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Federal strategies to green up government remain a major disappointment for lack of progress 15 years after promising a plan, Canada’s environment commissioner and auditor general both charged yesterday.
In his annual report to the House of Commons, interim commissioner of the environment Ron Thompson criticized the government’s long-standing commitment to execute sustainable development practices as a patchwork of plans that senior bureaucrats and parliamentary committees largely fail to take seriously.
“The fact that sustainable development strategies have not achieved their intended purpose has been a major disappointment,” Thompson writes in his report.
In 1992, the feds made an international pledge to develop an overall sustainable development strategy that would set goals toward mitigating the environmental impacts of government policies. The deadline for that promise was 2002.
Miss the mark
But Thompson said efforts to mark progress toward the goals among various departments’ disjointed strategies remain similar to trying to assemble a “complicated jigsaw puzzle without the picture on the box.”
Even Environment Canada’s most recent attempt at guidance for all departments on how to green up their practices failed to hit the mark, Thompson said.
“The guidance provides no indicators to clarify the government’s expectations for clean air, clean water, reduced greenhouse gas emissions, sustainable communities, governance for sustainable development, or sustainable development and use of natural resources,” Thompson wrote.
“Nor does it provide baselines or targets against which departments could monitor or report on their progress.”
The report states a federal strategy, despite suggestions one is in the works, is still not in place.
Of 101 specific departmental commitments examined by the environment commissioner’s office, fewer than half (46) have shown satisfactory progress. Of the most recent 11 commitments detailed in this year’s report, only five were found to be satisfactory. Targets set by Citizenship and Immigration, Fisheries and Oceans, Health, Indian and Northern Affairs, Justice and the Canadian International Development Agency all fell short. Departmental commitments in Industry, Natural Resources, Transport and Western Economic Diversification were found to be making satisfactory progress.
Auditor General Sheila Fraser echoed Thompson’s remarks and noted the government has agreed to a thorough review of its tack toward a greener government.