Call made for environment commissioner to stand alone

NDP’s Collins wants it separated from Office of the Auditor General

OTTAWA — NDP environment critic Laurel Collins is reviving a call for the environment commissioner to be a stand-alone officer of Parliament.

Collins is pushing a motion at the House of Commons environment committee to pull the commissioner’s position out of the Office of the Auditor General, and make it a separate entity.

The Victoria MP says the role needs to have its own dedicated budget and staff to ensure it can fulfil its mandate. “It would mean that they would have their own budget, it would show that we’re prioritizing the work,” Collins said in an interview with The Canadian Press.

“Canadians rely on the environment commissioner to give independent reviews of the government’s progress and commitment to things like protecting fresh water, protecting the environment and human health against pollution, meeting our climate targets.”

She says the commissioner averaged nearly five environmental performance audits a year from 2016 to ’19, but there is just one underway in ’20, and two planned for ’21.

Collins also said a group of staff with specific expertise that used to be dedicated solely to environment audits, is now spread throughout the auditor general’s office — something that would not happen if each of the roles had its own staff and office.

Interim commissioner Andrew Hayes recently told the environment committee there is a funding issue, and that has cut down the amount of work the office can do.

“Because of our funding and resourcing challenges, we have had to reduce the performance audit practices work over the years,” he said Nov. 18.

Now, the environment commissioner is set to be tasked with even more work.

Last week, the Liberal government introduced legislation to legally enshrine Canada’s target to get to net-zero emissions by 2050.

Bill C-12, if passed, would require five-year targets for cutting emissions beginning in ’30.

It would also legally require the environment commissioner to assess how well the government is doing to meet those interim targets on the way to net-zero.

The commissioner has already done reviews of climate targets nearly every five years but the new assessments would be slightly different.

They would be more at the implementation plans, rather than just where emissions currently sit.