THE STANDING SENATE COMMITTEE ON ENERGY, THE ENVIRONMENT AND NATURAL RESOURCES
EVIDENCE
OTTAWA, Thursday, March 26, 2026
The Standing Senate Committee on Energy, the Environment and Natural Resources met with videoconference this day at 8 a.m. [ET] to examine and report on such issues as may arise from time to time relating to energy, the environment, natural resources and climate change.
Senator Joan Kingston (Chair) in the chair.
[English]
The Chair: Before we begin, I ask all senators to consult the cards on the table for guidelines to prevent audio feedback incidents.
Please make sure that you keep your earpiece away from microphones at all times. Do not touch the microphone. Activation and deactivation will be managed by the console operator.
Finally, please avoid handling your earpiece while your microphone is on. Earpieces should either remain on the ear or be placed on the designated sticker at each seat. Thank you for your cooperation.
I would like to begin by acknowledging that the land on which we gather is the traditional ancestral and unceded territory of the Anishinaabe Algonquin Nation.
I am Joan Kingston, senator from New Brunswick and the chair of this committee, the Standing Senate Committee on Energy, the Environment and Natural Resources.
I would like to thank you all for being here this morning. Afterwards, I will ask you to introduce yourselves. Beforehand, I would like to ask the senators to introduce themselves.
[Translation]
Senator Verner: Josée Verner, Quebec.
Senator Miville-Dechêne: Julie Miville-Dechêne, Quebec.
Senator Aucoin: Réjean Aucoin, Nova Scotia.
Senator Youance: Suze Youance, Quebec.
[English]
Senator Lewis: Todd Lewis, Saskatchewan.
Senator McCallum: Mary Jane McCallum, Treaty 10, Manitoba region.
Senator D. M. Wells: David Wells, Newfoundland and Labrador.
Senator Fridhandler: Daryl Fridhandler, Alberta.
Senator Coyle: Mary Coyle, Antigonish, Nova Scotia.
The Chair: Today, pursuant to the order of reference received from the Senate on September 25, 2025, we’re hearing from the Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development, Mr. Jerry V. DeMarco. Since you have others with you, if you could introduce yourselves as well.
Jerry V. DeMarco, Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development, Office of the Auditor General of Canada: I am happy to introduce members of our office. Today we have Francis Michaud, Stacey O’Malley and Elsa Da Costa, who were the directors on these reports.
The Chair: Welcome to you. We appreciate you taking time out of your busy schedule to join us for the following things today: The Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada; 2026–2029 Federal Sustainable Development Strategy, the draft version; and 2025 Progress Report on the 2030 Emissions Reduction Plan. We have heard witnesses on all of these issues in the past few weeks.
Are you planning on giving opening remarks? About five minutes would be great, and then questions from the senators will follow.
[Translation]
Mr. DeMarco: Thank you and good morning, Madam Chair.
I want to begin by acknowledging that we are on the traditional unceded territory of the Algonquin Anishinaabe people.
I am pleased to share our office’s observations on past federal sustainable development strategies, as reflected in our 2025 report on lessons learned from Canada’s record on sustainable development. I am also here to discuss our performance audit reports on supporting species-at-risk assessment and reassessment and on implementing the Canadian Net-Zero Emissions Accountability Act.
Last spring’s lessons learned report highlighted six lessons derived from the federal government’s sustainable development efforts to date. As Canada lags behind most G7 countries in meeting the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, several of these lessons are relevant to today’s discussion.
We are reviewing the new draft federal sustainable development strategy in light of our lessons learned report. Once our review is complete, we will share our comments with the Minister of the Environment, Climate Change and Nature and with this committee.
Since 2008, our office has reviewed and commented on five draft versions of the strategy. We have urged the federal government to better align frameworks related to sustainable development, which contain different goals, targets, and actions. This ties into Lesson 2 in our lessons learned report, which is that an integrated approach to planning is critical to unify policy direction and strengthen implementation across lead federal departments.
[English]
We have emphasized the importance of setting measurable, results-oriented targets in the strategy to support progress reporting and accountability, a point captured in lesson 5.
The four other lessons relate to leadership, collaboration, Indigenous engagement and intergenerational equity.
Let’s now turn to our audit report on status assessments and reassessments for species at risk. These assessments, which are carried out by the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada, or COSEWIC, are the essential first step to protect, manage and recover species that are at risk of disappearing in Canada.
Our audit found that Environment and Climate Change Canada had not provided COSEWIC with the support needed to complete assessments and timely reassessments under the Species at Risk Act.
With the department’s target of only 60 assessments and reassessments per year at the time of our audit, it would take over a century to assess the species that are potentially at risk.
Turning now to climate change, we have examined, every year since 2023, the federal government’s progress in implementing the measures in its 2030 Emissions Reduction Plan, which was the first plan under the Canadian Net-Zero Emissions Accountability Act.
While the federal government has developed many measures across multiple economic sectors, our audits found that these measures were not sufficient to meet Canada’s 2030 target of reducing emissions by 40% to 45% below 2005 levels.
The message across our work on Canada’s commitments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions is consistent: The stakes are growing higher every year. The window to meet the 2030 target, along with the longer-term target of net-zero emissions by 2050, is rapidly closing. The federal government must pick up the pace in implementing effective measures.
Our work in all three of these areas illustrates the need for strong leadership and a long-term approach to achieving Canada’s goals relating to sustainable development, biodiversity and climate change.
[Translation]
Madam Chair, this concludes my opening statement. We are now pleased to answer committee members’ questions.
Thank you.
[English]
The Chair: Thank you.
[Translation]
Senator Verner: I thank the four of you for being here this morning.
On December 16, 2025, Prime Minister Carney admitted that Canada will not meet its greenhouse gas emissions reduction targets for 2030 and 2035, which were established by his predecessor in Canada’s plan to reach net-zero emissions by 2050. In your Report 6 on the 2030 emissions reduction plan, you said, “the window of opportunity to reduce emissions and meet the 2030 and 2050 targets is rapidly closing.”
In your opinion, is the Prime Minister’s admission likely to make Canada’s net-zero plan obsolete in the eyes of Canadians, who are being asked to make difficult financial choices to achieve net zero in an inflationary economy?
Mr. DeMarco: Thank you for the question.
I’m disappointed that the reports we produced in 2021 and thereafter, with the 2023 lessons learned, as you mentioned, have not produced results in terms of reducing greenhouse gases.
We don’t have much time left. Is hitting that target impossible? If something unexpected happens, it might not be completely impossible.
Nonetheless, it’s disappointing that we’ve been sounding the alarm for years, yet the government is only now admitting that the targets will not be met or that it will be difficult to do so.
We’ve been providing information for years to help them do better, but they haven’t done so.
Senator Verner: Thank you.
Senator Miville-Dechêne: Welcome, Mr. DeMarco. According to chapter 5 of the 2023 progress report, if Canada were to achieve the 2030 greenhouse gas target at all costs, the country’s broader economic and social objectives could be compromised.
However, there is overwhelming evidence that climate change also compromises our economy, largely because of the high cost of more frequent natural disasters and the impact of greenhouse gases on Canadians’ health.
Is there a false dichotomy between the economy and the environment? How do you see that? We’ve heard it so often that we now get the sense this is how people justify slowing the fight against climate change.
Mr. DeMarco: I don’t think anyone said we have to meet the target at all costs. I don’t know why that was in the report.
In several of our reports, we said that Canada should meet the target in an efficient and resource-optimizing manner. That’s important, because it was still possible at that point. When the plan was drawn up a few years ago, there was enough time to achieve the targets.
Now that there’s not much time left, people are saying we can’t do it at all costs, but we can do what we can. Even though the 2030 targets will be hard to meet, there are lots of benefits to reducing greenhouse gas emissions even if we don’t meet the next target or the 2026 target for this year.
We’re currently analyzing the progress report you’re talking about. I don’t want to share any final conclusions about it because that will be the subject of the next report.
However, we can talk about the issues that come up every year. One of those issues is the importance of having concrete, detailed plans so we can see what steps to take to meet the target. That has been absent from the current plan for several years and from previous plans.
Senator Miville-Dechêne: On a personal level, are you discouraged at this point? Do you think you’re just a voice in the wilderness?
Mr. DeMarco: Sometimes I am, but I’m still motivated to protect the interests and rights of future generations. I see signs that we can do better than we’ve done so far.
In Canada and around the world, a lot more people are acknowledging the scale of the problem.
Generations younger than mine are much more educated, and they’re afraid of what’s coming. When people are scared or the risk is greater, that can motivate them to do more.
Yes, I’m discouraged, but not discouraged enough to say we should give up.
Senator Miville-Dechêne: Thank you.
Senator Aucoin: Thank you for being with us this morning. On February 13, 2026, an order amending the schedule to the Federal Sustainable Development Act was published in Part II of the Canada Gazette. The order exempts certain organizations from the reporting requirement because of the undue reporting burden.
Affected organizations include the National Farm Products Council, the Northern Pipeline Agency and the Office of the Auditor General.
How were the exempted organizations chosen, and why? Can you tell us more about that?
Mr. DeMarco: This is a recent government decision to revise the list of organizations that must contribute to the federal sustainable development strategy.
There were few such organizations at the beginning of my mandate as commissioner, and about 100 were added later. Recently, that number was reduced. It’s not up to us to decide which organizations have to contribute to the strategy. It is up to the government, and this is what it chose to do.
I believe one of your witnesses recently explained that this was a government decision. Going forward, we need to focus on those that are subject to the act, not the 30 or so that aren’t.
Senator Aucoin: Thank you. On a personal note, I live at the entrance to the Gulf of St. Lawrence, in Chéticamp, Cape Breton. In recent years, right whales have been appearing in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, probably because of climate change. They interfere with fishing licences, which is a real problem for this endangered species.
How do we balance the protection of this endangered species with the economic imperatives of the fishing industry? What measures does the government intend to uphold in this regard?
Mr. DeMarco: Juggling competing interests is complex. To link back to your colleague’s question, if we adopt a long-term vision focused on sustainable development, it is very likely that socio-economic and environmental issues will eventually converge.
In the short term, interests diverge and impose difficult trade-offs. However, as lesson 6 from our report on lessons learned highlights, taking a long-term view is essential. Keeping in mind the interests of future generations, sustainable development becomes the lever required to sustainably support our society, economy and environment.
We can’t limit ourselves to short-term decisions, which would reduce the chances of ensuring a promising future for coming generations.
Your example is a good illustration of that challenge, but there is certainly room to reconcile economic activities and marine protection in the region. That is what we need to look at with a long-term vision.
[English]
Senator Coyle: Thank you very much to our witnesses for being with us and for the work that you’re all doing. It’s critically important.
Like my colleague, Senator Miville-Dechêne, I worry that it must feel like Groundhog Day, that it’s happening again, because I’ve been following your reports. As you know, some of us do pay attention, and we’ve had you speak to our climate group. Nothing seems to be shifting. We have the Canadian Net-Zero Emissions Accountability Act now, which is a good thing and which gives us this legal framework, but we’re still seeing the same problems of inaction and poor results, or maybe it’s inappropriate action. This is something we’re probing with all of our witnesses.
I’m interested because, you know, the Senate of Canada is that sober second thought. We are supposed to be the ones who are not affected as much — I wouldn’t be naive enough to say we’re not affected but not affected as much — by electoral cycles, so we should be able to look more at the longer term, which is what’s necessary for what we’re talking about here, looking at longer-term thinking.
The commissioner’s report indicates that government planning cycles tend to favour short-term thinking over long-term planning, but as I’ve just said, long-term planning is crucial to the notion of sustainable development.
The report also indicates that involving youth perspectives is a good way to counteract that. Well, we just hosted the Canadian Youth Climate Assembly, a citizens assembly with young Canadians 18 to 25 years old, on this.
What do you think we can do to involve more youth perspectives in planning and sustainability and how, if at all, has your department considered this recommendation in the development of its sustainable development strategy?
Mr. DeMarco: Yes. If I could use lesson 6 from our sustainable development report as a platform, wherein we provided examples of countries that have taken more concrete steps to address the issues that you talk about. As it so happens, when I was asked about whether I’m discouraged or not, I did mention that the youth of today are more educated and more concerned about these issues than, for example, was the case when I was younger.
One of the examples that we provide is from Wales, where they have a future generations commissioner. Something I noticed that was actually talked about in the news here in Canada in the last couple of weeks is that Finland has a parliamentary body focused on this issue, the Committee for the Future, and then, more pertinent to your question, we talked about Costa Rica’s general law for including youth in decision making.
It’s up to the Government of Canada to decide how, when and to what degree it will consult with youth in making policy decisions, but I feel, and probably many people in our office feel, that if we are really going to be seeking to protect the rights and interests of future generations, the closest we have to this are today’s youth. Obviously, future generations aren’t here yet, but we have the younger generations, and I’ve been happy to be involved in different events where I’ve interacted with youth, either at the university level or, in one case, at the high school level to hear their thoughts. In one case, we received their written input on what they considered to be the most important issues of the day for them.
I think it’s critical. It’s not something that is commonplace yet in Canada, but I think with social media and other platforms where youth can get their word out more easily than before and through the courts as well — you see that with some of the climate litigation — I think we would do well to not only provide for that opportunity but also listen carefully to what they have to say.
Senator McCallum: Thank you to all of you for the work that you do. As Senator Miville-Dechêne said, it’s discouraging work. It’s discouraging for me. I’ve been on this committee for the majority of my time here, and it’s the same conversation.
When I look at the reports, the recommendations you make and the response from the department, it’s always agreed that the department recognizes the importance of the report. That’s what they say. That they will work collaboratively. That they will do these six goals that are listed, but again, it’s the same thing.
When you look at the report of lessons learned, it doesn’t seem that there were any lessons that were learned. We keep reading and being told, like I said, that they agree, but we’re back to the same topic.
I look at the role of the Prime Minister and Bill C-5, and the ability to disregard the majority of legislation, including this bill, migratory birds, legislation that we worked so hard to put in, and I don’t understand that. It’s going to make it much more difficult to make people accountable, and they’ve gotten the okay to do it.
Parliamentary committees often undertake special studies to examine public issues in depth. These studies usually result in reports to the Government of Canada, which often include recommendations. An ongoing challenge for committees is determining whether and to what extent the government has acted on these.
How can this committee ensure that its recommendations are actionable by the Government of Canada? How can we assess whether its recommendations are being implemented, and would you consider conducting an audit of whether the government has implemented the sustainable development recommendations made by parliamentary committees in the past four or five years? Or is there a better action plan where we could have hope that we can move forward?
We had brought this up before, and you had recommended — I can’t remember the words — a process, and it is to bring people in to discuss. Then we never had time with the other chair.
Would you comment on those questions?
Mr. DeMarco: Yes. At the big-picture level, which we’ve been at for the first part of this hearing, the climate is getting worse. Biodiversity is still being lost, so it is discouraging, but I wouldn’t say that our recommendations are entirely ignored or not actioned at all. There have certainly been improvements in certain specific areas over the years. In one of the topics discussed today, for example, there has been an improvement in the measurability of the indicators under the federal sustainable development strategy as a concrete example of an entity accepting our recommendations and improving its performance. In the bigger picture, emissions are still higher today than they were in 1990 in Canada, but they have diminished slightly since 2005, so there are signs of hope. There is more reliance on renewable energy now than when I started in this field several years ago.
In terms of accountability, which was at the tail end of your question, undertaking hearings like you’re doing on these three subjects, including having the departments here to account for their results and explain themselves to parliamentarians and to Canadians, is the primary mechanism that you have available. The primary mechanism that we have available is to issue these reports. In the case of our climate one, we do what I think you are talking about, which is following up on our recommendations on a continuous basis so that the report isn’t just issued and then ignored. We’re doing that on climate because of Canada’s particular challenges in meeting any of its commitments over the past few decades.
So, continuous accountability mechanisms like that are things that we have implemented in our office with regard to climate, and, in a more general sense, in our work, which we call follow-up on audits or updates on past audits across our office.
For your committee, if there are issues that you determine to be priorities that are long-standing, then, in your selection of studies, that’s something that your committee can choose to spend its time on. There is a limited amount of committee time available, so there are difficult choices to make. If you focused on the ones you feel are the most important and, as I said, bring in the departments to account for their actions, then that’s the role that this committee or other portions of the accountability cycle can play, such as our office.
Ultimately — especially our office — we’re not a decision-making body. The best we can do is shine a light on problems and make recommendations that we feel are actionable, and then hope for the best in terms of the government picking up on those recommendations.
Accountability ultimately lies with the government, though.
Senator Lewis: Thanks for your comments today.
I would like to ask specifically about species at risk. With what you have heard — and we had some good witnesses here who talked about some of the problems with the program, and your recommendations recognize that. It would seem like the better they get at assessing things, the worse they get at reassessing because they don’t have the time or even the resources to do the reassessments. It is just a continually bigger list.
There are certain species that people on the ground — I’m representing agriculture and so on, and there are problems; we see it from year to year. Then, species do come back, and the reassessment process is very important to recognize that they are still declining or if they have started to make a bit of a comeback.
I would just like to talk about what is in the report, the species at risk and the problems you have seen.
Mr. DeMarco: Thank you. I understand that you had the chair and a member of COSEWIC here in a previous hearing. I’m pleased that you are looking at that issue.
Among our recent reports, this particular program perhaps illustrated most starkly the disconnection between the scale of the problem and the scale of the resources being put to the problem. You have Parliament deciding that they want to protect and recover species at risk and prevent them from going extinct, but you essentially have the tail wagging the dog in terms of implementing that, where, in this case, Environment and Climate Change Canada, just puts whatever resources it has available to the problem as opposed to putting the resources necessary to accomplish Parliament’s intent.
The assembly line to deal with assessment and reassessment is not at all commensurate with the scale of the problem. It is like providing a fire department with garden hoses for three-alarm fires; it is just completely inadequate.
It is not a very large sum in that this is a very small program for us to have audited, but it was partly because of that that it is a problem. Even to deal with the backlog, it is not a huge sum of money.
I will turn to Director O’Malley for an update. I understand that she has looked into what the situation has been since the report and whether any of the resource issues that we have highlighted have improved in terms of the scale of assessment and reassessment.
Stacey O’Malley, Director, Office of the Auditor General of Canada: Thank you for the question.
Based upon unaudited numbers that are publicly available on COSEWIC’s website, the total number of assessments in 2024-25, which is the year after our audit, was 24 in total, and then was 49 in this year that’s ending. Those are the numbers following our audit.
We don’t know what the current annual target is now. At the time of our audit, it was 60, but, as you can see, the numbers aren’t quite there.
In terms of the backlog, based upon the testimony that was provided by David Lee, the chair of COSEWIC, and the officials from ECCC, it sounds like the backlog has grown since our audit, which is to be expected, perhaps. During our audit, there were 389 species on the list, and they say that there are over 400 now.
In terms of the budget, at the time of our audit the budget was between $1.2 and $1.9 million per year, but from the testimony from David Lee, it was about $1.6 million, so it does not seem that it has changed substantially since the end of our audit.
Senator Lewis: Thank you.
The Chair: I would like to follow up on Senator Lewis’s question. As a committee, we were struck by the value for money that is provided by the chair and the board. These are scientists who are doing this work as part of their professional obligations; that’s how they seem to feel about it. So, really, the amount spent is even less if you consider the amount of “in kind” that is given. I was wondering if you would like to comment on that particular aspect of this particular work.
Mr. DeMarco: Yes.
In one way, it is very encouraging to see all of these people who are essentially a type of hometown hero group of people who are willing to put the extra time in to do this work. Kudos to them for doing that with a relatively meagre budget and a file that is, essentially, trying to address one of the three global crises that the United Nations has spoken about in terms of the triple planetary crisis, that being the biodiversity crisis.
So, they are motivated and putting in the extra effort to do what they can. As I mentioned, the scale of the effort in terms of resources provided to them is not commensurate with the scale of the problem.
It is disappointing, on the other hand, that the Government of Canada would pass a piece of legislation like the Species at Risk Act and then not put the necessary resources for the crucial first step, because, without assessment, you don’t protect or manage these species, and it is cheaper in the long run to protect them and identify them before they get too endangered or their populations diminish. So, it is disappointing that, from what I understood from the testimony, the number of hours being put into it is more than the actual financial budget. If it were a priority, you would think the Government of Canada would put the resources necessary to accomplish Parliament’s intent of protecting, recovering and managing species at risk and preventing their extinction.
The Chair: Thank you.
Senator Fridhandler: Mr. DeMarco, I always appreciate your attendance here and the frankness in your observations.
I know you have said that you are not a policy-maker, but I would appreciate if you could, at the very macro level, maybe provide us with your observations on the issues of balancing economy versus climate change in light of the apparent shift in Canadian government policy, as well as south-of-the-border policies, corporate policies, moving off of ESG and initiatives like the Bankers for Net Zero. A lot of things have changed in the last few years.
Can you provide us with your macro observations on where things might be going?
Mr. DeMarco: I can, to the extent that they are reflected in our two “lessons learned” reports.
To pick up on a theme that I mentioned before, I try not to say, “economy versus the environment” because, personally, I usually take a long-term view, and the longer-term view, as I mentioned, tends to allow those two things, along with social objectives, to work in tandem or, in this case, be a win-win-win situation. Yes, in the short term, there is often a trade-off between the environment and the economy, but over the long term, under the rubric of sustainability or sustainable development, we should be able to manage these things in a way that does not compromise the rights and interests of future generations, biodiversity or our stable climate.
I will use one example from recent history. The distribution of renewable energy around the world is not even, but it is more distributed than, for example, fossil fuels. We saw that in this week’s news with the bottleneck in shipping with fossil fuels. Looking at it from a long-term perspective, the more the world and individual nations are able to rely on homegrown renewable energy, the less likely they will find themselves in situations where a dispute in a distant place has knock-on effects all around the world.
That’s because certain fossil fuels like oil are concentrated in certain regions that can be subject to disruption from war, as is happening right now. That is one example, where a longer-term view about increasing reliance on renewable energies and securing energy security through the development of either national or regional networks of renewable energy supply. That’s an example that would be a win-win situation for both energy security, economic security and environmental issues.
That sort of long-term view is something that grounds this report on lessons learned on sustainable development and would serve Canada and other countries well in figuring out how to sustain a high quality of life and not be subject to the disruptions that we’re seeing now with the reliance on fossil fuels that are not as predictable as one would have thought just a few months ago.
[Translation]
Senator Verner: The Canadian Net-Zero Emissions Accountability Act of 2021 required the federal government to establish the Net-Zero Advisory Body to advise on the measures and targets set out in Canada’s net-zero plan.
Damon Matthews, a member of that organization, told this committee on March 12 that the group had not received clear direction from the Minister of Environment since June 2025 to guide its work. He also said that he was unable to fully fulfill his mandate because of a lack of human and budgetary resources.
Given the information shared by Mr. Matthews, but especially considering that the act was passed five years ago, I understand that you already have a lot of work to do. However, don’t you think you should conduct an audit on this group’s ability to properly fulfill its mandate?
Mr. DeMarco: Thank you for the question. I have heard that the group doesn’t have a lot of members these days and it is up to them... As we heard, we are an audit office. Our role is not to publish recommendations on climate change policies, it is that group’s role to do so. If they don’t have the resources or the membership to do it, that’s a problem. Is that something that could be audited? Probably not just on this issue, but it’s something we could look at. Our mandate under the act may allow us to do that.
Perhaps Ms. Da Costa would like to comment.
Elsa Da Costa, Director, Office of the Auditor General of Canada: Thank you for the question.
Yes, indeed, we are aware of what is happening with the advisory group. We are continuing discussions with some members where possible in the context of our current audit. In terms of doing a full audit, that would have to be discussed at the office.
For now, we are aware of the situation and we want to shed light on it, especially as part of the review of the act next year. That’s something that Parliament can discuss. You can also present your own conclusions.
Senator Verner: Thank you.
[English]
Senator Coyle: Mr. DeMarco, I have been probing this little point I’m about to bring up with a number of previous witnesses. To what extent do the emission projections in the emission-reduction plan assume growth in the clean technology sector beyond its current share of GDP? If such growth is assumed, why is it not reflected in the Federal Sustainable Development Strategy target, where, under Target 2.1.2, it says that Canada’s environmental and clean technology sector will account for 3% of national GDP?
The starting point for that was 3% in 2023. I am trying to connect the dots here and see why we have a target in a sustainable development plan that is static. I am asking you this: In the emission reduction plan, does this align?
Mr. DeMarco: Your question is as follows: Does the projection align with their aspiration of holding it steady?
Senator Coyle: Correct, because the Federal Sustainable Development Strategy basically has it as not moving at all. It is still 3% of GDP, but is this aligned? Part of your job is also to help us connect the dots, right?
Mr. DeMarco: Yes, that’s an interesting question. The strategy is just a draft, so we have not done any audit work on that.
As to the projections from the last progress report, I am not sure what Environment and Climate Change Canada answered when you asked them whether they had 3% or something higher. I will ask Director Da Costa if we have anything on that. It may be that the department is the best source for telling you what the inputs were in their projections.
Ms. Da Costa: On the Federal Sustainable Development Strategy, it is up to the department to set the baseline and the target. Of course, I know you have asked that question to my Environment and Climate Change Canada colleagues. For the projections, for many years, we have called upon more transparency on the assumption that the federal government is putting into their modelling to determine how Canada will reach its targets. This is an issue we have raised for decades at this point with regard to the assumptions that they use. Pertaining specifically to clean technology, we are looking into the projections this year, and, hopefully, we will get a bit more clarity in our reporting next fall.
Senator Coyle: Thank you for that. Part of what I am also trying to understand is whether this is something you do: not just looking at individual reports and performance but also connecting the dots between these things. Not just reports but also plans.
There is a plan out there for emission reduction, yet we have the sustainable development plan that looks odd in that it has zero increase in our target for clean growth tech. Is that something that you do systematically or occasionally: try to connect those sorts of dots?
Mr. DeMarco: Yes. Two points on that. One is that we share your concerns about transparency, and I would direct you to Recommendation 7.53 of our 2024 net-zero report — so not the most recent one, but the one before that — where we said to improve the transparency of future progress reports and associated projection reports right on point to your question. Environment and Climate Change Canada should provide more detailed information on the assumptions of federal measures included in the modelling, such as the assumed stringency and coverage. So they should be able to tell you: we put 3% or 5% in, or whatever the number is, in terms of their projection. And they should be transparent with Canadians that this is not something that would require two or three hearing days to figure out.
Then to your second point, under the rubric of policy coherence, which is an important tenet of the United Nations’ sustainable development goals, when we do see incompatibilities or inconsistencies in different sources of guidance in an audit, we can call attention to that.
I would say that the most recent example — not necessarily an inconsistency, but the lack of coordination — is really behind lessons one and two of our lessons learned report on sustainable development. There are many different platforms with different lead agencies: one central and two non-central ones, and it is difficult to get a handle on what the actual full suite of sustainable development objectives in Canada is, and why there are three platforms, for example.
That’s one example where we have questioned why there are different sources and why a target may be found in one but not in the other. And the other, more recent, is that indication that it is no longer important or they just didn’t put it in. It should not be that difficult to figure out.
Policy coherence and harmonization of the various sources of guidance in sustainable development are something that we have repeatedly recommended.
With respect to the climate aspect of that puzzle, I would say something similar: that it should be consistent and also transparent.
Senator McCallum: Thank you. I wanted to make a comment. When you said the primary mechanism for departments to account, not only in this committee but in the other two committees I am on, we’re finding that more ministers and department officials are refusing to come to Senate committees, and they decline. That’s concerning to me, and I really don’t know how we deal with that. That’s something I wanted to bring up. Can you comment on that?
Mr. DeMarco: Yes. To contrast it with our office, we’re always pleased to be here to talk about our reports, but we’re not as much on the hot seat.
To be honest, the departments have underperformed on several of the issues that we’re reporting on, so it is not as plum of an invitation for them as it is for us. We will always be happy to help you with your work, but yes, I would encourage you to persist in getting to the bottom of the issues and to get the witnesses you need before you.
You have the various abilities to bring witnesses. I can’t explain on behalf of the departments or the ministers why there might have been reticence in the past to testify, but you are an important — you, as individual parliamentarians and collectively in committee, are an important part of the accountability ecosystem. The cooperation of the government you are trying to hold to account in these committee hearings is a necessary part of that. I encourage you to do what you can to get the witnesses here that you need.
As I said, we will be happy to appear to assist you in our work, but, ultimately, accountability is with government, and they need to explain to you why they have or have not achieved a particular commitment, and what they are going to do in cases where there is a gap between the objective and their current performance.
Senator McCallum: I wanted to go to the term “the clean technology sector.” Does that include hydro?
Mr. DeMarco: According to Environment Canada or —
Senator McCallum: Both.
Mr. DeMarco: I think we have talked about this in the past in terms of renewable energy, clean energy, and green energy. They are different, but when you use an abstract word like that, there are some problems associated with it.
All energy generation has some sort of impact. Even a solar farm requires room for it, although less so on a rooftop. A wind farm can have impacts on the habitat and on bats, and so on. A hydro facility can result, depending on the type, in the flooding of lands and in altering the river flow for aquatic life.
I would decline to provide a comprehensive definition that everyone agrees to, because that’s really the role of the current initiative about a green taxonomy is to highlight which types of operations are green and which are not, recognizing there is a spectrum, and all forms of energy production have some sort of impact on the environment.
Hydro is quite varied. The difference between a run of the river, a small installation and a large dam that completely prevents fish migration and floods a large area of forest, those are very different scales of impacts. One may be cleaner than the other, or one may be less clean than the other, using the terms you are using today.
The Chair: Thank you.
Senator Lewis: When you speak of reporting, have you done audits? There are always emerging technologies doing a better job of measuring different things, such as soil sequestration, for instance. And certainly, we are probably working toward, in the short term, probably a true measurement of what is being sequestered into our soils.
And certainly in agriculture in Western Canada the soil sequestration story is a good story. Really, net-zero agriculture exists in Western Canada, and probably more so than it does anywhere else in the world.
In your audit and in your work, are you looking at — speaking of transparency and so on — are there new measurements being taken when new technology becomes available?
Mr. DeMarco: Yes. Storing carbon in soil, in living plant matter, in other organisms and in the ocean, of course, those are all part of the puzzle. Some of those are under the rubric of nature-based solutions. That will be necessary if we are to be successful in preventing the further concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.
I would say the report that is most on point for your question would be the second half of our forests and climate change report, where we highlighted some questions and problems associated with what’s called the land use and land use change aspect of carbon accounting.
It is not up to us to do the direct measurements. We don’t have a scale of office to be conducting those sorts of experiments and measurements, but we did call for a more transparent method of accounting for carbon issues related to land use, which is what you’re talking about, as well as with forestry. That is part of the puzzle, and it is changing because the scale of forest fires in Canada is increasing. Something that was seen to be a reliable sink for carbon in many years recently has been a source of carbon.
The accounting needs to take that into account, because we don’t want to just narrow the accounting, so it looks like we’re addressing climate change on paper and find out that in the actual atmosphere it’s still as big of a problem as it ever was due to forest fires or insect outbreaks, and so on.
That would be the report where we looked at it most closely. We did a report on agriculture and climate change, but that was looking at some specific programs in that area, not so much on carbon accounting.
Senator Lewis: Thank you.
[Translation]
Senator Miville-Dechêne: Mr. DeMarco, I’m going to ask you a question about the 2026-29 Federal Sustainable Development Strategy.
The report refers to your office’s involvement in writing the drafts. Can you tell us more about your participation? How are your comments taken into account and how are they incorporated into the strategies?
Mr. DeMarco: We are currently writing our comments, and Mr. Michaud is in charge of the file.
Mr. Michaud, can you give us a summary of our work to date and tell us what we are going to do before mid-May, which is our deadline?
Francis Michaud, Director, Office of the Auditor General of Canada: For each strategy, we need to provide our comments to the Department of Environment and Climate Change. This is work we do as part of our legislation. We send a letter with recommendations, which the department takes note of, and then it includes them in the final version of the strategy, which is tabled in November.
The work we’re doing right now… Our letter will be provided to the minister in mid-May. We can share with you a few preliminary observations that we will provide to the minister.
The first is an observation that was also made four years ago, during the 2022-26 strategy, about the inconsistency among the various frameworks for sustainable development that exist within the federal government. There is the Federal Sustainable Development Strategy, but there is also the Quality of Life Framework for Canada, which focuses on equity. These frameworks have several objectives that can be different or inconsistent. The comment we made last time was that we needed to harmonize the various frameworks and focus on the Federal Sustainable Development Strategy, especially in the presentation of the Sustainable Development Goals. We’re seeing inconsistency, since the situation hasn’t changed in four years.
Back then, we also made an observation about leadership. Environment and Climate Change Canada still coordinates the sustainable development strategies, but in terms of leadership and authority for —
Senator Miville-Dechêne: Strongly incentivizing.
Mr. Michaud: — encouraging departments to implement their actions and be more consistent, we have concerns about existing mechanisms. Central agencies could play a greater role in this area. That’s another recommendation we will be making in mid-May.
In closing, a third observation that I could share with you is that, from one strategy to the next, there are set targets that often do not carry over, are abandoned or change between strategies. Since transparency is a principle of the Federal Sustainable Development Act, we should be able to track the different targets from one strategy to the next to be able to compare them. Some targets can be abandoned, but it is hard for the public and parliamentarians who want to know the progress to follow if the targets are not included in the following strategy, with no indication of why. We expect the next strategy to provide details on the changes.
Those are the main observations. There will be additional, more detailed ones in the letter we will send in May.
Our letter is still published in condensed form on the Office of the Auditor General’s website, so you will be able to read it.
Senator Miville-Dechêne: You say that the targets change from strategy to strategy. Are they specific enough to have a real impact? Are they general targets or are they really specific targets?
Mr. Michaud: The Federal Sustainable Development Act calls for an end results-oriented approach. We have noticed an improvement in this area. The targets are now more specific and have timelines. There are some targets that may be hard to measure because they have a number of conditions. That’s one thing we’ve noticed.
Eight of the previous strategy’s targets were dropped. Eight out of fifty targets have been completely abandoned, and they affect a number of issues, such as waste water and migratory birds. We’ll mention that in our letter.
Senator Miville-Dechêne: These are important issues.
Mr. Michaud: Yes, exactly.
Senator Miville-Dechêne: That means we no longer have wastewater treatment targets?
Mr. Michaud: That was dropped in the new strategy. One of the targets that was also abandoned was on clean energy, an issue we audited in 2024.
Senator Miville-Dechêne: Thank you, Mr. Michaud. This is very informative.
Senator Aucoin: I’m going to continue in the same vein.
I understand that the 2026-29 strategy will lead to a report, but I’m interested in hearing what the public has to say. This year, for example, what was the public input? Can you tell us how many people responded? Who are you consulting with? It would be interesting to know. Is the report you prepare based solely on your recommendations, or do you also take the pulse of the Canadian population?
Mr. DeMarco: You’re asking if we consult with Canadians for our audits?
Senator Aucoin: The report says that you do consult, but is it a few people or associations? Is it personal? How does it work?
Mr. DeMarco: The duty to consult to develop the strategy belongs to Environment and Climate Change Canada, not to us. We are an audit office. We look at whether the government is meeting the targets that were set.
However, in the course of our work, we have opportunities to consult experts, for example, who are well versed in the subjects of our audits.
For this strategy and with the looming deadline, there is no consultation plan for our office regarding the letter we will send in May.
Mr. Michaud, do you have anything to add?
Mr. Michaud: Yes, thank you.
We are actually acting as a consulted stakeholder in the development of the new strategy. Stakeholders and the public are given a four-month period to provide comments. We provide comments as part of the legislation. Then Environment and Climate Change Canada takes that feedback and makes adjustments to the strategy where appropriate. That’s their prerogative.
The department will also produce a report on the consultation. We are one of the stakeholders consulted.
As part of our work, as Mr. DeMarco mentioned, we call on experts to support us in our comments on the strategy.
Senator Aucoin: When they said that the public would be consulted, I was under the impression that they were actually talking about the Canadian public. I understand from your answer that it goes through organizations like yours, and you consult experts. Then it’s not necessarily Canadians as a whole who are consulted on these issues before the report is released?
Mr. DeMarco: They are consulted, but by Environment and Climate Change Canada. That’s their role. Every time they develop a strategy, thousands of people submit documents along with their perspectives.
There is a consultation process run by Environment and Climate Change Canada.
[English]
Senator Coyle: This is nice to have this time.
I’m going to pick up on Senator Lewis’ earlier question about COSEWIC. I’m looking at your remarks from this morning, Mr. DeMarco. You said our audit found that Environment and Climate Change Canada had not provided COSEWIC — the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada — with the support needed to complete assessments and timely reassessments, which my colleague mentioned, under the Species at Risk Act.
With the department’s target of only 60 assessments and reassessments per year at the time of the audit, it would take over a century to assess the species that are potentially at risk.
You’ve talked about the need for an increase in what is already a fairly modest budget, so we’ve talked about more resources.
When we talked with the officials, there was talk about efficiency and other things like that. What is your prescription for improving this situation? Is it strictly more resources? Are there other things that could be done to address this incredible shortfall?
Mr. DeMarco: In terms of a prescription, I might need the whole prescription pad and several pages to rectify this problem.
Let’s start at the highest level.
There is a global biodiversity crisis. We’ve said that this level of support for the assessment of species in Canada is not up to the scale of the problem within our borders.
We can focus just on the four corners of this report and say, okay, within the assessment process and the reassessment process, what are the problems?
But let’s not forget the bigger picture, which is in other areas of our audit work, such as protected areas, or discretionary powers to protect species at risk and so on; if more work is done to protect and restore good quality habitat in Canada, then the scale of the problem goes down.
We shouldn’t forget that on-the-ground work is ultimately what is needed to protect species habitat. Then, for specific species, that may also include captive breeding processes and so on.
The better off the health of our ecosystems in Canada are, the smaller the problem becomes. Let’s not forget the bigger picture there.
Generally speaking, in the southern part of Canada, there is not a lot of protected, good quality habitat. You see a concentration of species at risk in those areas where there has been more of a transformation of land use, from forest and prairie to cities, roads and so on. That’s sort of a bigger picture question.
Then if we come down to the four corners of this report, obviously creating a work plan that says, okay, we’re trying to halt and reverse biodiversity loss by 2030. We need to know what the scale of the problem is — including assessing species, at least by then, probably earlier. How many do we need to do each year to accomplish that? Then work back. As opposed to, what was last year’s budget, and what can we do with that this year? Which is what I talked about with the tail wagging the dog. I’m not sure if I expressed myself properly, but that’s what I was trying to get at.
One thing to do is to actually start with the problem and the objective that you’re trying to reach and figure out what resources are needed.
Are there some efficiencies? Yes. There will be some efficiency; addressing all of them still wouldn’t get us to the scale needed, but they’re still worth considering.
I’ll give one example.
The law talks about reviewing species every 10 years. The current process is a relatively detailed reassessment. I think you probably heard from members of COSEWIC that international bodies assessing and reassessing species may not generate as much paperwork per species as is done in Canada.
So especially on the reassessment process, replacing that with some sort of review process that is still sufficient to address the question posed in the law as to whether the status of the species has changed but maybe not be as burdensome as a full reassessment, which may be one type of efficiency for reassessments.
But I would say addressing the thousand-plus species that we don’t even know — we haven’t done an assessment, yet alone a reassessment — is going to require more resources. Regarding the current model, which was set up even before the legislation — the COSEWIC model was set up when there was a much smaller list of species at risk in Canada — there may need to be a rethink as to what sort of assembly line is needed to deal with the scale of the problem. It may require some more full-time resources beyond the admirable, largely volunteer work that’s done through COSEWIC. Not to diminish that, but that’s not sufficient if we really want to know the status of these species and be able to properly protect and manage them before some of them are lost.
It’s not just an abstract possibility. We’re into the two digits now of species that are extinct in Canada and species that are extirpated from Canada. There have been consequences in Canada of the failure to protect biodiversity. We have lost species, including some species that were once common, like the passenger pigeon, for example.
The Chair: Are there any other questions, colleagues?
Senator McCallum: This was mentioned before. The report notes that ECCC — at the current targeted support level of 60 assessments and reassessments per year — would take over 120 years to assess the thousands of potentially at-risk species identified. What does that imply about the adequacy of target setting as a control mechanism for meeting the purpose and intent of Canada’s Species at Risk Act?
How should parliamentarians interpret the gap between the required base figures and ECCC’s current target?
Is the Species at Risk Act working as intended, or does it need to be refined to achieve its purpose?
Mr. DeMarco: Okay. So there are quite a few aspects there.
I would draw your attention to exhibit 9.2, the elements of the species at risk process. There is a lot involved. Assessment listing can sometimes be delayed, as indicated in our protecting aquatic species at risk audit from a few years ago — management, planning, recovery, monitoring and so on. There are a lot of steps.
On paper, it seems like a rational process. But in the current world of constraints at some departments, including this department, it is an open question as to whether this, on paper, still works when there are not enough resources to do all of these steps. That’s a question for parliamentarians to consider: which is, do we need to up the resources so we can get through all of these processes according to the timelines? And it’s not just this report of ours that talks about failure to meet timelines in the act. We have other reports as well under this piece of legislation.
On paper, it appears to be a rational approach to dealing with species at risk, but query whether it is doable now with the scale of resources available. That’s a policy, budget and a legislative question all wrapped together, something for this committee to consider and not something that we can report on.
Having said all of that, when I say, at this rate, it would take a century, it seems like that’s impossible, but recall that this is a very small program with a very small budget. Doubling or tripling this sort of budget is still not a very large amount of money in the grand scheme of things.
If the government chose to take three, four or five years to deal with the backlog and put resources into it, it could do that. There will be some species that there isn’t enough information to assess, which we call data-deficient species. But they could certainly address a large number if there were the will there to address the backlog. That would have downstream effects on the other steps, though. Then, there would have to be the resources to consider the listing and work on the recovery planning, and so on. It’s not as easy as assessing them all in isolation because there are steps that follow as set out in that figure that I mentioned.
The general take-home point of this report is that the scale of the effort does not match the scale of the problem, and Environment and Climate Change Canada accepted our recommendations, but their response, as has been noted, talks about resourcing, and if the resourcing isn’t there, then the problem will persist, as it has in the two fiscal years since our audit period.
Senator McCallum: Thank you.
[Translation]
Senator Miville-Dechêne: I don’t know if you can answer this question. Isn’t the fact that the government is not concerned enough about species at risk simply due to the fact that it is a less visible problem, for example, than global warming, that it is a less visible problem than fires? Is it something that flies under the radar, so it’s easy not to allocate enough resources to it because it happens relatively slowly? Could that be the reason?
Mr. DeMarco: Possibly. Only one species takes part in elections. We have the right to vote. There are 80,000 other species that are not so lucky. The Senate has a mandate to represent those who are not currently well represented. It’s done with the regions, but you may want to represent other species, future generations and other populations that are not very well represented officially in government decision-making.
I don’t know why it’s not a priority in Parliament. Internationally, it’s a priority. There is the 1992 Convention on Biological Diversity. The Kunming Global Biodiversity Framework was recently held in Montreal. Parliament decided to pass major legislation on species at risk. This is an indication that it’s an important issue, because of the intrinsic value of species but also their role in our ecosystem. Clean water, clean air and our food come from biodiversity.
Senator Miville-Dechêne: It’s quite hard to predict what will happen if species disappear. Is that why people have trouble realizing what may be happening? For example, could the disappearance of species affect forests, which is one of our major economic resources? I don’t think we’re at the stage where people understand in detail how the disappearance of certain species can have a concrete effect on our lives. Could that be the challenge? Would it be possible to phrase things more concretely and try to raise these issues? The connection is not always obvious.
Mr. DeMarco: It’s not always obvious, but it’s much more obvious now than it used to be. The first paragraph of Policy Horizons Canada’s 2025 report identified:
. . . biodiversity loss and ecosystem collapse as one of the most likely and high-impact events that could disrupt Canadian society in the next decade.
That also features in the Davos document. That is clear. Perhaps not everyone knows it, but it is clear that it is very important. We need food to survive and oxygen from organisms. It is very concerning that we are not allocating enough resources to protect biodiversity. Even if there was no intrinsic value, the system that we need to survive as a human society has value.
[English]
Senator McCallum: I wanted to follow up on Senator Miville-Dechêne’s topic, and that is why I brought up hydro. I’m working with the hydro-impacted communities in Manitoba and the destruction that happens with hydro and their water. They drink bottled water now. They were refused to draw water from an aquifer, so when Senator Miville-Dechêne said, “Is it because it is easy to ignore?” Because it’s up north, it is easy to ignore. It has been. The Tataskweyak Cree Nation put the species at risk claim in. I’ve been working with them for four years — no progress.
That’s an example of environmental racism, where some species in the South are protected but not the sturgeon. The community of South Indian had one of the best economies in Canada, and now it’s totally gone.
This species extinction does impact our lives right now up north. It impacts us economically, as I said, with fishing, and now people have been forced to go on welfare. There have been suicides because independent people are now at a loss. You look at the loss of intangible cultural heritage. The tangible is the sturgeon, but the intangible is cultural transmission, knowledge transmission between Elders and youth, and our kinship. That’s disappearing, and that’s cultural genocide.
I look at that and see we haven’t been able to make progress. Can we take that to your office — this is on First Nations lands — to look at this? Because they really need someone’s help. They have hired their own people to tag the fish and track the migration, and it’s because the water, the Churchill River, is being diverted, so it’s very low. In the winter, there’s ice where there should be a lake for fish to swim in and they can’t.
It’s frustrating, and I don’t know what to do. We don’t know where to go.
Mr. DeMarco: I can address that in part. When we were looking at the suite of what became our biodiversity audits over the last few years, we did some research on the issue internally before embarking on that suite of audits. One of the things we noted was that, among many of the once-common species that have either disappeared or diminished by 90% or more, there is an unfortunate association with their importance to Indigenous people.
Several of the salmon populations on the West Coast and some of the caribou populations that used to be healthy are not. Going back even further, the bison population in the central part of the country has also been affected, and then, of course, Atlantic salmon and cod on the East Coast — and cod was important, especially up until 1992, when the moratorium was put in place. It was especially important to the entire fabric of Newfoundland. Not so much from a current First Nations point of view, but from society as a whole.
There has been a loss of key species that are part of the identity of various cultures, Indigenous and non-Indigenous cultures. It is quite unfortunate. For the species that are not extinct, there is still work that can be done to help recover them. Work has been done on bison. Certain populations of fish species have had a lot of effort going into either restoring water flow or putting in fish ladders or restoring estuaries for the fish fry and so on.
I’m hopeful that work can be done to help restore some of those connections, and then restore all of the economic and social dependencies that existed with many of those species. It does not just cut off a lifeline in the sense of clean air or clean water. It may cut off a cultural identity or lifeline for a particular Indigenous community.
Canada’s history has been an unfortunate one in terms of its relationship with Indigenous Peoples, and also with the species that were important to those Indigenous Peoples. Not across the board, but in several key areas, as I just mentioned. What can be done? It is all part of this suite of audits. More needs to be done if Canada is going to meet its objectives of actually protecting and recovering these species that are important in their own right and for many of the reasons that you just mentioned in terms of the cultural and social fabric of the communities that rely on them.
Senator McCallum: Thank you.
The Chair: I think we may have come to the end of our questions. Thank you so much for all the information you have provided. It has been wonderful. You know a lot of depth to what you have come to advise us on.
(The committee adjourned.)