The federal government is drifting away from green policies through vague strategies that appear to leave no one accountable for failures, said Ron Thompson, the acting commissioner of the environment and sustainable development. In a report to Parliament Tuesday, Thompson noted that many of the problems have been going on for more than a decade. This in spite of commitments and even legislation by federal governments to introduce comprehensive strategies to integrate "protection of the environment with economic and social issues," in all of their policies.

In most departments, Thompson's office found no evidence that officials had examined or considered any of the environmental, social or economic consequences of their policies, programs and activities. "Judging from their strategies, many departments have lost sight of the intent of the process and of the principles, goals and good practices that have been laid out in guidance to assist them," said the report, tabled in Commons as part of the auditor general's report.

Thompson also noted it was difficult to figure out who was accountable for the failures. "It is not clear to us whether or how individual departments, or Environment Canada as the lead department for the overall initiative, have been held accountable by the government for the generally poor quality of strategies over the past decade or for failing to demonstrate their individual and collective progress toward their sustainable development strategy goals," said the report.

"The lack of consistent good management practices, characterized by a cyclical 'plan, do, check, improve' approach, remains a significant weakness."

Former Conservative environment minister Rona Ambrose acknowledged some of the weaknesses in the government's overall strategy last December, pledging to deliver more concrete targets and accountability. However, a few weeks later, Prime Minister Stephen Harper switched her to a new portfolio in a cabinet shuffle.

Environment Canada now says it will launch a comprehensive review of policies and practices over the next 12 months to address some of report's concerns. "In our 2002 report, we said that trying to gauge progress toward sustainable development by examining a collection of disjointed strategies that listed thousands of activities was like trying to assemble a complicated jigsaw puzzle without the picture on the box. Our view has not changed," the report said.

Thompson noted in his report that officials in some departments were sometimes confused about their departmental policies. "Other departments had weak or no mechanisms in place for gathering or assessing performance information to demonstrate progress. "In addition, we discovered during our audit that some targets had been changed. "Finally some officials told us that sustainable development strategy commitments are often expected to be implemented without additional human or financial resources."

At a news conference, Thompson said the federal government has been losing momentum ever since the mid-1990s when it first made commitments towards sustainable development. "We've been monitoring sustainable development strategies for more than a decade. Unfortunately, the ambition and momentum that existed in the early stages of sustainable development strategies have faded," he said. "The strategies are a major disappointment. We have found little evidence that the strategies have encouraged departments to integrate protection of the environment with economic and social issues in a substantive or meaningful way."

In a separate chapter, Thompson concluded that the current system that allows citizens or organizations to petition the government about environmental concerns has an impact on the decision-making process, but that it could also be improved to raise awareness about the process.

(By Mike De Souza , CanWest News Service, 30/10/2007)