Canadian Environment Commissioner Fired

Canadian Environment Commissioner Fired

    
 
January 2007  - Canada's 
Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development 
was replaced on Tuesday amidst allegations that she was too 
critical of Canada's performance on climate change. 
As commissioner, Johanne Gelinas was part of the Office of the 
Auditor General, which reports to Parliament as a whole, not 
to the government. 
Auditor General of Canada Sheila Fraser (Photo courtesy Office 
of the Auditor General) 
Auditor General of Canada Sheila Fraser said in a statement 
that Gelinas was "leaving the position to pursue other 
opportunities." 
But in a statement Tuesday night, Gelinas, who is out of the 
country, wrote, "I was considering a future departure, but 
today's announcement from Sheila Fraser was premature and came 
as a complete surprise to me." 
Media reports say Fraser was critical of a climate change 
audit report written by Gelinas and tabled September 28, 2006 
in the House of Commons. 
But today Fraser told the House of Commons Environment 
Committee that Gelinas' climate report had nothing to do with 
her dismissal. Fraser did not shed much light on what 
influenced her decision to fire Gelinas, citing privacy 
concerns and the possibility of future legal action on 
Gelinas' part. 
In her controversial report, Gelinas wrote, "Climate change is 
upon us and no matter how you look at it, the stakes for 
Canada are high. With its resources and powers, the federal 
government can make a big difference. But our findings show 
that it has not been up to the task so far." 
"It is increasingly clear that Canada will not meet its 
international commitments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions," 
Gelinas wrote. "The federal government is not organized to 
manage its climate change initiatives effectively. Missing are 
mechanisms to coordinate activities across departments and to 
track spending and results for reporting to Canadians." 
The report also notes that "few federal efforts are underway 
to deal with the booming growth in the oil and gas sector." 
Former Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable 
Development Johanne Gelinas (Photo courtesy Office of the 
Auditor General) 
"It is disturbing that despite $6.3 billion in announced 
funding since 1997, there is still no government-wide 
consolidated monitoring and reporting of climate change 
performance and spending," wrote Gelinas. 
"Based on the audit evidence we have gathered over the past 18 
months, it is increasingly clear that Canada will not be able 
to achieve the target for greenhouse gas reductions that it 
committed to under the Kyoto Protocol - and it has no targets 
beyond 2012," Gelinas wrote in the September 2006 document. 
In her statement Tuesday, Gelinas said that the Conservative 
Government of Stephen Harper had nothing to do said, "with no 
interference whatsoever from the Government of Canada and its 
representatives." 
Fraser attempted to sugar-coat the firing by stating Tuesday, 
"Madame Gélinas and her team have done valuable work assisting 
Parliamentarians through their audits of government's 
management of its environmental and sustainable development 
responsibilities." 
Canada is a Party to the Kyoto Protocol and in November 2005, 
under the former Liberal Government, hosted the first meeting 
of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol in Montreal in 
conjunction with the eleventh session of the Conference of the 
Parties to the Climate Change Convention. 
But when the Liberals were defeated in a January 2006 
election, the incoming minority government of Conservative 
Prime Minister Stephen Harper began backing away from Canada's 
commitments under the protocol to cut emissions to six percent 
below 1990 levels by 2012. 
Then Environment Minister Rona Ambrose responded to Gelinas 
climate report in testimony before the House of Commons 
Environment Committee in October 2006 by saying that climate 
change was not a top environmental issue, while blaming the 
Liberals for Canada's failure to make more progress on 
reducing greenhouse gases. 
Ambrose said the government accepted all of the commissioner's 
recommendations and agreed with her that Canada is not on 
track to fulfill its Kyoto commitments. 
Ambrose said there was no clear basis for setting that 
"unachievable" target. In fact, emission levels are now 27 
percent above 1990 levels, she said. 
She said that the Liberals had wasted $1 billion on 
emission-reduction efforts that did not work. "Kyoto did not 
fail this country," Ambrose said. "The Liberal Party of Canada 
failed Kyoto." 
Ambrose was replaced as environment minister on January 4 by 
John Baird, amidst public demands for more action on climate 
change. 
A public opinion survey by Decima Research, released January 4 
as Prime Minister Harper was changing environment ministers, 
found the environment to be the most pressing concern of 
Canadians. 
Nineteen percent of those polled said the environment was the 
issue that concerned them most personally, followed by health 
care at 13 percent. 
Decima asked 1,727 likely voters to rate the Harper 
government's action in 20 different areas. Environmental 
policy came out the worst, with 74 percent saying the 
government is doing a bad job and only 18 percent approving. 
Liberal Natural Resources Critic Mark Holland said Tuesday 
that Prime Minister Harper "has a history of being a staunch 
climate-change denier, including spearheading a fundraising 
campaign to kill the Kyoto Accord." 
"Today we learn that world’s top climate scientists have 
written a report saying they are 'unequivocal' that climate 
change is happening now, and yet we have a Prime Minister who 
is still a climate change denier," said Liberal Leader 
Stephane Dion today. 
Dion served as environment minister in the previous Liberal 
government. He was referring to a report by the 
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change due out on Friday 
written by hundreds of scientists from around the world. 
The environment commissioner who replaces Gelinas will have 
this hot political potato to handle. 
Assistant Auditor General Ron Thompson will serve as 
environment commissioner for the time being. (Photo courtesy 
Office of the Auditor General) 
Fraser Tuesday appointed Assistant Auditor General Ron 
Thompson to the post "in the interim." 
The position of Commissioner of the Environment and 
Sustainable Development was established in December 1995 by 
amendments to the Auditor General Act. 
Appointed by the auditor general, the commissioner leads a 
group of auditors specialized in environment and sustainable 
development. The commissioner is responsible for assessing 
whether federal government departments are meeting their 
sustainable development objectives, and for overseeing the 
environmental petitions process, and reports to Parliament on 
behalf of the auditor general.