QUESTION PERIOD — Ministry of Environment and Climate Change
Federal Departments' Climate Policy
March 3, 2022
Minister, your mandate letter asks you to work with the President of the Treasury Board on the application of a climate lens to ensure climate adaptation and mitigation considerations are integrated throughout federal government decision making. I was pleased to see that because it was one of the recommendations I made in my white paper on a clean and just recovery. Infrastructure Canada already has a climate lens, but it applies only to projects that are part of clean infrastructure programs. It should apply to all projects and all policies.
Can you tell us what that climate lens will look like and what factors it will consider as part of government policy analysis? When can we expect the policy to be implemented in all government departments and agencies?
Thank you, senator. That’s an excellent question. You’re right, the government has begun to include the climate assessment piece in all our policies and decisions. We’re in the process of doing that all the way up to the cabinet level. We are currently developing the guidelines and the approach for implementing this principle, which we’re already using in some cases and some departments, but we want this to be whole of government. I hope that, over the next few months, we’ll be able to tell Canadians more about how we’re going to apply this principle to everything the government does.
