Proceedings of the Standing Senate Committee on
Energy, the Environment and Natural Resources
Issue No. 48 - Evidence - June 14, 2018
OTTAWA, Thursday, June 14, 2018
The Standing Senate Committee on Energy, the Environment and Natural Resources met this day at 8:31 a.m. to study on the effects of transitioning to a low carbon economy.
Senator Rosa Galvez (Chair) in the chair.
[English]
The Chair: Good morning. Welcome to this meeting of the Standing Senate Committee on Energy, the Environment and Natural Resources. My name is Rosa Galvez, a senator from Quebec and chair of this committee. I ask senators to introduce themselves starting with the deputy chair.
Senator MacDonald: Michael MacDonald, Nova Scotia.
Senator Richards: David Richards, New Brunswick.
Senator Wetston: Howard Wetston, Ontario.
[Translation]
Senator Massicotte: Paul J. Massicotte from Quebec.
[English]
Senator Seidman: Judith Seidman, Quebec.
Senator Neufeld: Richard Neufeld, British Columbia.
[Translation]
The Chair: I would also like to introduce our staff, our clerk, Maxime Fortin, and our Library of Parliament analysts, Sam Banks and Jesse Good.
In March 2016, the committee began its study on the transition to a low carbon economy. The committee is studying five sectors responsible for 80 per cent of Canada’s greenhouse gas emissions. They are electricity, transportation, emission-intensive and trade-exposed industries, oil and gas, and buildings.
Today, we welcome, from the Office of the Auditor General of Canada, Julie Gelfand, Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development and Kimberley Leach, Principal. Thank you for joining us. I invite you to proceed with your opening statement, after which we will go to a question and answer session.
Julie Gelfand, Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development, Office of the Auditor General of Canada: Thank you very much.
[English]
I’m here to speak about two projects. One was an audit we did on the sustainable development goals. These are the SDGs. I’ll tell you about our audit and whether Canada is ready to implement the SDGs.
I’m also going to talk about a historic document on climate change where we got the Auditor Generals from across Canada, except Quebec, to participate in a collaborative approach to looking at climate change in terms of mitigation and adaptation. Those are the two topics, and I’ll take questions on those and any questions you may have.
Thank you for the opportunity to present these two reports that we presented to the Parliament last spring. I am accompanied by Kimberley Leach and the person responsible for both of these audits. If I can’t answer the question, she can.
In the first audit, the one on the SDGs, we looked at seven federal organizations to see whether they were ready to implement the United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, what’s called the global goals or often referred to as the world we want.
This audit is important because it’s Canada’s contribution to an effort by Auditor Generals from around the world to assess their government’s preparedness to implement these international commitments.
If you think about Auditor Generals from around the world and about sustainable development, you don’t always think of those two things together, but Auditor Generals from around the world have developed a four approach plan for dealing with the SDGs. Canada is responsible for one of them which is preparedness audits. Are governments prepared to implement the SDGs? Auditor Generals will also start looking at specific goals and whether they are going to attain the targets.
This is remarkable that a group of people such as Auditor Generals in 180 or 190 countries are going to be doing this work and presenting their data to the UN. Canada is part of this.
Canada adopted the 2030 Agenda in 2015 as part of the worldwide effort to achieve the 17 SDGs. These goals call for action in many areas to achieve a sustainable world, including quality education, sustainable cities, economic growth, conservation of biodiversity, decent work, economic growth, industry, innovation and infrastructure. Seventeen of these different goals.
In our audit, we found that three years after making this commitment, the federal government was not prepared to implement the United Nations 2030 Agenda. What did we find? We found it didn’t have a whole-of-government approach and leadership for implementation was split among five different departments. In my opinion, it’s very difficult to make progress when you have 10 hands on the wheel.
We found the government had no communication or engagement strategy to include other levels of government and Canadians, and it had yet to develop a complete set of national targets.
[Translation]
Although data is being collected to measure Canada’s performance against the United Nations 2030 Agenda’s global indicators, we found no system to measure, monitor, and report on progress against national targets once they were defined. Without a clear lead, an implementation plan, and accurate and ongoing measurement and monitoring of results, Canada will not be able to fulfill the commitments it made to its citizens and to the United Nations.
Despite the risks to sustainable development that we identified in this audit and in previous audits, we still have not seen the federal government integrate the economy, society, and the environment in a meaningful way.
The second report I am presenting to you today is a collaborative report on climate change. It is quite historic in that it represents the first time so many Auditor Generals in Canada partnered to assess an issue of such national magnitude.
[English]
Each participating provincial Auditor General’s office completed an audit of climate change and reported the findings to its legislature. As you know, we did the same at the federal level, delivering my report to Parliament last fall and appearing before your committee to present my findings in December.
The Auditor General of Canada, in his capacity as auditor to the three territorial governments, also provided climate change reports to the legislative assemblies of the Northwest Territories, Yukon, and Nunavut.
I would like to present some key points we raised in this collaborative audit report on climate change.
First, the good news. The findings from the federal, provincial and territorial climate change audits confirmed that Canada’s governments were working on climate change. All governments agreed that climate change is an important issue. They committed to taking significant action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and to adapt to climate change.
[Translation]
The bad news is that most governments are not on track to meet their targets to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Seven governments had not set an overall reduction target for 2020. Six jurisdictions had — the federal government and British Columbia, Ontario, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Newfoundland and Labrador. Of those that had set targets, two were on track to achieve them — New Brunswick and Nova Scotia.
Canada has now set a target to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 2030. All provinces and territories have stated that they intend to contribute toward meeting it. However, the audit work showed that only New Brunswick, Ontario and the Northwest Territories had set targets for 2030. And the federal government did not yet know how it would measure the contribution of each territory and province toward meeting the new national target.
The audit work showed that a majority of provinces and territories had developed high-level strategies to reduce emissions. But they lacked detailed timelines, implementation plans, and cost estimates. In addition, many governments did not know if their planned actions would be enough to meet their emission reduction targets, or they already knew that their planned actions would fall short.
[English]
For example, in 2016, British Columbia issued a Climate Leadership Plan which outlined the government’s planned actions to reduce emissions. However, the plan did not build a clear and measurable pathway to meeting the targets. It was missing a clear schedule or detailed information about implementing the mitigation plan. Similarly, the Northwest Territories’s Greenhouse Gas Strategy, which expired in 2015, lacked meaningful targets for emissions.
The auditors also looked at what governments had done to help Canadians prepare for the impacts of a changing climate. First, governments need to figure out what are the risks of climate change. Our report shows only Nova Scotia had undertaken a detailed, government-wide assessment of those risks. The auditors found some good practices in specific jurisdictions, such as work underway to map floodplains or to address permafrost thawing in the North. Some governments had undertaken risk assessments for individual communities, sectors or government departments.
For example, in 2017, the Government of Nunavut assessed the risks that climate change posed to sources of drinking water in communities. It also completed an assessment of climate change risks to the territory’s mining sector, including to infrastructure such as access roads, airstrips and tailings or mining waste.
However, the federal government, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba and the Northwest Territories had no adaptation strategy or plan at all.
[Translation]
The collaborative report also provides questions like the following, which legislators and Canadians could consider asking as governments across the country move forward on their climate change commitments. What will governments do to demonstrate that they will be able to reach their greenhouse gas emission reduction targets? How will these actions be funded? As governments dedicate resources to adaptation actions, how will they ensure that the most pressing risks are prioritized?
Honourable senators, we encourage members of this committee to have a look at these questions. Madam Chair, this concludes my opening remarks. We are happy to answer any questions you may have.
[English]
The Chair: Thank you very much for your testimony. Now we will follow with a period of questions and answers.
[Translation]
Senator Massicotte: Thank you, ladies, for being here this morning. I don’t know what to say. You have produced several reports, and the provinces are clearly stating that they won’t meet our targets. Governments always have fine policies, sincere and serious statements and commitments, but it’s easier to create a strategy than to meet targets. What’s the next step? We have a nice report, but the message is being repeated. We have some very nice plans and some very good ideas. We all want to get involved, but no action is taken. What do we do now? We keep hearing time and again that this is very important. What are the consequences?
Ms. Gelfand: My role is to continue conducting audits to see where they stand. Your role could be to have them appear before you and to ask them the following questions: What about the plan? Have you set a timeline for managing the project? Where do the provinces stand?
The federal government has created the new framework, but your role is to ask questions about what is proposed. Invite people to appear before you and ask them for detailed plans. We have some tools: audits, pressure from legislators, questions from legislators. Ultimately, it is the government that must take action and set targets.
Senator Massicotte: In our democratic system, the main objective of elected officials is to get elected or re-elected to government. If we are unable to meet the targets, shouldn’t voters express their dissatisfaction? This government sold us a plan. We accepted it. The carbon tax will soon be in place. Should voters be told that if they don’t change governments, nothing will change?
Ms. Gelfand: All of the audits conducted to date by Kimberley Leach and the Office of the Auditor General in conjunction with several governments have developed a number of plans focused on reducing greenhouse gas emissions. However, none of these governments have been successful in meeting targets or implementing plans. Clarification of budget, resources and timelines is needed to determine if our targets will be met.
Senator Massicotte: The target is often four years, but there will be very serious consequences within 20 or 30 years.
Ms. Gelfand: Some industrialized countries have managed to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions. We will continue our audits. I will continue to fulfill my obligations and the Office of the Auditor General of Canada will continue to monitor the federal government’s objectives closely every two or three years.
[English]
The Pan-Canadian Framework was not included in our audit. That is my understanding. It came in after our audit plan.
[Translation]
So the new federal plan came into effect as a result of our audit. I recommend that you invite the minister to appear in order to ask her where she stands. According to all the documents I’ve seen, the government is managing the project more closely than in the past.
Kimberley Leach, Principal, Office of the Auditor General of Canada: That’s why we did this project.
[English]
The commissioner’s office was created in 1995. Our first audit on climate was in 1998. We’ve done about dozen since then, and we found similar things. You’re absolutely right. We found targets had not met, costs have not been measured and there are significant weaknesses in government structures. About three years ago we wanted to take a different approach, recognizing the critical role the province and territories play in this issue. We partnered with them and wanted each auditor to look at their own government to see what they had done. We wanted to find some successes.
We wanted to find some things others could learn from. We did find some. As Julie said, we found some provinces and actions that had been done very well.
Yes, we recognize a lot of our audits have said the same things, because the governments are doing the same things. We hope by taking this pan-Canadian audit approach, we can contribute to a way forward.
[Translation]
Ms. Gelfand: Since Auditor Generals across the country have looked closely at this issue, it is quite significant. Suddenly, they have questions. The work of the Auditor Generals focuses primarily on the financial aspect. It’s about making sure we don’t have a corrupt system. There are very large offices, such as the Auditor General of Canada, but there are also small offices at the provincial level that do one performance audit per year. Auditor Generals in small provinces are beginning to see the costs associated with project inaction and implementation, and the costs associated with climate change. This will have a greater influence in the long term. This is a historic and important project.
Senator Massicotte: Thank you.
[English]
The Chair: I will jump in for a second. From the last time you came, you said maybe the leaders are giving the same good message. Maybe there is pressure from citizens, but there was a big layer of officials in the middle who are not moving. I went back to my province, Quebec. I interviewed some of the different ministers. It was interesting, because I heard them saying, “This is a fashion. It’s going to last just for some period. When the next government comes, it will change.”
I was telling them this fashion has been over the past 30 years.
Do you think it has to do with the education of the middle layer that is not moving?
Ms. Gelfand: I’m not sure I can answer that question. I don’t think we can answer that question with the work we’ve done.
The Chair: You said bring them here and ask them. We have brought ministers here and asked them. Maybe it’s time to —
Ms. Gelfand: Oh, I see what you mean. You could bring the deputy minister in, for sure.
The Chair: — the execution, the operation.
Ms. Gelfand: Yes, because they are the ones responsible.
I have seen some of the worksheets the deputy minister is using for the Pan-Canadian Framework. It is more detailed than anything we have seen before. That plan was implemented or brought into effect right at the end of our audit, so it was not included. We want to give the government a year or two and then go back in. However, they have shown us some of the documents. They are more detailed than anything we’ve seen in the past. Would you agree?
Ms. Leach: Yes.
Senator Richards: Senator Massicotte asked what I was going to ask.
I wondered if we’re playing in the dark a bit with how we arrive at these targets. We don’t seem to have one consistent idea; we seem to be all over the map.
Do you have any idea about how this is going to play out in the next four, five or 10 years?
Ms. Gelfand: You’re absolutely right. We found the provinces were not aiming at the same target. At the time we did our audits, we found some had 2020 targets, some had 2025 targets, some had 2030 targets and some had no targets. If we’re all aiming at different directions, with different baselines, using different methods to analyze it, how are we going to bring that together?
The audit work in some provinces was done two years ago. With the Pan-Canadian Framework, they may have started to bring it together. Our audits obviously always look backward. It might be helpful to bring the deputy to this committee to ask where things are now.
Senator Richards: Yes. You also mentioned the only places that had met their targets are New Brunswick, Ontario and the Northwest Territories. These are three very different places in Canada. New Brunswick’s targets would be different than Ontario’s and the Northwest Territories’.
How do you correlate these groups together? They’re very different targets, and they would have very different under end results, wouldn’t they?
Ms. Gelfand: I think there were only two provinces that had reached their targets, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick.
Ms. Leach: The two Julie mentioned were on track to meet their 2020 targets. Ontario was a special case because if their cap-and-trade system remains in place and they count emissions from elsewhere, they will meet their targets. If not, they’re projected not to meet them.
Senator Richards: Now that New Brunswick is bankrupt and most of its industry is gone, it’s easier to meet its targets for greenhouse gases.
Ms. Leach: In our report, we talked about the case of Nova Scotia because the question arose as to how they met their targets. We say in here — and this is a result of the audit work done by auditors in that province — they say some was due to government actions. There were some external factors. There was the shutdown of a couple of mills. Nova Scotia has also made some progress in terms of increasing renewable energy. Those were the reasons cited for the success in Nova Scotia.
Senator Richards: Thank you.
Senator Wetston: Thank you for coming. I’m a little puzzled about this group of auditors you have accumulated around the world to do this work. I guess you’ve been selected to do the preparedness to implement. What are the other auditors doing?
Ms. Gelfand: The Auditor Generals around the world — I didn’t bring them together; they came together. They had a relationship already with the United Nations. The United Nations wants Auditor Generals around the world to be strong and independent. Their main role is to ensure a lack of corruption and funds are properly spent.
The Auditor Generals on their own — and they’d been talking about it for a couple of years before I even heard about it — had decided they wanted to play a role in helping the UN find out how countries were doing in achieving these targets.
They came up with four approaches.
The first approach was to be accountable and transparent themselves. Canada is in the top 10 auditor general community in the world. We get peer-reviewed from around the world. We’re one of the top offices. There are other offices not independent from government and don’t make their reports public. There is a whole capacity-building effort to help Auditor Generals become more independent from government so they could provide legislators with the information they need. Transparency and accountability is number one.
I’m going to miss an approach. There is one approach where the Auditor Generals are going to look at specific targets. There’s another approach where all the Auditor Generals have agreed to do preparedness audits on whether governments are prepared.
The fourth approach is to contribute to SDG16, which is peace, justice and strong institutions. Strong institutions is where Auditor General’s offices already make a contribution.
There are four approaches the Auditor Generals have agreed to work on over the next four years, and Canada has volunteered. Out of all the Auditor Generals around the world, there is only one office at a national level that has a person called the Commissioner of Environment and Sustainable Development in the Office of the Auditor General, and that’s Canada. The only other place it exists is in Quebec. Nowhere else in offices of Auditor Generals do they have a commissioner of environment and sustainable development. There are other commissioners of environment and sustainable development, but they’re separate agents of Parliament and not in the audit office.
Senator Wetston: Help me try and define the problem with achieving these targets other than the fact the world is a messy place and policy is messy because the world is messy. I’m going to avoid saying Canada is a messy place. We recognize the challenges in developing policy targets and achieving them. Help me understand what those challenges are. Let me describe a few things from my own perspective.
I’m not sure whether the incentives are existing to achieve the targets you’re attempting to get governments to implement. I suspect you’re looking at some kind of a regulatory or legislative regime for the implementation of sustainability goals. That’s my thought. The government is wrapped up in a lot of important and environmental issues, as we know. I don’t know — and maybe you could comment — are the incentives reasonably aligned to achieve these goals? Are you able to assess not just the political issues associated with different governments, whether they’re municipal, provincial or federal, but the business reality of achieving these goals? Are you aligning those incentives for environmental sustainability with business growth? Do you believe your efforts to do this work is considering that important balance? Frankly, the country needs both but not one without the other. Do you have any thoughts about that, Ms. Gelfand?
Ms. Gelfand: First, my job is to audit when governments make a commitment. Governments have made commitments to these. Auditor Generals would think exactly the way I do, which is it’s not up to us to define what these goals are or how to do it. If the governments say they’re going to do it, our job is to tell you whether or not they will achieve those goals. That’s our job.
If you look at the sustainable development goals, I would say, for the first time, they cover a lot. They cover the social, the economic and the environmental. I can read them to you: No poverty, no hunger, good health and well-being, quality education, gender equality, clean water and sanitation, affordable and clean energy, decent work and economic growth, industry, innovation and infrastructure, reduced inequality, sustainable communities and cities, responsible consumption and production, climate action, life below water, life on land, peace, justice and strong institutions and partnerships. There are 17 goals, 169 targets, and these are global. Each country is supposed to come up with their national targets. They’ve agreed to do this. Our job as auditors is to say whether they will achieve them.
Senator Wetston: You’re not prepared to say this is just too ambitious?
Ms. Gelfand: That’s not my job to say that.
Senator Wetston: I understand. I’m not trying to put you on the spot.
Ms. Gelfand: When I retire, I can tell whether or not I think that’s too ambitious. As an auditor I need to remain objective.
Senator Massicotte: One hundred and seventeen goals?
Ms. Gelfand: No, 17 goals, 169 targets. Governments have agreed to them. I will tell you whether they will achieve them.
Senator Patterson: You say in your report, about the five departments and the 10 hands on the wheel, that you audited seven organizations within government and five were identified to lead. Is there a lead department? Should there be a lead department if there is not?
Ms. Gelfand: I don’t understand how five departments are going to lead this initiative. The government has told us there are five departments who are leading this initiative.
Senator Patterson: You said we should invite the minister or deputy minister. Which one should we invite?
Ms. Gelfand: That’s a great question. The Privy Council Office was one of the seven. They told us five departments are leading. I am saying — there is a bit of an opinion here, but I think it’s reasonable — I don’t understand how five departments are supposed to lead. Who is the lead? That is a great question.
Do you want to add something?
Ms. Leach: I would like to add we have been told since we started this audit two years ago there would be a lead identified. On April 17, which was after our audit, we were again told and there was a public news release that said the government was working on defining leadership.
As recently as last week, we heard there was something happening. We have reason to believe he 10 hands on the wheel will be reduced in number, but we don’t yet know the results.
Senator Patterson: That is very strange.
The 2018 federal budget committed $49.8 million over 13 years to establish an SDG unit. Is that sustainable development goals?
Ms. Leach: Yes.
Senator Patterson: Do you think the coordination, target setting, monitoring and reporting issues you highlighted in your audit will be addressed through this unit to provide better data on Canada’s implementation of the UN goals?
Ms. Gelfand: We don’t know much about what that unit will do yet. We didn’t know when we were doing the audit. It hadn’t been announced. It was announced at the end of our audit period. We are aware that Statistics Canada, I would say on its own, is doing a lot of the work to gather data for potential national targets.
Senator Patterson: Thank you.
Senator Neufeld: Thank you for being here.
This is why we have a lot of trouble trying to figure out exactly how we’re going to get to a target and what it’s actually going to cost at the end of the day to the average citizen.
You mentioned other countries are meeting their targets. Can you tell me which countries they are?
Ms. Gelfand: I didn’t say that other countries are meeting their targets. I said other countries are reducing their emissions. I haven’t audited that in terms of looking at other which countries have achieved their targets. I do know some countries are reducing their emissions.
Senator Neufeld: Do we know how they are reducing their emissions? It’s fine to say that some countries are reducing their emissions without understanding or maybe knowing — at least me, not you — how they are accomplishing that. It’s easy to say.
Ms. Gelfand: I don’t have it off the top of my head. I could get you some information. One of the ones I am pretty sure is doing it is Germany.
Senator Neufeld: I understand Germany’s greenhouse gas emissions are increasing, not decreasing. That’s what I understand from the documentation I have read.
Ms. Gelfand: We could look into it and get back to you.
Senator Neufeld: If you could please do that.
Those countries are reducing their emissions, the ones you are talking about, and Germany is one — if there are others, I wouldn’t mind knowing which ones you are talking about — have you looked at how they are doing that? Is this just a number that says their greenhouse gas emissions have gone down? Have you investigated to find out why they are going down?
Ms. Gelfand: No, unfortunately I haven’t.
Senator Neufeld: It’s similar to maybe some of the things I have been reading that their GHGs are going up. We don’t know why or how, but they are.
Secondly, AGs around the world. I can only imagine there will be a huge variation in how AGs work around the world and how countries set and meet their targets. What they determine hunger is or what they determine any one of those targets are. Is that information going to be useful at the end of the day? I’m not saying we’re not trying to get useful information. I appreciate what you’re trying to do. When you think about all these countries around the world, they all have a different idea about every one of those targets. Do you really think, at the end of the day, if you gather all that information it will be beneficial to Fred and Martha in Canada?
Ms. Gelfand: To Fred and Martha in Canada, perhaps not.
Senator Neufeld: That’s who we represent.
Ms. Gelfand: I understand. I was telling you about an initiative the Auditor Generals are doing for the United Nations.
As a community reporting to the UN, they feel they can help. This is a UN initiative and to help provide data for the UN as to whether countries are achieving their targets, that’s something the Auditor Generals can do. What they will be able to do is tell each country how well they’re doing at achieving the targets they set.
Let me give you an example: the poverty target says people should make more than $1.25 a day. Well, that’s not a target for Canada. What is Canada’s target for poverty? Canada has to set that. That’s a Canadian government determination. Then we can go in as Auditor Generals and tell you whether that target is being met and report back to you as legislators.
The reporting back to the United Nations that we’re going to do would be to say, for example, our country’s prepared to implement a plan. There were seven questions we are asking around the world, the same seven questions: Has the government made a commitment to these SDGs? Have they decided where the resources are coming from? Do they have a lead? Have they figured out how they will get the data? Have they figured out how they will monitor and review?
There were seven different criteria and people have agreed to go in and audit using those same seven criteria. In the end — hopefully even this July — Auditor Generals who have already done this are going to talk to the United Nations and say, “Okay, we’ve looked at these seven different criteria and here is how the Netherlands are doing, here is how Canada is doing and here is how the United Arab Emirates are doing on those.” Eventually, over time when more Auditor Generals do that, we will be able to tell the UN overall how prepared countries are to implement a plan.
Two big jobs are being done. One is to report to the United Nations, but more importantly, once governments have decided what their national targets are, it’s to report back to legislatures in their own country how well governments are doing on the targets the countries themselves establish.
I feel like that was a huge soliloquy. I hope that was clear.
Senator Neufeld: I think you would agree with me that governments should be transparent in the information they gather and disseminate to the Canadian public about how you’re going to meet the targets and how much it will cost at the end of the day.
When you say we should bring in the minister or deputy minister, they have already been brought to other tables and asked those questions because the government has done that. I’m talking about the cost of implementing 2020 targets and 2030 targets.
The government has that information. When they released it they redacted almost all the information and the ministers would not respond. I mean, the minister would not respond to what those costs are. Neither would the deputies respond to the House of Commons committee.
Why bring the minister if they’re not going to tell us some of the things they have already found out? They should be transparent about this. I would hope in your position you need to be transparent. What do you think about the minister or deputy ministers who are not transparent with a lot of the information they already have? This isn’t secret or shouldn’t be secret.
Ms. Gelfand: In the Office of the Auditor General, one of our biggest issues is having access to information. On one of our audits on fossil fuel subsidies, for example, we were not able to conclude against our audit objective because we were not getting information from the Ministry of Finance. We negotiated a new order-in-council and we’re doing a follow-up audit on that issue.
Governments have to set their own policy on accountability and transparency. Our government has set one. Our job is to go in and look at information and present back to legislatures and both the Senate and the house. That’s our job.
Senator Seidman: Thank you for being with us again today. I guess we all hear a certain degree of frustration around the table from all of us and from you as well.
You start to question whether targets are useful instruments at all, frankly. What I found really worrisome in your presentation is you said we found no system to measure, monitor and report on progress against national targets once they are defined.
Indeed, in your spring 2018 report in the appendix, under measuring system, item No. 5; monitoring systems, item No. 6; and reporting systems, item No. 7, under Canada’s preparedness, you say there is no system to measure results toward national targets; no system to monitor progress toward national targets; and no system to report progress toward national targets.
Please help me with that. I don’t know how to understand that kind of approach to this whole business.
Ms. Gelfand: What can I tell you? Canada made a commitment to implement these and the Prime Minister went to the United Nations and said these apply to Canada. Out of those seven criteria I told you, we check off the engagement. Canada has agreed to these.
Then we looked at other aspects of what you would consider to be part of preparedness and we looked at information. Had they set national targets? No. Had they set up a system to measure, monitor and review? No. They don’t even have national targets so they don’t have a system to measure because they have not got the national targets.
I assumed after three years of making a commitment we would find Canada to be in a better position and more prepared to implement these sustainable development goals. What we found is that they are not. We have seen the results of at least one other country who did a review using the seven criteria — the Netherlands — and the Netherlands’ audit review found a check mark against each one of those seven. The Dutch government had the engagement, they had figured out the resources and they had national targets and a system to monitor and review all the data. They check marked all seven.
Canada check marked one-and-a-half and it was because of the work of Statistics Canada on its own to start gathering data of what might be useful if we had national targets. The government itself hadn’t established, the lead hadn’t figured who was going to do what and when and hadn’t figured out the data part.
Senator Seidman: We can’t even ask who is responsible for the data system?
Ms. Gelfand: Well, Statistics Canada would be responsible for the data system but it has to have a set of targets established by the government.
Ms. Leach: I’d also like to make a distinction between global and national goals. In our audit, Statistics Canada has made some good progress. They’re doing a good job in establishing a system to measure the global goals. In our audit we talk about how they have 68 per cent of the information together that they need to measure the global goals.
What the government has not yet done is establish a set of national targets that would build on those global goals. As Julie mentioned, the poverty line of $1.25 a day is not appropriate for Canada. StatsCan and others are working on what is appropriate. Those have not been established but they are working on it. As recently as April 17, the government announced they will be developing a national strategy for this, but we’ve been waiting for two years.
After our audit on April 17, they said, yet again, this is going to happen. We have reason to believe it is going to happen. We haven’t seen it yet.
Senator Seidman: I want to ask you something else about what you said, Ms. Gelfand: at line number seven in your presentation to today, it says:
Despite the risk to sustainable development we identified in this audit and in previous audits, we still have not seen the federal government integrate the economy, society and the environment in a meaningful way.
That kind of jumps out at me because we always hear the government tell us how, in their view, the economy and environment are completely linked together. I’d like to try to understand what you mean by that statement.
Ms. Gelfand: When you look at the sustainable development goals and you see 17 of them that pretty much cover social, environmental and economic issues equally, because we don’t see the plan to achieve these and we haven’t set targets, in our view because they are not ready two years after they agreed to implement these goals, which are supposed to be achieved by 2030.
We don’t even know what our targets are because we have five departments in charge versus who is in charge. I would say that is one of the issues; as well, the Federal Sustainable Development Act and strategy. There is a Federal Sustainable Development Strategy developed every three years. When we saw the last Federal Sustainable Development Strategy, it was after Canada had adopted the SDGs. Sustainable Development Goals, Federal Sustainable Development Strategy — I don’t know, but a logical person would think the Federal Sustainable Development Strategy would incorporate the Sustainable Development Goals. They talk about the same thing.
When we saw the first draft we didn’t see any mention of the Sustainable Development Goals. We asked, “Where are the sustainable development goals?” Lo and behold, the Sustainable Development Goals in the final version were included, but what you will see when you look at the Federal Sustainable Development Strategy is it’s really just about the environmental goals, not about the economic and social goals.
We talk about environmental sustainable development rather than environmental, social and economic sustainable development. That’s actually in the act.
The Chair: There are a lot of questions to ask to the government. Thank you.
Senator MacDonald: I want to go back to targets. In point 13 of your presentation, seven governments have not set an overall reduction target for 2020; six jurisdictions had but only two are on track to achieve them, and those are New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. What’s the standard for these targets? Are Nova Scotia and New Brunswick meeting these targets because the bar they set is so low? Is the bar being set in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick the same as the bar being set in British Columbia and the other provinces?
Ms. Gelfand: Each province is setting their own target using their own methodology. It’s not consistent across the country.
Ms. Leach: A good example is some targets are sectoral. They would talk about reducing electricity or greenhouse gases from transportation, whereas others are economy-wide so you can’t even match the two together. The targets are set by the government in each case, in each province and territory.
Senator MacDonald: Did you happen to record the target levels they were setting from all these provinces? Was there a huge variance in the targets they were setting?
Ms. Gelfand: It’s in our report.
Ms. Leach: Exhibit two in our report identifies each jurisdiction and the overall target for 2020 and whether they are on track to meet the targets.
All the targets are different. They all have different baseline years, for example. Some are measuring from 1990, some are measuring since 2005. Some of them are aiming for 2020 and some are aiming for 2030. It’s all over the map and everyone is aiming at something different.
Senator MacDonald: Wouldn’t it be reasonable to expect the federal government, if it is going to push this agenda, to establish a baseline for provinces in terms of consistent levels of targeting and means to achieve them?
Ms. Gelfand: The federal government established one overall target the country is going to achieve, and each of the provinces have established their own using different criteria. There is even one here I find amazing, which is 33 per cent below 2007 emissions. Why did they pick 2007?
When Kim says they are different, they really are all different. We haven’t seen everybody line up, so the question becomes: How will we reach the 2030 target when what we find here is a bunch of arrows all aiming in different directions?
Senator MacDonald: I have a lot of time for my accountant and I have a lot of time for auditors because they measure things and they know what they’re doing. I’m curious what you would recommend the federal government should do that they’re not doing in terms of setting these targets. There are obviously some deficiencies. What you would do if you were telling the federal government how to set targets and how to work the provinces to establish and pursue these targets?
Ms. Gelfand: How far can I go? I have been in the Auditor General’s office for four years. I’m telling you what I have picked up from being around a bunch of accountants.
I would say something consistent, transparent and measurable would be really important. Generally, I think it would be normal to expect something all aimed at the same date, perhaps, would be helpful. I think it’s just common sense. When you look at this and you realize what a mishmash we have in the country, you realize this is not common sense.
A common sense approach would be some kind of consistency, something measurable and transparent and hopefully, when it’s all added up, will help Canada achieve its overall target.
Ms. Leach: I think it comes down to the very basics in terms of setting measurable targets. Here are some examples from our report.
Manitoba had announced plans to reduce emissions from their agriculture and waste sectors but provided no details as to how those goals would be achieved.
New Brunswick planned to have 20,000 electric vehicles by 2030 but didn’t provide an implementation plan that explained the timeline or what kind of infrastructure would need to be developed to support that.
We’re talking about global goals, national goals and big picture things, but it has to start right at the strategic level for the specific initiatives.
Ms. Gelfand: Auditors tend to look at things systematically: Do you have a goal? Do you have a plan? Do you have a budget? Do you have a schedule? Roles and responsibilities is basic project management. When we go in to do an audit we’re almost always looking for the same thing: What’s the goal? Where’s the plan? Who is responsible for what? How much will it cost? What’s the deadline? How are you doing? That seems to be what we always look for. That’s what we expect.
Senator MacDonald: I want to put on the record I find it ironic Nova Scotia is one of the two on track to meet targets when Nova Scotia produces more of its power from coal than any other province.
[Translation]
Senator Dupuis: I have a specific question about the spring 2018 report, Report 2 - Canada’s Preparedness to Implement the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals. On page 19, you refer to Employment and Social Development Canada’s response to Goal 1, which is no poverty. There is reference to various measures, including the Canada child benefit and the guaranteed income supplement. Statistics can illustrate the effectiveness of a program and see if it contributes to achieving Goal 1. The words “within Employment and Social Development Canada” appear in the fourth paragraph, at the bottom of page 19. The national housing strategy is setting clear goals and aims to remove 530,000 Canadians from housing need and reduce chronic homelessness by 50 per cent over the next decade.
In the course of your work, have you found more specific elements on how this goal will be achieved? I have no doubt that a national housing strategy can help, especially if we target the homeless population and citizens who need housing the most. Have you found more specific targets in the implementation of strategies that can indicate with more certainty whether Goal 1 will be met?
Ms. Gelfand: That’s a good question. I don’t think we got any more information. We made a recommendation on page 18 that all these departments should analyze the extent to which their policies and programs can contribute to the targets. The responses they give us are their information. They don’t give us any more. That is their response to our recommendation. We don’t have any more information right now.
Senator Dupuis: In other words, you only asked what is being done within the department to meet the goals. Have you taken a critical look at the information provided to you? Because if you’re a department and you have a number of strategies and programs, you’re going to put them forward, which is normal. If that’s the response you get and there aren’t necessarily more specific targets, what are you going to do?
Ms. Gelfand: My role is to review the goals that have been set and to tell you whether the government will achieve them or not, and to make recommendations to departments. Their role is to respond to us. You have their response.
After that, it will be up to legislators to ask departments to report on our recommendations, that is, what their action plan will be to act on our recommendations. That is really Parliament’s role. However, the auditor can come back within a year, two years or three years to see if they have actually implemented the recommendations.
In terms of specific goals, I expected the government to have a comprehensive plan. Departments looked at what they were already doing and associated it with one of the targets. I think that, instead, national targets should be established, and then plans and strategies developed to achieve these targets.
It is possible that some initiatives already in place could be taken into account, but I expected that we would have national targets directly linked to the global targets. We could then examine which strategy will achieve the targets. I hope that answers your question.
Senator Dupuis: That answers my question. This program sets targets for 2030. What is your timeline for working with departments from now on? Because it doesn’t stop there.
Ms. Gelfand: That’s a very good question. I’m pleased to tell you that the Office of the Auditor General is looking at all the global targets, because we don’t yet have national targets. The entire office, including the financial auditors, is being asked to consider what contributions could be made to audit the targets, which we believe pose higher risks to Canada. We have 15 senior auditors who are responsible for a variety of issues including military, national defence, indigenous affairs, health and international aid. We have teams that are responsible for the environment, climate, fisheries and oceans. Each of these teams reviews the overall global targets and identifies the highest risks for Canada. So, of the 169 targets, it must be determined which are to be audited and when.
I should be receiving information from staff this month. The Auditor General and I will determine when the specific global targets will be audited.
The Chair: Could you send us that information? It would be helpful for us.
Ms. Gelfand: Yes, that’s something we could do.
The Chair: Perfect.
[English]
Senator Wetston: When you were responding to a question from Senator Seidman, I missed the country you compared to Canada. I’m not sure what that was.
Ms. Gelfand: The Netherlands.
Senator Wetston: How can you compare Canada to the Netherlands?
Ms. Gelfand: I’m not comparing. I’m saying each country is looking at seven criteria and deciding whether the country had an engagement on this issue. Did the country set up resources? Did they setup a lead department? Do they have the data, et cetera? The United Arab Emirates is going to be able to tell us, out of those seven, that three have been checked off. For Canada, one and a half. For the Netherlands, all of them are checked off. The idea is the Auditor Generals will tell us what they’ve done for all of these countries.
Senator Wetston: You refer to shared jurisdiction on page 4. We have a lot of that in Canada. I wanted to know what methodology you may have developed for Canada versus a methodology used in the Netherlands or Sweden or countries that have national systems as opposed to federations, which is more challenging.
Many of the policies we deal with in this committee and other committees deal with challenges and implementation both federally and provincially and municipally, and I think when we look at your recommendations and your report, it’s clear.
I want to understand, for example, did the U.S. and Australia participate? Can you compare how Canada, the U.S. and Australia are doing with respect to the targets? I recognize what the president has done with respect to the Paris Agreement, but the States are still attempting to achieve some of these goals. Do you have any comments on that?
Ms. Gelfand: Yes. Remember, these are Auditor Generals who have decided themselves this is part of their strategic plan, that they are going to look at preparedness audits and they’re going to use essentially the same set of criteria. And they’ve agreed on these criteria.
Right now, I know about 80 countries are working on these preparedness audits. I’m aware of 11 Latin America countries that have completed the audits. The Netherlands has done it. I believe seven Arab countries have completed it. Canada has completed it. I have yet to see all that data. I’m giving you the ones I happen to know of because I saw them. I am going to the High-level Political Forum to the United Nations in July, and we are gathering that information. We’re going to have staff from Auditor Generals — maybe five different offices — presenting at a side event. We’ll hear where people are at. This initiative only started for Auditor Generals a year and a half ago, so where are they at?
Of the 80 countries, a bunch are in a training session now to build the capacity so they can do the audit. I expect within two years; we’re hoping by July 2019, we’ll be able to have 50 or 60 countries, and we’ll tell you how they’re doing.
I can’t say specifically where the U.S. is at or whether they’ll be able to do it because the government accountability office operates very differently. Congress asks them which audits to do.They don’t have the same independence that the AG does in Canada.
Australia, I believe, will be one of the countries doing this. Auditor Generals have decided to do this; it’s their job now to do it.
Senator Wetston: Thank you.
Senator Patterson: It seems B.C. stands out as having achieved the most in reducing its emissions. Looking at appendix 2, I see B.C. has also enhanced the carbon storage potential of the province’s forests as a key action item.
We have forests all over the country. We have a huge area of boreal forests in Northern Canada which are, I believe, carbon sinks.
Is the solution led by B.C.’s examples? Is the solution to do better in achieving reductions of emissions to follow B.C.’s lead and take advantage of the vast areas of forest? New Brunswick is another province that has huge forest tracts. Is that a simple solution to these shortfalls you’ve identified here, or am I being simplistic?
Ms. Gelfand: All of this is very complicated; it’s not simplistic at all. It’s a great question. My understanding is in British Columbia they’ve had a carbon tax — and they may have been the first jurisdiction in Canada. I’m looking at Kim because she knows more of the details.
The whole issue of forests are definitely part of the solution. They can be both sinks and sources. During fire they become sources. They can also be considered sinks. There’s a whole regime of rules around how you consider forest cover that Canada is participating in. I’m going to let Kim answer because she would know more details.
Ms. Leach: Maybe you’re looking at Exhibit 3 of our report, but we do provide an example of how B.C. has used carbon sinks in its plan. B.C.’s 2016 Climate Leadership Plan included 12 megatonnes of reductions by 2050 to carbon sinks in their forests, which is about half of the reduction they intend to achieve. That is significant.
As Julie said, the way you measure this is an issue. Wildfire and pests are disturbances that can affect the extent to which forests act as sinks.
B.C. has suggested that is a way they will be able to reduce their emissions. Other provinces have not yet gone into that amount of detail. It is something worth looking at.
Ms. Gelfand: My understanding is the UN, in terms of allowing countries to consider forest cover as sinks versus sources and the rules around that is called Land Use, Land-Use Change and Forestry — LULUCF. There is a whole group of experts working on how to quantify forest cover. It is part of the solution.
Part of the solution is avoiding deforestation. If you cut the forest, you are contributing and you no longer have the sink. Yes, forests are part of the solution.
Senator Patterson: The environmentalists don’t like it, but the old-growth forests are carbon emitters, healthy —
Ms. Gelfand: When they decay.
Senator Patterson: — regularly harvested forests produce oxygen and retain carbon dioxide.
Your Exhibit 2 shows Nunavut is once again a poster child for lack of progress on greenhouse gas emissions. It’s not alone. Manitoba, P.E.I., Saskatchewan, Yukon all have no targets and are not on track.
You noted in Nova Scotia there were some mills closed down that may have assisted in meeting targets. Can you explain why these jurisdictions I’ve mentioned have not got anything to report?
Ms. Gelfand: Unfortunately, I cannot. That’s a government decision whether to establish a target.
Senator Patterson: I think I know why that’s the case in Nunavut because there is no alternative energy. I will rest my case.
Senator Richards: You might not be able to answer this, but is there an international baseline for these targets? Is there some international baseline various countries have to try to meet? The discrepancies could be pretty striking here.
For instance, in this you have gender equality. Well, Saudi Arabia, God bless them, but they finally allowed women to go to a soccer game. That’s a little risque, I know. Is there an international baseline for this? Do they come up to a standard the international community wants them to come up to?
Ms. Gelfand: Yes, there are global targets you can look at. There are 169 of them. It includes the $1.25 from a poverty perspective.
Some of the targets are better from an auditor’s perspective. They’re measurable. Some are more general and harder to measure. There are, overall, 169 targets for these 17 goals at the global level. Each country is supposed to go in and say whether or not that global goal is appropriate for them — because for some countries it might be — or whether they need to develop a national target.
Senator Massicotte: I want to clarify two things you said to make sure we all have the same understanding.
In passing, you said when you harvest forests, it’s a major emitter of CO2. You said that in a negative sense. My understanding is the opposite. If you harvest a forest, what you’re doing is taking that wood, not burning it. You are basically making 2 by 4s out of it. You’re capturing the CO2 in that product for decades. Eventually it may rot, depending on how you take care of it.
I presume in Canada any harvesting of forests is replaced by new trees. The science is not clear but that will consume a lot of CO2. For an older tree, I’m not too sure, but that’s a significant positive. Am I not correct?
Ms. Gelfand: I did not mean to say harvesting was a negative. I meant to say disturbance in the forest can be a negative. Fire and pests can be.
Senator Massicotte: Pests, I’m not sure, but obviously when it erodes.
Ms. Gelfand: When it releases, it’s carbon.
Senator Massicotte: Senator MacDonald made a comment about being surprised Nova Scotia uses predominantly coal as the significant energy source. If I’m correct, all these measures, international and provincial, as well as our own, the baseline is the past. When we say we will reduce it by 2030 “X” amount, it’s never an absolute sum. It’s always relative to where we were at, depending on which test. Therefore, if you’re a major polluter, you say, it’s obviously going to be easier for you to meet the objective and you’ll look bright and smart because it’s easier to get there.
Everything is relative to where you were in the past; it’s never absolute. A province that is a major polluter could easily diminish significantly its reduction. It could still have the emissions much greater on a per capita basis than many other provinces. Am I not correct?
Ms. Gelfand: That’s correct.
The Chair: Thank you very much. It was very interesting hearing you.
(The committee adjourned.)