Bill C-57, an Act to amend the Federal Sustainable Development Act

Opening Statement to the Senate Standing Committee on Energy, the Environment and Natural Resources

Bill C-57, an Act to amend the Federal Sustainable Development Act

8 November 2018

Julie Gelfand
Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development

Madam Chair, it is a pleasure for us to be here today to share our views on Bill C-57, an Act to amend the Federal Sustainable Development Act. I am joined by Andrew Hayes and Heather Miller, who are senior colleagues from the Office of the Auditor General of Canada.

As Canada’s Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development, I feel a special responsibility to support the Committee’s review of the Bill. My remarks are informed by our Office’s 20 years of audit work on sustainable development.

Expanding the “environmental” focus of the Act to include social and economic matters

First, Let me state that our Office is pleased to see that the purpose of the proposed amendments is to provide a Federal Sustainable Development Strategy that makes decision making related to sustainable development more transparent and subject to accountability. In the past, the Act referred to decision making as it related to the “environment.” Sustainable development is about decision making that integrates economic, social, and environmental considerations.

I would expect the Federal Sustainable Development Strategy and departmental sustainable development strategies to focus on implementing the United Nations’ sustainable development goals until the year 2030. Canada has made a commitment to implement the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, and the Federal Sustainable Development Strategy is one of the best tools available to the federal government to help it achieve that goal.

Our Office was very happy to see that changes were made to the proposed Bill that would authorize the Treasury Board to establish policies and issue directives relating to the sustainable development impact of government operations. We had recommended these changes to the House of Commons Standing Committee on the Environment and Sustainable Development in December 2017.

We recommend that the Committee consider whether an amendment can be made to the new subsection 10(3) of the Act, to authorize the referral of the Federal Sustainable Development Strategy to any relevant standing committees. We make this recommendation because sustainable development covers social, economic, and environmental issues, and ranges across many committees—not only the committee that normally considers sustainable development matters.

Reporting on sustainable development progress and improving accountability

Our Office supports the proposed amendments that will require significantly more federal organizations to prepare, implement, and report each year on their sustainable development strategies. We see this as a positive step toward the integration of sustainable development considerations across government.

We were also pleased to see that organizations would be required to contribute to drafting the Federal Sustainable Development Strategy and developing the federal government’s progress report. We also support the proposed amendment to require each target within the Strategy to be measurable and include a time frame. This addresses a concern that we had raised in previous reports on this topic.

The proposed purpose and the additional principles outlined in new section 5 of the Bill would provide tangible tools for my auditors to use in their work to hold organizations accountable for their sustainable development responsibilities.

With these proposed amendments, I will continue to fulfill my statutory role of monitoring sustainable development strategies. At this time, it is not clear to me how many organizations we would have to audit. We know that the number could increase significantly. We expect that it could change from the current 27 to possibly over a hundred. The Committee should be aware that this change would have resource implications for the Office.

We also have some concerns that important consequential amendments to the Auditor General Act have not been considered. Our legal counsel will be happy to answer any questions on this issue.

As auditors, we support the idea of strengthening accountability for results. One way to achieve this would be for the Bill to specifically require deputy heads or ministers to acknowledge their accountability by signing off on the completeness and accuracy of their progress reports on sustainable development activities.

Another way, which was discussed at length during the House of Commons Committee’s study of the Bill, would be to incorporate accountability for sustainable development results in the performance agreements of deputy heads. We note that the section on performance-based contracts in the current Bill would be repealed with the proposed changes. This would result in a lost opportunity to hold deputy heads accountable through their performance pay.

Madam Chair, I commend the Committee for its work and hope that my suggestions will be helpful to you.

This concludes my opening remarks. We would be happy to answer the Committee’s questions. Thank you.