EVIDENCE

[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]

Tuesday, March 18, 1997

.0912

[Translation]

The Chairman (Mr. Charles Caccia (Davenport, Lib.)): Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. To start with, I would like to thank the members who are here. I'm sorry that my colleague from the ruling party has not arrived yet, but it is already 9:15 and we don't want to leave the witnesses waiting any longer.

First, I want to welcome Cynthia Wright, Luc Desroches and Laura Talbot-Allan.

[English]

We welcome you this morning, and we look forward to a session that will help in understanding better the system you have adopted under instructions from Treasury Board. I don't need to tell you what the difficulties are. From last year's meeting, you're already aware where parliamentarians are having problems. Those problems are not being dissipated or diminished. There is still a lot of fog and lack of visibility, therefore we rely on you to give us the benefit of your understanding and to facilitate a better comprehension of what the new system is all about.

Who would like to go first?

Ms Laura Talbot-Allan (Assistant Deputy Minister, Corporate Services, Department of Environment): Mr. Chairman, I would like to make a few comments at the beginning on behalf of our department and my colleagues, and then we would be very pleased to discuss further the report on plans and priorities with you in the process.

We have some slides that have been passed out. They are available in English and French to talk about the technical briefing.

.0915

The Chairman: Do you want to take us through the slides now?

Ms Talbot-Allan: When I make my comments, I am going to run through the slides. So a few opening comments before we get started might be the most rational way to go through.

[Translation]

They are also available in French.

[English]

I am accompanied today by my colleague, Cynthia Wright, director general of our corporate management and review, and by Luc Desroches, a controller with Environment Canada.

I and my colleagues would be pleased to try to answer your questions concerning the approach we have taken to preparing our report on plans and priorities, the department's management agenda for which I am the lead ADM, the department for accountability structure.

If you have any questions concerning our results-based business lines and the department's financial report, we will answer your questions now, and if there is something we cannot answer, we would obviously be pleased to respond afterwards as well.

The deputy, Ian Glen, wanted me to indicate that he and the executive team, including me, look forward to returning in April to respond to questions on substance of the report and its commitment and its objectives.

First off, to talk a little bit about the improved reporting initiative itself, this is the second phase of the initiative by Treasury Board and the House committee on procedure. This part of the pilot involves 16 departments, and we are one of the pilot departments.

The Chairman: Excuse me for interrupting, but before you go into the substance of the IRI, could you explain to us what was the philosophical - for lack of a better word - background that led the Treasury Board to launch this initiative? What were the considerations?

Ms Talbot-Allan: I am probably not as up to speed on it as an expert would be, but as I understand it, it was the House committee on procedure wanting to see that there was clearer reporting and clearer accountability to Parliament and to Canadians, and that Treasury Board is the instrument of putting forward ideas of how to make changes in the accountability process, changes to the main estimates, things like this, so it would allow for clearer and more relevant reporting. Those recommendations, as well as options, are then brought forward to the House committee on procedure, who discuss it and decide in which direction on pilots they would go.

Ultimately, as I understand it, Parliament has to agree to the changes that will be made. So there have been a number of changes.

The Chairman: Would the search for clarity lead to such a substantial, almost revolutionary change in reporting techniques? Surely there was more than just a desire to achieve clarity - or am I wrong?

Ms Talbot-Allan: I can't put myself in the shoes, of course, of the members of the House committee who brought forward these changes and the impetus for changes, but certainly, looking at reporting, whether it is in the public or private sector, there has been a lot of work on trying to achieve more clear, understandable, reliable and consistent types of reporting to provide that type of understanding for users.

Certainly in the corporate world there has been a lot of movement in that direction, and there has been equally at all levels of the public sector, not just in Canada but also in other countries.

The Chairman: So are you saying we are adopting a corporate model from the private sector?

Ms Talbot-Allan: No, that's not what I've said, and I wouldn't like to be interpreted in that sense. But there has been a lot of push to look in each sector, whether it is the public, not-for-profit or private sector, as to how these could be improved.

As I have taken part in some of these reviews, I think some of the principles are very much the same, to move in a way that is relevant, understandable and reliable in that it can be verified and things like this. But that doesn't necessarily mean that the reporting would be the same in each of those sectors. It has to be useful to the ultimate users.

At any rate, I will run briefly through where this improved reporting initiative is at.

.0920

This is the second phase. In the second phase the part IIIs have been replaced by two documents: the spring report on plans, which is this report on plans and priorities, and a separate fall report on performance.

The report on plans and priorities, or the RPP, as we call it on your slides, comes before the beginning of the fiscal year and presents direction, strategies and results for the next three years. The main estimates, which it replaces, of course looked forward for only one year.

There is also an in-year update, as necessary, to adjustment commitments and that would come forward at approximately the end of November. Not all departments are involved in this, depending on whether there have been changes that need to be updated for the year.

The fall report on performance is within six months after the fiscal year end. This is earlier than the main estimates would have reported on performance, and it is against the plans in the previous report on plans and priorities.

Our pilot document was tabled last November, and we were here to discuss that shortly after it was tabled.

Again, it was a technical briefing, and we found that it was very useful to the department. Members of the committee were complimentary about the report's accessibility and the focus on results.

Your committee gave us a number of very useful recommendations for improvement: clearer attribution in the use of results statements; careful attention to the readability level of the report; continued balanced reporting; providing a context for our performance, i.e. where it is Environment Canada versus where it is our partners or where we are doing things together; consistency in the year over year financial reporting provided; and, to the extent possible, linking results and resources.

We have attempted to start to make some response on this in our report on plans and priorities. We of course will be taking these into consideration when we are putting forward our performance report next fall.

Since we had this briefing with the committee, our department has received a very positive evaluation of its results and performance measures in a report on improved reporting initiatives that was provided to the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs. This was a third-party objective review. It was done by people outside of the government.

The Chairman: Which slide are you reading from right now?

Ms Talbot-Allan: I am still talking about slide 2.

The Chairman: But what you read in the last few minutes is not on slide 2.

Ms Talbot-Allan: I am just adding a little bit of commentary to some of the points we would like noted. I wanted to keep the slides fairly short.

To turn to slide 3, our accountability framework, this results framework is to strengthen accountability and improve reporting. We have an annual accountability and planning cycle, so we use this framework for each one of our reports, for the performance report, the report on plans and priorities and for any of the mid-year updates.

We have 41 long-term results under four business lines and there are 10 components. We are looking at: healthy environment; safety from hazards; a greener society; and administration. We provided the minister's action plan to you before today, showing how those are laid out and how the results fall under each one. This was introduced starting in the business plans of 1995-96.

Our external accountability for results and resources is reported under these business-line components. This framework has been written up as a best practice by the Auditor General and will be part of his September 1997 report. It's being emulated by several other departments. The approach gives us more reliable tracking of time and resources versus results, and the internal accountability structures ensure that we have integrated delivery of department results.

Our intent is certainly to have this as a very clear way of indicating what the department is doing and of showing the context of why we are putting forward certain priorities and how we are performing against them. We want this to be reporting that is very relevant to parliamentarians as well as to Canadians. We are providing it in electronic and print versions.

.0925

Our performance report is something that is very much a companion document to the report on plans and priorities. I believe the members of this committee all had copies, but we'll provide others if you need them.

In the performance report, we described Environment Canada's successes, shortfalls and challenges against the 41 results in our accountability framework, and each fall we will continue to report against these 41 results objectives.

We have provided a set of indicators to be used to track performance against these results in the future. We intend to continue using these, although we hope to improve them in a few areas where we think they should still be improved.

Because it was our first performance report, we took a somewhat comprehensive look back over Environment Canada's first 25 years to establish a baseline for performance in future reporting. Of course, with the length of most of the issues we deal with in the environment, it was a good way to establish that baseline, but we will have to continue our reporting by really looking at more than a year in most cases. It is very much an essential companion to the report on plans and priorities.

If you turn to the next slide, the report on plans and priorities is quite distinctly different. It is a forward-looking, multi-year strategic document. The main estimates and the part IIIs, which were the very detailed documents, covered the department's accomplishments for the past fiscal year. So if we were tabling these in February 1997 for departments that were still on that, they were talking about their performance in 1995-96 and their future in 1997-98.

So going to performance reports gives us a more timely report on performance, and the report on plans and priorities gives us a longer look forward at the same time.

It's results-focused instead of being input- or activity-focused. It sets out the minister's four priorities. It discusses the key initiatives that the department is undertaking to respond to them. It links these initiatives to our results and performance measures in our framework of accountability. It presents directions, initiatives and results in the context of our business lines.

Because we're trying to take a three-year strategic focus, the report is necessarily at a higher level than that of the main estimates. Certainly Treasury Board's instructions to departments were that the report on plans and priorities should be no more than 30 pages for the largest departments. Because of this, however, we made certain that we included some quite comprehensive annexes behind it.

As well, as I said before, we will continue to report in our performance report on all 41 of our results statements. We have chosen 22 of them to be high priorities for us to make extensive comments on in the report on plans and priorities.

As for the structure in the report on plans and priorities, I believe members have had a copy. If you do not have it with you, we have a number of copies here. I would like to walk you briefly through it as to what we are intending to put in there.

Mr. Paul Forseth (New Westminster - Burnaby, Ref.): You were talking about the one document I haven't seen yet. You went on to talk about the performance report and then the report on plans and priorities. Is that the third document?

Ms Talbot-Allan: No, I was talking about two documents. I'm sorry if I missed one other. The report on plans and priorities is the one that Cynthia Wright has just passed out to several people here. It's particularly the one we are here to give a technical briefing on.

.0930

The performance report was tabled in the fall under the same business line structure, and we were in at that point to talk about it. I don't have an additional copy, but we'll get you one right after, if you like.

Mr. Paul Forseth: That was the one that was supplied at the last hearing.

Ms Talbot-Allan: That's right. It's under the same framework of business lines and the same results objectives and things like that.

We start with the minister's message in the report on plans and priorities. It's intended to serve as an executive summary of sorts and to indicate the minister's clear ownership of the report's messages, which are largely staying the course of the objectives we've had over the last couple years.

We move into a summary of key plans and priorities so we can give time-bounded deliverables against the 22 results statements we're noting as having a high priority. This summary is on pages iv to vi. If you look at those three pages, in a nutshell, they tell you what's in the report. The rest of the report provides a great deal more detail and context.

The overview provides the department's interpretation of its challenges and the reasons why the minister has established the directions he has. By business line, we describe the initiatives the department is going to undertake to deliver on the minister's directions. At the end of each business line, there's a table indicating resources being used to implement the program initiatives. The decrease in resources as you look year to year, until we reach a stabilization point, are the result of previous program review announcements.

Turning to page 7 on the slides, the minister's directions are, first of all, to maintain momentum on meeting key commitments.

The Chairman: Which slide 7? We don't have numbers here.

Ms Talbot-Allan: It's the report on plans and priorities, the minister's directions.

The Chairman: Okay. That's on page 4 in what was distributed.

Ms Talbot-Allan: We have a very ambitious agenda of commitments, so we certainly want to move these forward.

The second one is to enhance Environment Canada's contribution on sustainable development. While this has always of course been a high priority at Environment Canada, at the same time as we're doing our sustainable development strategy, our delivery on our actions has to be through the actions we're going to do in our business plan. So we've gone back to look at them to see if there's more we should do on certain of those result objectives to contribute toward sustainable development ourselves.

We also want to better manage our interdependencies and partnerships. Certainly we're not able to deliver a great deal of things all on our own. We have to deal with a lot of partners to see that we make progress. So it's a priority of the very highest order.

We want to continue to build a flexible and adaptable Environment Canada. It's very important in the area of expenditure management for scarce resources that we continue to renew ourselves and be effective and accountable. We also want to fit within the government context of the changes to the management agenda that the government is looking at in total, such as alternate service delivery and the renewal of the workforce.

Looking at the next slide, the report on plans and priority initiatives, our priority initiatives in the report include: implementing CEPA and CESPA; addressing health and environment issues; pressing for progress on climate change; contributing to Canadian competitiveness in the global economy; new partnerships with leaders in the socio-economic sector; engaging youth in our agenda both internationally and domestically; building on the Canada-wide harmonization accord; and focusing on our international efforts.

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If I turn to the management agenda, which is the next slide, our priorities are to: invest in our human resources; develop a framework for managing science and technologies along with our partner departments; identify alternative delivery mechanisms, including work on cost recovery in select areas; manage by results, which is of course what we are looking at here as well; and modernize our information technologies.

The management agenda in particular will be expanded upon in our department's business plan, which should be discussed with Treasury Board ministers likely in June. This would then be made public. It will, however, contain the same initiatives and thrusts as that which we have in our report on plans and priorities for our programs and policies. We will expand on the management agenda primarily.

I have included just a couple of slides of resource information. We're talking about 1996-97 and our planned expenditures through to 2000. These are provided in the report on plans and priorities as well.

We disclose our gross planned expenditures and what revenues we have under the two categories of revenues that Parliament uses, as well as the constant services that are provided by other departments to us. There's an estimate of that to reflect what the net cost of the department is.

So 1997-98 is the third year of program review one. That's the end of the major changes the department was making in coming out of the program review exercise. And 1998-99 shows the impact of program review two, which was a number of small planned changes we have. This puts us back at the level of net expenditures from before the Green Plan. After that, the department's budget shows a measure of stability.

Let's look at the slide, which is resource information continued. We do a breakdown against our business lines: the healthy environment, safety from environmental hazards, a greener society, and administration. We break it into operating capital, grants and contributions, and revenues so as to come out with again the same net planned expenditures but in a different way of looking at those expenditures. We have also included projections of the number of employees in the department.

Mr. Chairman, those were the comments we had prepared to talk about in a technical way on the report on plans and priorities. We would be pleased to discuss the thrust in terms of improved relevance of the reporting, as well as to discuss the department's financial reports or the management agenda, since I am the lead on the management agenda.

The Chairman: Thank you, Ms Talbot-Allan.

Madame Guay, followed by Mr. Forseth.

Mr. Paul Steckle (Huron - Bruce, Lib.): Mr. Chairman, I would like to have a clarification of ``revenue to the vote''. What are we talking about?

The Chairman: You can ask that as part of your question.

Mr. Paul Steckle: I know, but it might help clarify some other questions before we ask them. It's a term I haven't seen used.

Mr. Luc Desroches (Director General, Corporate Services, Department of the Environment): There are two types of revenues. There are some revenues for which Parliament has given us authorization to re-spend. We can only incur the expenditures if we're going to collect them. There are other expenditures we have to deposit to the consolidated revenue fund.

So the first category is revenues, most of which is credited to the vote. I can show you where in the document we have the breakdown in more detail on those things.

But there are some revenues that, if we collect them, we are not allowed to re-spend. There are other revenues we have to deposit to the consolidated revenue fund.

Mr. Paul Steckle: Okay.

[Translation]

The Chairman: Thank you.

Madam Guay, please.

Ms Monique Guay (Laurentides, BQ): I don't know whether the other witnesses have any comments to make or whether you want us to ask them questions as we go along. This is what you want? Fine.

Looking at those figures, you can tell that there are still significant budget cuts being made. I have been a member of the environment committee for three years already and quite significant cuts have been made each year.

When you look at the 1997-98 budget, you can see that the department will lose $83 millions from its budget and another $23.2 millions in 1998-99 for a total decrease of $106.2 millions over two years.

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We in the environment committee have worked hard to improve environmental protection and we have tried to enact new legislations.

Those legislations require more human resources to deliver more services. How is your department going to implement those environmental legislations and deliver effectively the services we are supposed to give and are even trying to enhance if it is made to effect cuts amounting to $106.2 millions? This is virtually impossible.

On the other hand, how come we don't have more information on the allocation and management of those funds?

[English]

The Chairman: May I perhaps interject here. I did not do it at the beginning because our committee was not fully present, but now I should.

The purpose of this meeting is to examine how budgets are prepared and the change from an approach that no longer exists to the present one. It is not to discuss the content of budget figures, which opportunity we will have in April or May when we discuss the budget. Today we are discussing the methodology adopted in designing the budget and why it is done this way.

So I would ask you to answer Madam Guay's questions, of course, if you can. I would urge members of the committee to refrain from asking questions on figures, but to focus on the methodology.

Madam Talbot-Allan, please.

Ms Talbot-Allan: Thank you.

In response to the first preamble to the question, officials are with me today to provide support in answering questions. We had only intended to make one short set of prepared remarks.

When it comes to the actual numbers I would suggest the more detailed substance be discussed with me and my colleagues when we return. I would comment that these numbers are consistent with the program review decisions first taken by the government and disclosed at the time of the budget in 1995 and indicated in our previous business plans.

We certainly recognize that this remains of interest to the committee, and perhaps under a report on plans and priorities this has not been reported on yearly in that same kind of detail. Whether more annexed information should be provided in the future is something we would consider on that. It is something I will discuss with my colleagues in other departments who may find the same questions.

[Translation]

Ms Monique Guay: Mr. Chairman, I think the issue is not only important, it is critical. I know that you do not want to discuss the substance of the reporting, but please let me say, Mr. Chairman, that such significant cuts will undermine the very foundations of the department's organizational structure. I think that we must come back to this issue. Maybe not today, maybe some other time, but we will have to come back to it nevertheless. I will now let my honourable friend take the floor.

[English]

Mr. Paul Forseth: Certainly, increasing accountability is an issue for the public to be able to understand when looking at some of these documents. This is really what it means.

Looking through some of these documents, there is still a long way to go to sort out a business line activity and really structure the department, what it does, and try to set up benchmarks to measure results.

I see on one of your slides you talk about a management agenda. You talk about investing in human resources. I would like to ask some questions about general trends.

.0945

First of all, as far as the ongoing management agenda of the department is concerned, during the life of this Parliament when the Liberal administration came to power Environment Canada had a budget, and there has been a trend downward in overall global expenditure.

Can you just for the record tell me what that is? What was the budget when we had the new Parliament and what is the plan as to what level that funding is going to stabilize at?

Ms Talbot-Allan: The budget at the beginning of the program review was $737 million and the impact, the net effect of both program review I and program review II, shows up at the end of 1998-99. That brings us to $520 million.

Mr. Paul Forseth: So if this is the issue of comparability, we are comparing the proper line to line. If we took that line with the appropriate inputs and components in it and backed that line up to, say, the 1992-93 or the 1993-94, that would have been $737 million. Your projection in 1999-2000 is $520 million, and that projection as part of the management plan is intended to be somewhat of a level figure. If we are looking at an imaginary graph and there is a downward line, is the plan, then, to keep that figure relatively flat from then on?

Ms Talbot-Allan: There are two things. I believe the $737 million number was in 1994-95. We have data before that where we have separated out parks, because at one point Parks Canada was part of Environment and so numbers in old main estimates would have reflected that. We have certainly separated them back. So we were up in that range of $700 million plus for, say, the couple of years before we started the program review.

On the $520 million, based on the best information management has at this point, this is where we are stabilizing. These numbers don't indicate that as you go forward in time it's taking away any of Parliament's discretion on what they might like to do in those time periods.

My controller would equally like to comment.

Mr. Desroches: I would like to make one small observation. Obviously, the numbers my assistant deputy minister was talking about are budgetary levels, total for the department. The department is not exactly the same at the end of the planning period as it was. For example, in 1994-95 the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency was part of the department. Now they are reporting separately. They are not in these numbers.

There has been little adjustment. There are some programs on energy, research and development, where we had the funds, where most departments had funds in their budgets. Now all those funds have been centralized in the NRCan budgets and they are allocated yearly to departments. So there are some small differences. It is not exactly the same thing. If you use the numbers that my assistant deputy minister was talking about, that is a good baseline.

Mr. Paul Forseth: Where did the assessment go?

Mr. Desroches: It has its own separate reports on plans and priorities.

Mr. Paul Forseth: But it still comes under -

Mr. Desroches: They are not in these numbers here. They have their own separate budget.

Mr. Paul Forseth: But it still comes under the environment minister?

Mr. Desroches: Yes.

Mr. Paul Forseth: Okay. In a management plan you talk about this: ``invest in its human resources''. I suppose that is a euphemism for general training. Perhaps you could describe a little bit of what that means and perhaps what percentage of the budget, in just a rough number, that is. Is that an initiative of expansion or is that basically a maintenance attitude that the department has towards that? Where are we at in this ``invest in its human resources''?

Ms Talbot-Allan: I think the ``invest'' is not only in the financial sense. We have a small training budget and that has held fairly steady. In fact, we made certain that we protected a small amount of money for training to make certain we could upgrade people's skills in a prudent manner.

.0950

In this, though, we're also talking about making certain that people have opportunities to gain further experiences and therefore it's mutually beneficial. It's good for the department but it's equally good in building their skills, not just for training.

We are managing our science researchers appropriately. We look at what the management framework is for science and technology personnel, which we are doing along with Treasury Board and other departments that have a large number of science and technology employees. It's a variety of ways of using tools that are already at our disposal to work better with our staff to prepare them to deal with our own programs.

It's a piece of what the government is calling La Relève, to look at their entire work and how we renew some of the skills. How do we not only renew them but how do we also bring a small amount of new blood into the government? It's an investment in that sense, not just training courses per se.

Mr. Paul Forseth: So you wrap that into the statement ``develop a framework for managing science and technology''. You included that in there. When you were talking about it I just scribbled the word ``Meaning?'' beside it. I would like a little bit more of a description of what that means.

Ms Talbot-Allan: The science and technology framework is not just human resources. The two come together in that area.

Certainly, on the science and technology, we have a further description on page 30 in the report on plans and priorities. But it's definitely to make certain we maintain core scientific capabilities. It's to make certain our science is aligned with the science of other departments that are working in the same areas. We all have scarce resources and we want to make certain we use them to the maximum benefit. We want to make certain we are using science in our policy-making process appropriately. Those are the types of initiatives.

Mr. Paul Forseth: I am looking at this document on page v. At the top of the page it says ``A Healthy Environment''. There's a left column going down in bold print. Are those intended to be statements of fact or are those statements of goals that we will achieve someday? Then in the right hand column there's strategies. The first statement I see is: ``Greenhouse gas emissions reduced and stabilized in Canada and international actions to reduce global concentrations promoted''. Is that a hope or is that a statement of accomplishment?

Certainly, we know that greenhouse gases have not been reduced. I am wondering if that is a statement that tries to promote or say something that has not actually happened, or is that a hope for some time in the future?

Ms Talbot-Allan: On page v, using that as a first example, the greenhouse gas emissions is an objective, generally. Not only Environment Canada would contribute to that, but also many times would other partners.

The items in the right-hand column are specific initiatives that Environment Canada will either be a prime party to or definitely an influencing partner to help contribute to achieving that objective.

Mr. Paul Forseth: It comes across in this report as if Environment Canada is trying to take credit for these items that have been achieved on the left rather than clearly stating that these are goals that we continue to strive for. On the right, these are some of the strategies that we hope to implement to obtain those.

Now we go to the second one: ``Canadian levels of smog and inhalable particles reduced''. We know that has not happened and the situation is in fact becoming dramatically worse. If that is clearly a goal we want to go for, that is fine, and we have some strategies on the right. The presentation of the document looks as though the department is trying to take the credit for what has been achieved on the left.

.0955

Ms Talbot-Allan: That certainly isn't our intent. Our intent is that these are goals. We will have to consider that in the next round - making that very clear.

Mr. Paul Forseth: It says, ``Environment Canada provides Canadians with a healthy environment.'' It says Environment Canada does it. It ``provides'' - that's the active verb - and then it lists these things.

If I wanted to be really cynical, I could say that this document is a boldfaced lie. I will be more charitable than that. I understand your explanations that these are goals on the left and strategies on the right. Well, it should clearly say that.

You are coming here today to talk about clarity in reporting and accountability, and a better way of the average Canadian looking at the part IIIs, which are very difficult to understand. You are part of this project to provide a new transparency for the department, and then you come out with a document like this.

It reminds me of that other large sheet we saw a while back that had all kinds of boxes on it. There were blatant, boldfaced lies in that document, which came out of the department. This committee was quite critical of that, and statements were made to the effect that, ``Well, okay, we're sorry. Stuff like that will never come out again.'' Then I get to see this.

You can't have it both ways. If you want clarity, then you have to say things the way they are. That's my reaction. I hope you'll take it under advisement that when a document is intended to provide clarity, it has to mean what it says and say what it means.

The Chairman: Before you answer, Ms Talbot-Allan, when we met the last time, what Mr. Forseth just said was also said by other members of this committee. He is repeating the same frustration.

Evidently as a committee we failed to make an impact. I would like to stress the fact that even at the last meeting, this committee expressed serious reservations about this approach.

We gave examples, as Mr. Forseth did right now, because we felt that the presentation was misleading in the way that verbs were used as if the goal had been accomplished - I won't go through the examples - and because under the heading ``actions, results and deliverables'', a reader would conclude those goals had been achieved.

I would hope that Environment Canada is not going out and telling the world that this committee is behind this new approach, because it was not, at that time when we expressed our reservations, and today we are facing this document that somehow seems to disregard what we said six months ago.

This is not intended personally, Ms Talbot-Allan. I am sure you have quite a difficult constituency to deal with in relation to Treasury Board. But having listened to what Mr. Forseth just said, I hope you will convey the views of this committee to those who make these decisions above and beyond you so it is clearly understood that this committee is not singing the praises of this approach. Far from it.

Please, if you wish to comment, go ahead.

Ms Talbot-Allan: I think what we are talking about here is perhaps how people can read it, and obviously, we deal with many audiences. We would take this into consideration, definitely.

If I look back on the long sheets, when we say ``Canada's Goal'', goal usually does mean very long-term objectives, and not something you've achieved. Our attempt was not to mean that these were already achieved either, in the section that Mr. Forseth -

The Chairman: The primary audience, Ms Talbot-Allan, is Parliament. It may be designed for many audiences, but your main commitment and your main audience is Parliament. Let it be clearly understood by you and by those designing this approach.

Ms Talbot-Allan: Well, that was certainly my intention - Parliament and Canadians. People at all different walks of life and things read these. Our intention is to try to be clear, so we take to heart very much what you're saying here.

.1000

We did say at the bottom of page iv, ``the following are selected long-term results'', and maybe we should have added a few more words, ``that we're trying to achieve''. We'd go back and look at the headings and things like that, because our intention is to be clear.

It's going to take a lot of people and a lot of partners, not just Environment Canada, to make progress in a whole lot of areas that are very important to the environment and sustainable development. We want very much to play our part with our partners as well as to do the initiatives we can in this.

We will go back and take that into consideration and try to be very clear as we come forward in future documents.

The Chairman: Thank you.

Mr. Steckle followed by Mr. Knutson.

Mr. Paul Steckle: I apologize for trying to take the first question, but it's one of those things that has jumped out at us, or at least at me, having looked at part III estimates in the past with another committee.

One of the reasons for us asking for a review and coming at presenting this report in a different way so it's perhaps more understandable is that immediately we are attacked with a situation that creates questions in my mind as to what you mean by that. That's what this whole exercise is about: having more clarity and understanding of what we're seeing.

I didn't understand what you were talking about on the issue of the vote. Maybe that's something other members of the committee knew about and knew what it meant, but I had never heard that.

An hon. member: We didn't know.

Mr. Paul Steckle: When those kinds of things are done, at least there should be some clarity given so we can understand.

As our chairman has said, it's for parliamentarians. We are the ones who are ultimately responsible for going out and selling the message of government on these issues in terms of what we're doing. It's important that we understand.

I look at the ``Plans and Priorities'' section and I go to ``A Greener Society''. A great commentary is given, and that's something that wasn't in the part III estimates, so in that sense there's been a change. But I go through that and I can't find any place where it indicates how the planned expenditures of 1999-2000....

It appears that from 1998-99 on there's going to be a slight increase in dollars spent. Where are those dollars coming from? Is there any indication given of where those dollars will be found? Or am I to believe they're going to be found through cost recovery? If that is the case, where in the program is it going to come from?

The government, in many areas of its departments, is looking at cost recovery, not only in this particular ministry but also in many others. Where should we expect...or is this simply growth in the economy? We should have some idea of where we know we can cut and where we are going to get the extra dollars when we start increasing the budget.

That is the question I would put to you.

Ms Talbot-Allan: First off, the increase in the last two years is a technical increase on benefits where Treasury Board has changed the percentages, benefits that departments are to calculate into their budget. So it's generally contained in the fiscal framework, but it's not additional money for the department to spend on programs. That is primarily what that small amount is at the end.

In terms of cost recovery, in Environment Canada we're forecasting somewhere in the range of $75 million of cost recovery in total. The largest bulk of that are contracts that we've had on an ongoing basis, either recovery through other government departments or, say, in the case of Transport, with the devolution of NAV CANADA, our contract is now directly with NAV CANADA.

We have a small amount of cost recovery that we either have in place or are looking at doing in other areas where we provide a specific service going beyond the general public good, where we provide something specifically to a business sector or to a small sector of the public.

Our intent in our business plan is not to go more heavily than that into cost recovery.

Mr. Paul Steckle: Is it fair then to say that somewhere in this document recognition ought to be given of what your intended plans are in terms of cost recovery and where that might come from, so we might know? We have a right to know where this should come from, or to get a heads-up at least on some of these issues.

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Ms Talbot-Allan: I'll pass this on to Mr. Desroches.

Mr. Desroches: I invite you to look at page 9 of the report on plans and priorities - the small roman numeral in the middle - at appendix 4, the details of the revenues by business line. The two types of revenues I was talking about were the revenues credited to the votes - the ones we're allowed to re-spend if we collect - and the revenues that get collected to the consolidated revenue funds.

So for each of our business lines...and we have some breakdowns of information and our projections for 1999-2000 as to where the revenues are either increasing or decreasing.

Mr. Paul Steckle: But if we don't understand what ``credit to the vote'' means, then we don't understand the rest of it, do we? That's my point. We need to understand. If we're going to change the terms, we ought to understand what those terms are, because I don't have any idea what you're talking about, having read the document. I guess that's why I didn't understand what you were saying.

I would also like to go one step further and perhaps into another area. In your report on plans and priorities, there are charts on business lines showing the projected expenditures for 1996-97 and in the coming years. Although the charts give us an indication as to how much less money is going to be available for each business line, they don't tell us and make clear to us which activities will no longer be carried out by Environment Canada.

Can you show us in the documents what programs have been eliminated for us to meet these particular lines?

Ms Talbot-Allan: There are two things. First, I forgot to comment before on the definition of revenue credit to the vote and things like that. I certainly will bring it to the attention of Treasury Board, and we will have to footnote it or something in the future as a quick reference for others. It's not our intent to confuse anyone.

On the second part, in terms of reductions in dollars over a period of time, those are on the basis of what we had put forward and had been approved and disclosed to both Parliament as well as to the public generally in 1995 at the time of program review one, and subsequently, program review two.

There are comments made about some of these changes within the document, but your question, as well as that by Madam Guay, certainly leads us to think about other ways in which we could disclose this in the future to provide even further information. It would probably have to be appendix-type information, but certainly we are on the same track. We're doing exactly the things we said we would do in transition on our program review one, such as making better use of technology so that we can make changes to decrease our expenditures while providing the same or a better level of service in terms of weather predictions and things like this, developing different ways of reporting some of the items that we reported before, working with partners so that we can provide better service or provide the same service for less dollars, having selected cost recovery, and things like that.

We have reported on it previously. Since we're a pilot department, of course it is something we can take back to discuss generally with Treasury Board, as well as something we could perhaps all improve upon.

We can obviously continue to provide supplemental information, but perhaps it would be useful to outline in other ways.

For example, as indicated on page 19 - and it is just one example - we are investing money to modernize our weather radar network and lightning detection, and we are streamlining our climate station networks so that we can reduce annual operating costs. This is all still part of the transition plan we were on.

So there is information. It's just that we'll have to go back and reflect on how it might be best presented.

The Chairman: Thank you. Mr. Knutson.

Mr. Gar Knutson (Elgin - Norfolk, Lib.): Thanks very much, Mr. Chairman. I want to preface my comments by bringing in an analogy to business.

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On the one hand, there is an annual report at the end of the year subject to the rules of a public auditing. It is designed to maintain the confidence of the investors, generate share value and is basically as much as possible a good news report. That's really the purpose of an annual report but it has to at the same time more or less tell the truth.

Then you get other kinds of reports. For example, if you're a vice-president of manufacturing or something and you have all these plants you are running, you might want reports that just highlight all the problems that need to be addressed and need to be worked on. That would be an internal report, not one you would show to your investors but one you would use as a working document because it might do a really good job in terms of showing the areas where you're failing.

I think the frustration of the committee is that this document seems to be more of the former, where the opening line is, ``Environment Canada has a strong record of performance'' and we talk about maintaining momentum. I don't speak for the group but my sense is that our perspective is that we want to concentrate on the shortfalls. We want to concentrate on increasing momentum because we don't think there is enough momentum in terms of cleaning up the environment.

My question would be, if you are failing in your job or if the department is failing, do you think I'm likely to see it in here, and how would I find it? Can you give me some examples?

Ms Talbot-Allan: There are several things. I agree in part with your analogies. I spent 20 years in the private sector before coming to the federal public service.

The performance report and the public accounts coming out in the fall are a little bit like the annual report. They come out approximately six months after the year end and do report on what's happened. They report both success and things that perhaps haven't gone as far as you would wish.

Mr. Gar Knutson: Can I interject there? Assuming I'm back six months from now, can you say I could expect at least in part a checklist of the shortcomings of the department?

Ms Talbot-Allan: We tabled our first pilot report last November. We certainly show we've made progress but that we haven't made progress everyplace. This is not only Environment Canada but also others dealing with environmental issues, of course, and we tried to be quite frank in our documents on that.

This report on plans and priorities is a little bit more like a strategic plan and budget going to a board of governors, board council, or whatever, showing where the division is of where we are going, the context in which we will have to move and the context of the government as well as outside government that we are dealing in, and therefore what goals we're going towards and what initiatives we would be trying to put in place on those.

In six months we will come back and report on the close of year at the end of March 1997. So it really will be the fall of 1998 before we come back to report on this document, because we are now going into 1997-98.

We will come back and report on that and we will come back every fall and report on our objectives and the performance measures we are saying we will measure against. We will report on all those each fall.

The intent is to be more timely, as in corporate reporting. We had discussed a little bit at the beginning that this objective is not to turn this into corporate reporting, but nonetheless some of the principles are the same in terms of relevance, timeliness, consistency, understandability, reliability of the information, and this type of thing.

Mr. Gar Knutson: On that point on performance and relevance, I want to come back to my main argument - that is, unless we are prepared to be frank with our shortcomings, I think you are going to find a fairly high level of frustration with the committee.

I don't know if that's possible. I really don't know that I could ever expect a public document from a government agency to say, ``This is where the government failed''. I may be dreaming. It may be naivety on my part.

I am wondering if there is going to be a day when Environment Canada is able to come forward and say where they failed and not say greenhouse gases are really a partnership issue with NRCan and a whole bunch of other people. Is there going to be a day when you say this is your issue and this is where you dropped the ball or came up short or didn't meet your expectations?

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Ms Talbot-Allan: On the initiatives we undertake towards an objective like that, we would come forward and report whether we've achieved them, whether we're only part of the way, or perhaps that they just plain haven't turned out and therefore we have to look in other areas.

On a number of these issues - and greenhouse gases is a good example - we are not the only player, and therefore we can only report on what we've done in our initiatives. Equally, our partners will report what they've done in their initiatives towards this.

In total, looking at two or three groupings of initiatives, we will have a better feel as to how far Canada has moved on it, not only at the federal but also obviously other levels of government being involved. We will report clearly on the things that are attributable to Environment Canada, where we have the levers or the tools. In working with our partners, obviously we try to make certain that we feel we have consistent approaches that will move us towards those objectives.

Mr. Gar Knutson: Fair enough.

Let me turn to a broader question. Do you think there's a lot of momentum? I see one of our key points is ``maintaining a momentum''. In your view, are we maintaining it at a low or high level of momentum?

Ms Talbot-Allan: I don't think I'm really the competent person to respond to that. We have a very ambitious agenda and we are certainly moving it forward as quickly as we can. That's what is meant by the comment, ``to maintain momentum''.

Mr. Gar Knutson: But that's different. Maintaining momentum suggests to me you think you're doing fairly well.

The Chairman: We're going into policy at this stage, and we're here to discuss methodology.

Mr. Gar Knutson: Okay.

In the methodology we've talked about, what would indicate to me that momentum is being lost or increased?

Ms Talbot-Allan: When you look at our performance report and see how quickly we're moving ahead and what objectives we're attaining, it should give you some feel as to how quickly the agenda is moving ahead. In the end, though, it all becomes relative.

Mr. Gar Knutson: To what?

Ms Talbot-Allan: Relative to the baseline you start at and what all the other items are that are happening in context at the same time. It is somewhat subjective, then, to decide how much momentum. I think we're all trying hard to see maximum momentum.

Mr. Gar Knutson: And avoid subjective terms.

Ms Talbot-Allan: Subjective in terms of the whole surrounding -

Mr. Gar Knutson: No. The whole process is that we're trying to avoid subjective terms.

I'll add my two cents on this other issue Mr. Forseth raised. As you look at page v, do you see the title at the top of the page as misleading?

Ms Talbot-Allan: I certainly didn't before. I can see how you might read it in a different context and that was certainly not our intent. That's why I would say we'll go back and look at it.

We've tried to say at the bottom of page iv that our intention is we're trying to work towards long-term results, and of course long-term results are something you strive towards. You hope to see really good progress. Our intention is not to portray it in any different sense than that.

We know areas where we definitely need to make progress and we're trying to say we have certain initiatives we are undertaking or have underway and will continue to make progress and that should contribute towards those objectives. That is our intent.

Mr. Gar Knutson: Again, not to beat a dead horse - this is my final comment - but when we receive a performance report, can the committee expect there would be as much emphasis on where we're falling short as there is on our accomplishments?

Ms Talbot-Allan: We'll certainly be honest about how we're doing on our initiatives. I would hope we have more successes to report to you than things that are not very successful. Performance reports are something that are verifiable as well. The department will try to report very objectively as to where we are moving ahead.

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Mr. Gar Knutson: It goes back to what you see as the role of the department. It is my sense that there are certain forces at work, economic forces primarily, that work through the departments of industry, agriculture and natural resources that at times work actively to slow down the environmental agenda.

We need to have a real passion for cleaning up the environment and a courageous sense coming from the department that we are prepared to identify where we are coming up short and where we are making too many compromises for short-term economic gain and giving up long-term environmental gain. Unless we have a willing to do that, to highlight the areas where we are coming up short, then from my point of view Environment Canada isn't doing a very critical part of its job, which is to set off alarm bells.

If public departmental reports, whether for Parliament or for the general public, are always going to be good news reports when good news may not be warranted, then that is a real problem.

I will close with that comment.

The Chairman: All right. Thank you, Mr. Knutson.

Please go ahead.

Ms Talbot-Allan: I want to note that we do have some comments in our report on plans and priorities that show Environment Canada or the federal government, whichever group, is not necessarily meeting all the objectives we've had. For example, on page 15 we are unlikely to meet our goal of stabilizing emissions at the 1990 levels by the year 2000. We've been frank all along on this type of thing and we will continue to be.

The other part is that the strategies on sustainable development will all be tabled during 1997 and departments will be reporting on their performance on them the same as we will be. There are other forces as well that will be contributing to both pressures and forces for momentum as well as candid reporting.

The Chairman: Thank you.

It being my turn, Ms Talbot-Allan, as you say on page 7, you are quite forthcoming, and no doubt you do recognize in that paragraph that Canada is unlikely to be successful in meeting its goal. Yet Mr. Knutson, Mr. Forseth and all of us last fall raised the issue of the table on page v, and it was raised by someone else who appeared before the committee last fall. But it is still the same as if we had said nothing.

We are now saying it for the second time. I hope you will find it possible to report it to your superiors so we will not be forced to say it a third time if we meet again - if we are elected, of course. We may never have that opportunity. But if we do, we are going to watch this item and raise it again, but the next time we will be a bit more forceful. Let us hope you and your colleagues will take to heart what is being said here today.

In my case, there are two fronts on which I find fault with the methodology. One has to do with an important factor in any democracy, and that is accountability.

Dealing with the business lines, in most cases the business line involves either two or three senior managers in the department. Therefore it becomes very difficult to identify who is in the end accountable, unless it is the deputy minister. Well, we can't do that. It's impossible for the deputy minister to be accountable. Therefore the current approach is not as transparent as it is being described, for that reason.

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If two, and sometimes more than two, senior officials or managers, if you like, are accountable, that won't work. You have to design a system that will identify one. That person will then be asked the questions, unless you decide - and then we will want to hear it from you - that the deputy minister is to be held accountable. Fine. Tell us that, and then we'll deal with him or her.

We would prefer - and I'm sure you will agree - that the accountability be at the level of senior officers so that it is understood by everybody both inside and outside the department. I would certainly welcome your comments on this aspect.

The other aspect has to do with what has already been raised by my colleague, Mr. Steckle, and I believe by Mr. Forseth. How can a parliamentarian determine a reduction - or an increase, for that matter - in a specific operational or organizational portion of the department, be it weather forecasting, wildlife, water - you name it?

We used to have - and this is not pining for the good old times at all - organizational lines. We looked at water or weather and we were able to see, yes, here there's been this reduction, or here there's been this increase of so many person years or whatever. We could see trends in a way that was telling us whether we were making progress or not making progress. As well, it was not always necessarily so that expenditures were equivalent to progress. Nevertheless, it was a pretty good benchmark.

You have somehow created an alternative system. It's no longer organizational lines. It is business lines, which is a very unfortunate term. It equates the public interest with business. I don't like it at all. But that is another matter.

The organizational line has very good aspects associated with it that are worthy of retaining. It's not a bad methodology. Of course, we appreciate the fact that this is not your methodology. It is imposed on you by Treasury Board; therefore, it's not Environment Canada's.

But within the system of all departments, I would hope that there is an intensive debate being launched that begins to find out whether this business line approach, which makes it so difficult for parliamentarians and therefore for for Canadians at large to understand trends in various specific sectors - and it's probably the same in Agriculture, Fisheries and so on - is not as great as Treasury Board would like us to believe, for these reasons.

If you persist with this approach of business lines, then give us also the methodology or the footnotes, if you like, as was said by Mr. Steckle, whereby we can still detect trends. Is that unreasonable?

Ms Talbot-Allan: I'd like to make several comments on this, Mr. Chairman. First, the government is moving, on a government-wide basis, to a results focus instead of an input and activities focus as being the clearest way to see trends' progress and value for resources used. We're certainly trying to move in that direction and make certain that we can clearly tell the best story possible that explains quite validly, to parliamentarians and Canadians, what we're doing and how we're making progress. So we're certainly trying to do this for better and clearer communication.

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In terms of accountability for the business lines, clearly the minister and the deputy minister are accountable for what the department delivers. My colleagues, as regional director-generals and assistant deputy ministers, are there to support the delivery of these department programs to Parliament and to Canadians.

In the past, in many cases we did not have nearly the clarity that people would have hoped, by organizational lines in any case. Different parts of the department were very involved in air issues and different parts of the department were involved in water issues. So looking at an organization structure didn't necessarily give you a feel for what those programs were in total, nor for the results that were being delivered in total for the dollar. So this actually pulls those together in a way that provides you with that type of information.

It equally provides a way for us to then sit down - and it's a little bit of a matrix management approach - and ask how we will bring these together. How will we work best together to see that the air issues are looked at from both what was our atmospheric side as well as our environmental protection side and our conservation side, and how do we bring them together into providing useful results, making certain that we have performance progress against these?

Obviously we will be able to provide more trend information as time goes on. We now have several years of past trend plus forward-looking information going out to the year 2000. So you will find improvements in that.

In terms of accountability in some of the areas you would have been familiar with in the past, we of course tried to build on those wherever there were clear accountabilities. Our biodiversity and wildlife business line component is a good example, because that's primarily the Canadian Wildlife Service, which had a fairly distinct objective and performance measures that they were trying to move toward. But it takes into account the fact that it really is more than what we called wildlife in the past - that it really is biodiversity.

So we've tried to build on that in areas such as air issues, where we're more fragmented within the department. We've tried to pull those together in a way that can be useful in looking at results.

On top of that, we know there are pieces that move in and out of the department, as Luc Desroches said earlier. So looking at an organization trend line doesn't necessarily give you the full story anyway. We've had small pieces moved in, such as translation and the research dollars that moved back to Natural Resources Canada as of this year. We have other moneys moving in that are payments in lieu of taxes from municipalities. There are things like this, which have been government-wide decisions.

So those kinds of dollars move in and out and will colour the organizational structure or even sometimes the bottom line a little bit, because you don't see each one of those pieces when you look at the total picture here, although they all move properly through frameworks that Parliament has in place.

This has offered us a way, though, to see that we are judging priorities against each other and that we're not staying within organizational stovepipes. If we're dealing with air issues, we're taking into account what it means to each one of our sectors. It reflects the reality of having moved, back in 1993, to integrated regions, which report directly to the deputy minister as well. That's shown clearly in our annex, with organizational dollars versus organization.

So we feel this definitely has some improvements. It is an accountability structure that allows us to operate and provide good results to Parliament, reporting to a standing committee like this, and to make progress. We feel the trend lines will improve.

I haven't worked anyplace where we haven't gone through a major discontinuity in how you look at yourself, private or public sector, and where you don't have to work on those as you go through a transition period.

The Chairman: Well, those are very encouraging words, but the question is not whether trend lines improve or not. The question is whether you report with a methodology that will allow us to determine which way the trends go. That is our question: have you adopted a methodology that will allow the reader to come to certain conclusions? That is the key question.

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If it is the decision of those who are implementing the system that basically the minister and the deputy minister are accountable and not others as it is possible under the organizational lines approach, then it will mean that at estimates time the committees will be asking for the minister and the deputy minister to stay throughout the entire process.

No one else is accountable according to what you say. I do not know whether the minister or the deputy minister will be happy about that.

Therefore, you have here an issue that has to be resolved. You have to go to the heart of this approach - not you, but those who are operational and behind this business line approach - if you want to identify who is responsible. Anyway, I don't want to take up too much time.

May I also comment on a slide you showed us earlier - it was implicitly raised in your reply - namely, the minister's direction on page 4. The minister has no role, according to that slide, at least, in setting priorities. Yet the setting of priorities is a highly political task, as you know. I would hope you will either insert in that ministerial direction slide or give reasons why the setting of priorities is not included.

If it isn't a ministerial direction, I don't know what the minister is there for. If it is left to the bureaucracy, then we are really in trouble.

Ms Talbot-Allan: Just to note, two slides before that we said the report on plans and priorities sets out the minister's four priorities. We just used a different word on that particular slide.

Certainly, the report on plans and priorities is the department's document, the minister's document that the department puts together. These are certainly the minister's priorities, and on the initiatives that have been agreed we will undertake to move the agenda forward.

It may just be semantics. Clearly, they are his priorities.

The Chairman: Fine.

Are there any other comments on accountability?

Ms Talbot-Allan: I was going to comment a little further that in all circumstances, historically as well, people had responsibility for pieces of files that would mean more than one assistant deputy minister would appear in front of you anyway. I use the air issue as an example.

We have attempted to clarify this through results as to who is prime, how we are contributing through each piece into the initiative so that we can make progress. We have good internal tools as well for indicating who is responsible for which results, to the deputy minister and through him to the minister. We'll to use those management contracts, evaluations, things like this.

That has been the case in the past as well. That doesn't change. Under organizational lines, we do have some fragmentation of where each one of these activities was happening, not each one but a great number of them. They are very complex inter-related issues and we feel this is a better way of trying to address making progress on them. We are trying to make that progress clear.

The Chairman: Thank you. Mr. Desroches.

Mr. Desroches: I have just one point. Again, the report on plans and priorities gives, in the middle of the book, a breakdown of budgets by organizations and their contributions to the four business lines of the department.

The Chairman: Thank you.

Is it the wish of this committee to have a second round?

Some hon. members: Agreed.

The Chairman: Madame Guay, go ahead.

[Translation]

Ms Monique Guay: I think that you have summed up our concerns very well. It seems to me that the work done by the committee must be reflected somewhere and that our suggestions must be reflected in this report. I'm not sure they are. We need some more clarification obviously.

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I will not go into detailed figures, but I want to stress the fact that this is extremely important. I simply want to say that we need more precise information in order to find out what is not working the way it should in the department so that we may offer suggestions to improve its operations. Thank you.

The Chairman: Thank you, Madam Guay.

[English]

Ms Talbot-Allan: I can't really comment beyond the fact that we are taking careful note of areas where the committee might like additional information or changes to semantics.

We are somewhat constrained, though, in also meeting the requirements of the report on plans and priorities, the performance report and things like this. We have to work within the context and at the same time try to make certain they're relevant and we're responding to your concerns and suggestions - and we will.

The Chairman: Thank you. Mr. Forseth.

Mr. Paul Forseth: I'll continue on the same theme. Before Mr. Caccia had got into his line of questioning, I had already made a note or two on my own question, which is basically the same question but restated. So I'll just read the notes I had.

Is there a tight, cogent statement that tells the story of what has happened with Environment Canada in its downsizing plan, or its right-sizing plan? Because we've gone from $737 million to $520 million. What is the story of the cuts? Where, why and how does the new shape of Environment Canada differ from the old? To help clarify where we're going, we have to describe where we've been and the roads we've taken.

I pick up Mr. Knutson's point: a continued rosy picture of the department on an ongoing basis doesn't really help the environment at all. I am sure the department provides very good briefing notes to the minister that boil things down to the most important issues and provides nice, clear charts and stuff like that. That's the same kind of information the public needs to have.

I get the general feeling that - look at all this - the department is still trying to hide. I'm sitting in a chair...maybe I'll be the next environment minister. As I look at this stuff, it doesn't give me much confidence that there's real managerial confidence.

Now, a number of things have been happening in the department in the last year that lead me to ask the question of who in the world is in charge? How are decisions made, and where are we going?

If you're giving good stuff to the minister so that he's at least reasonably confident he can sign the front of this document, certainly we're not seeing it. That's the first question about this story, about where we've been and where we're going and the shape of it and why.

My second point is the public really looks at the Auditor General's reports. They compare what the Auditor General says every year to the material that comes out from the Department of the Environment. I ask, where in your descriptions in this document does it specifically address the pointed concerns of the Auditor General? Those are public documents the folks compare, one against the other.

There are specific Auditor General points that come up every year -

The Chairman: I'm sorry to interrupt, but we are not on substance. We are on methodology today.

Mr. Paul Forseth: But this is methodology. This is the issue of form of reporting.

I am not necessarily looking at the content but at the shape of how you report. Are you trying to get at a style that's more accountable? It would be very simple to say on a page: these are the points the Auditor General has made over the last few years and these are the specific items we have responded to - every one, page by page, all the way down the list. Why doesn't your document simply respond directly to those points, somewhere in the document, and say what you've accomplished, what you haven't accomplished, what money maybe you need or whatever?

That's certainly one of the ways the public looks at it in this general theme of accountability instead of this nice, smooth, weave of story that sounds great, but we see measures or individual incidents out there that would lead the public to say someone's not minding the store, and to ask what's happening.

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Again, it's on this general theme of how you're telling the story. Maybe there is a really good story to tell, but from what I've seen so far, I'm not getting that confident feeling.

So there are two questions: the story of where we've been and where we're going, and how we directly report on what the Auditor General has raised in criticisms of the ministry over the years.

Ms Talbot-Allan: I'll take the last one first. The department certainly responds to the Auditor General's reports and is attempting to move forward in all of those areas. It's not something we've reported on separately in here, nor is it part of what's to be in the report on plans and priorities, but I can take that back to Treasury Board too as a potential suggestion. I'm certain it's not only our department you might ask that of. That's it.

We have to stay somewhat within the context of what is in reports on plans and priorities and what the House standing committee has directed the government to do. Since these are pilots, it's a good time to take that kind of comment back. I think you'll find traces of it throughout our report because we are attempting to respond and follow through with what we've said in our management responses as well.

In terms of the statement on the past, where we're going and the shape of it, this type of thing, we have tried to say this. I said earlier we would also look at other ways. Perhaps we could add more information on things we reported on last year, on, say, program review. Then you wouldn't have to go one document back. We'll have to look at that type of thing in this pilot as well.

When we look at the past and the performance we've had, it has been a decision that those would be separate documents, that the report on plans and priorities is not to report on performance at the same time and on very much history, the way you might have seen in the main estimates. That's why I stress they are companion documents, to look at the performance document as well as the report on plans and priorities to see that picture.

I can and will indicate comments we've had, obviously, to the groups are working on these.

The Chairman: Mr. Forseth, there is a partial answer to your question on page 40 under ``People''. It's only partial but there is an attempt to show what is happening as a result of the cuts.

Mr. Steckle.

Mr. Paul Steckle: No questions.

The Chairman: Mr. Knutson.

Mr. Gar Knutson: On the point Mr. Forseth raises about the cuts, I know the story of the benefits of moving toward a balanced budget. I'm going to have to sell it in the next election in terms of lower interest rates. I know the macro-positives of that. I don't know what costs have been borne by Environment Canada. I don't know what the department used to be able to do that it can't do now.

Presumably you didn't have $250 million or $300 million of waste. So I would assume in a general sense that we've cut some good, substantive stuff. When you are outlining the performance of the department, do you think it might merit a chapter where we say to Canadians, ``By the way, this is what you gave up in Environment Canada as part of our contribution to deficit reduction''?

My worry is that unless we tell that story, we could leave Canadians with the view that there is huge waste and all we're doing is cutting waste. Unless the department tells the story of the serious stuff the public gave up in a meaningful way the common person can understand, then we're not really looking at the performance of the department.

Ms Talbot-Allan: We'll certainly go back and look at doing that. We're just looking here at the main estimates from the previous year where we had indicated under the old format some of the things that had changed. That's why I'm saying we would look at in future either performance or report on plans and priorities. We'll have to decide where we fit that in.

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Mr. Gar Knutson: Do you accept my comments as valid? What's your reaction to what I've said?

Ms Talbot-Allan: I accept as valid the fact that we want to give a clear reporting and a clear statement to Parliament and Canadians, and so would continue to report on what we've changed and what we've modified.

Mr. Gar Knutson: To the point where I can look to a story of what we've given up in a quarter-billion dollars' worth of cuts?

Ms Talbot-Allan: You would understand objectively what we've changed. Changing dollars doesn't always equate with the effectiveness of results. We feel that we have - and I tread narrowly towards substance here, I realize - as it indicates in our last year's main estimates, reshaped in the best possible way to meet our mandate.

Mr. Gar Knutson: If you want to tell Canadians the story that in substance we're still doing the job with $500 million that we were doing with $800 million, that's a pretty blanket condemnation of what we used to get for $800 million. That's sort of the underlying message I'm hearing from you - that, yes, we've cut the dollars, but we haven't necessarily cut the results. At some point it might be useful for us to say, look, these are the results we used to get - the science or the research or the stuff....

Let me move to another example.

Ms Talbot-Allan: Might I comment as well?

Mr. Gar Knutson: Sure.

Ms Talbot-Allan: We have been clear in our past reporting, and will continue to be, that you can't cut that much money without eliminating certain things. We said clearly last year in our main estimates as well and clearly at the time of the budget in 1995 what items would be eliminated. Some things technology definitely assisted us in delivering in a different way, so it wasn't that you cut the entire amount and just plain eliminated programs. But we've been clear that you definitely get less things -

Mr. Gar Knutson: Good things.

Ms Talbot-Allan: - when you have less money.

Mr. Gar Knutson: Less good things.

Ms Talbot-Allan: They were good things. However, it doesn't mean we still can't make an effective contribution towards the mandate Environment Canada has. That's what I'm trying to say - that we don't just cut willy-nilly.

Mr. Gar Knutson: I understand that.

Just by way of an example, when the Minister of Industry stands up and makes a presentation, his presentation inevitably is about all the challenges the country faces - the challenges to productivity, the challenges to employment and to long-term jobs. Basically he presents a pretty hard-hitting, almost bleak story that if we don't get our act together we're going to face these terrible consequences of not being competitive and the whole bit. He talks about research and development and a whole bunch of other things, but it's a very challenging, black, serious picture of what our potential failures are as a country.

This doesn't read with the same tone. It reads like more of a good-news report. At some point it would be nice to see, ``These are the serious challenges the country faces'', whether it's around the issue of clean air or the issue of, ``Yes, we've done a job on acid rain but the lakes aren't coming back'', or the issue...``Greenhouse gases, I admit, is here'', or around the issue of, ``We're losing x number of species a year'' or ``These are the pressing environmental challenges we're facing''.

Rather than have the lead sentence in the minister's comments say, ``Environment Canada has a strong record of performance'', I would rather it say, ``The environment is the key issue as we go into the 21st century. The globe is facing serious problems today and if we don't get our act together it is going to face even greater problems'', and then list what they are. Maybe as a second point you could then talk about Environment Canada's record of performance.

But I think the first line on page ii really indicates the tone of the report. I think you sense some discomfort within the committee that that's not what we want to hear.

The Chairman: Would you like to comment?

Ms Talbot-Allan: No, I can't really comment further. We understand what you're saying, and we'll take note.

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The Chairman: Mr. Knutson is making an interesting point. As we understand the situation that seems to exist in Treasury Board, there's a widespread belief that we were doing less with more under the older approach, and that now we are going to do more with less under the new approach - namely, shifting from approaches along organizational lines to approaches along business lines, as well as cutting. We are going to do more with less money, whereas before we were doing less with more money.

I would hope this kind of theology is limited to Treasury Board and does not spread into other departments. Otherwise we are in serious trouble.

Madam Jennings wants to ask a question.

Mrs. Daphne Jennings (Mission - Coquitlam, Ref.): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

First, I would like to say good morning to you all. I am relatively new to the environment committee.

Just listening to what has been said by our members here and the questions that have been asked, looking at it quickly, I'm very concerned, as they are, because this appears to be a really good, warm and fuzzy document. You say you're going to do all these things, but there's nothing here saying to me: what about the last four years in performance since we have been in government? What has happened? When I look at your performance report, I have major concerns.

You have phase III on page 41, which says that the program review is expected to be the most challenging, and approximately 400 employees will be declared surplus.

There is no indication as to where these 400 employees are going to come from. Are we going to suddenly see whole areas that will be necessary to drop? There is nothing to really give us any advice. Yet we see previously that you are dropping to $499 million, which is -

The Chairman: I'm sorry for jumping in, Madam Jennings, but we are at a meeting on methodology, not substance.

Mrs. Daphne Jennings: I understand, but you have to sort of deal with what it is you are talking about in the methodology. If when laying out our plans we are not going to explain exactly where this is going to come from, then the methodology becomes almost useless. You have no substance behind it.

That's what I'm concerned about. It's the same with this document. I read it all. I see that on page 13 you are going to promote the principle of pollution prevention and fully implement it. I'm thinking that surely we have been doing this all along.

We are laying out all these plans that sound wonderful and glowing, but in actual fact, I don't think that's true.

The Chairman: That is something for another meeting.

Mrs. Daphne Jennings: Yes, it may be. But I find that the methodology here is not what I would like to see as methodology.

The Chairman: You've heard this in spades this morning.

Ms Talbot-Allan: As I indicated earlier, there are two things. The performance document does need to be a companion document. On the other issues, such as program review, we will go back and talk to Treasury Board in terms of methodology and also look ourselves at other ways we may be able to assess some of that. It might be helpful.

The Chairman: Concluding on a neutral note here, there's an intriguing paragraph on page 37 under the heading of ``Cultural Change''. Perhaps you may want to explain this by way of a letter to us, the members of this committee. It's in the performance report on page 37, third paragraph. It says:

The departmental financial coding system is being modified to link resources more closely to results in order to improve priority-setting and decision-making on resource pressures and on reallocation.

I have a vague notion as to what this might mean, but I would be grateful if someone in your department could, by way of a letter, expand on this thought and explain it in a less compressed manner. I'm sure my colleagues would also find it useful. Is that possible?

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Ms Talbot-Allan: Definitely.

The Chairman: Thank you very much, then. Your appearance is always stimulating and educational. We look forward to when we can go into the real substance in a few weeks when the department will be ready to appear on estimates.

Again, Ms Talbot-Allan, Mr. Desroches, and Ms Wright, we thank you for your appearance.

The meeting is adjourned.

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