The Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development responds to the draft Federal Sustainable Development Strategy

Ottawa, 7 June 2010—Scott Vaughan, Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development, released his comments today on the federal government’s draft strategy for sustainable development, Planning for a Sustainable Future: A Federal Sustainable Development Strategy for Canada, Consultation Paper. The Commissioner is required to review the draft strategy under the Federal Sustainable Development Act of June 2008.

“We welcome this first ever federal strategy for sustainable development in Canada,” said Mr. Vaughan.

The Commissioner provided some observations on various aspects of the draft strategy and raised some concerns. The draft strategy emphasizes the use of existing mechanisms and government processes to promote more transparency and accountability, but it does not propose changes that might lead to improvements.

The draft strategy is a snapshot of some of the government’s existing goals and targets related to climate change and air quality, water quality and availability, nature, and the environmental footprint of government operations. However, for many of the targets and implementation strategies, it does not state the specific results expected, baselines, benchmarks, or performance indicators. This will make it difficult for Environment Canada to provide Parliament with a comprehensive and objective assessment of government’s progress in achieving the stated goals and targets, as it is required to do by the Act.

“As the draft strategy currently reads, it is unclear how it will fulfill its purpose of making environmental decision making more transparent and accountable to Parliament,” stated Mr. Vaughan. “We look forward to seeing how the concerns we have raised will be addressed in the final strategy.”

The Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development will comment on the final version of the federal strategy in a future report.

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The report “Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development Comments on the Draft Federal Sustainable Development Strategy” is available on the Office of the Auditor General of Canada Web site.

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