn over rather slowly. I like the stability this has. And as I say, they play an advisory role only.

I'm aware of some of the gaps that you mention, and I want to do something about that as we replace people who may leave for one reason or another. We'll be doing that in the future, but I certainly intend to continue with an advisory group like this. It's been a real advantage in terms of delivering the quality of work this committee wants to see.

The Chairman: Thank you, Mr. Charbonneau.

We'll have Madam Kraft Sloan to conclude, please.

Mrs. Karen Kraft Sloan: Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Emmett, will you be making a presentation based on these chapters to any other parliamentary committee?

Mr. Brian Emmett: We have let other parliamentary committees and their chairs know that our report is being tabled today. We have tried to point out areas of those reports they would be interested in. I would very much like to talk to more parliamentarians more frequently and get this message more broadily into Parliament.

Mrs. Karen Kraft Sloan: I really hope that the health committee has an opportunity to hear your presentation, particularly on the PMRA. It's actually quite appalling to hear some of the things you have identified.

I'm particularly concerned that there is no risk reduction policy to deal with pesticides. I know the American government has been undertaking a number of initiatives, particularly in the area of child health and the environment, and specifically with regard to children's health and pesticides. So I really have a problem with what you presented here today before us. I'm wondering how useful, how difficult it would be to have pesticides as a reportable substance within the NPRI. I'm wondering if you could comment on that.

Mr. Brian Emmett: I'm sorry, Mr. Chairman, but I can't comment on that. I just don't know that well enough.

Mrs. Karen Kraft Sloan: Okay.

On the whole issue of science, we were unable to make good decisions on MMT because we did not have the proper scientific capacity within the government. You've noted a number of areas where we were unable to make good environmental decisions and good health decisions because of the lack of capacity with science within the federal government across many different departments. This is a very serious area that has to be addressed.

I'm wondering if you know of any department or if there are any cross-departmental initiatives of doing a science gap analysis to determine where it is that we have weaknesses and where those moneys should start to be spent on science within the federal government.

Mr. Brian Emmett: I know of no overall gap assessment going on right now with respect to the environment.

We do note in chapter 3 or 4 that there was recently a toxic substances research initiative funded at the level of about $40 million. That proved to be an area where departments were able to get together, set priorities and agree to work jointly. Other than that specific initiative, I'm not aware of any gap analysis.

Mrs. Karen Kraft Sloan: Mr. Chair, I have an awful lot of questions, but I want to take some time to go through these documents very carefully. I hope we can follow up with Mr. Emmett and the other members of his department.

You are to be congratulated for another fine report. We have to start paying attention to this stuff. Thank you.

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The Chairman: Thank you, Madam Kraft Sloan.

Mr. Emmett, perhaps because of time constraints, you might put on paper an answer to the following question flowing from item 597 of your report, in which you write that, and I quote:

Parliament is receiving incomplete and outdated information on the results of the Canadian Environment Protection Act agreements and no information on the results of the Fisheries Act agreements.

And “Parliament”, in essence, means the Canadian public.

Perhaps you could give us some dates and let us know how much behind these reports are. Perhaps you can provide this committee with any other information you might have so that we can make appropriate representations to the responsible ministers. Could you do that for us within a week or so?

Mr. Brian Emmett: Certainly, Mr. Chairman.

The Chairman: There is unanimous consent in expressing our profound appreciation and gratitude for your work. We find your report extremely valuable for the work we are about to launch on pesticides. We thank you very much.

We wish you well on your press conference at one o'clock, and we should let you go as fast as possible so that you can make it across the street on time.

Some hon. members: Hear, hear.

The Chairman: The meeting is adjourned to the call of the chair.