Proceedings of the Standing Senate Committee on
Energy, the Environment and Natural Resources
Issue 11 - Eleventh Report of the Committee
Thursday, June 26, 2008
The Standing Senate Committee on Energy, the Environment and Natural Resources has the honour to present its
ELEVENTH REPORT
Your committee, to which was referred Bill C-474, An Act to require the development and implementation of a Federal Sustainable Development Strategy and the development of goals and targets with respect to sustainable development in Canada, and to make consequential amendments to another Act, has, in obedience to the order of reference of Wednesday, June 18, 2008, examined the said Bill and now reports the same without amendment.
Your committee has also made certain observations, which are appended to this report.
Respectfully submitted,
TOMMY BANKS
Chair
Observations to the Eleventh Report
of the Standing Senate Committee on Energy,
the Environment and Natural Resources
(Bill C-474)
Your Committee fully supports the objectives of this bill. Indeed, this Committee has been calling for such a federal sustainable development strategy for many years.
In our Second Interim Report in the 38th Parliament, Sustainable Development: It's Time to Walk the Talk,[1] we urged the government to establish a clear federal sustainable development strategy. To date this has not been done, as has been observed recently by both by the Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development in his October 2007 Report of the Commissioner[2] and this Committee in our Ninth Report, Sustainable Development: A Report Card.[3]
Despite our long-standing advice, the government has yet to develop an overarching sustainable development strategy to help clarify the government's priorities and provide clear expectations of, and goals for, departmental efforts. This bill addresses these urgent concerns.
That said, we are disappointed to see serious omissions in the bill.
As originally drafted, Parliamentary committees of both Houses of Parliament were to be involved in consultations and reports contemplated in the bill. Given the significance and importance of this federal strategy, this was appropriate and would have ensured the review and commentary of both Houses of Parliament. However, this language was lost in subsequent versions of the bill. This loss weakens the bill and undermines its attempt to make environmental decision-making more transparent and accountable.
Until and unless the Constitution is amended, Parliament consists of the Crown, the Senate of Canada, and the House of Commons. No proposed legislation of this order would ever leave the Senate of Canada without provisions for the participation in the bill's various functions by the House of Commons. Regrettably that practicality, not to say courtesy, is absent in the present bill.
Due to the exigency of time, and notwithstanding this affront to Parliament, your Committee is recommending the passage of this bill unamended. However, in order to rectify the omissions we have noted, a Bill of Amendment will be introduced in the next Parliamentary session to ensure that relevant committees in both Houses of Parliament fully participate in this essential work towards creating a truly effective federal sustainable development strategy.
That bill will also include an amendment along the lines proposed by the Auditor General in her letter of June 25, 2008 addressed to the Chair, which will allow the inclusion of the Commissioner's assessment of ``the fairness of the information contained in the (Sustainable Development Office) report with respect to the progress of the federal government in implementing the Federal Sustainable Development Strategy and meeting its target'' to be reported on in the Commissioner's annual report OR in a report of the Auditor General under section 7 of the Auditor General Act.
This would allow the assessment to be tabled as soon as possible after the tabling of the Sustainable Development Office's report, and will avoid a situation where a significant delay might arise between the Sustainable Development Office's tabling of its report (say in November or December of a given year) and the next tabling of the Commissioner's annual report (in November of the following year).
That amendment will be along the following lines:
(4) The Commissioner shall include, in the report referred to in subsection (2) or in the report referred to in section 7, the results of any assessment conducted under subsection (3) since the last report was laid before Parliament under subsection (5).
(Footnotes to Observations)
[1] Standing Senate Committee on Energy, the Environment and Natural Resources, Second Interim Report: Sustainable Development: It's Time to Walk the Talk, June, 2005, /38/1/parlbus/commbus/ senate/com-e/enrg-e/rep/repintjun05-e.htm
[2] Office of the Auditor General of Canada, 2007 October Report of the Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development, http://www.oag-bvg.gc.ca/internet/English/aud_parl_cesd_2007_e_26831.html
[3] Standing Senate Committee on Energy, the Environment and Natural Resources, Ninth Report: Sustainable Development: A Report Card, June, 2008, /en/Content/SEN/Committee/392/enrg/rep/ rep09jun08-e.htm