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ARCHIVED - RPP 2006-2007
Environment Canada


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Section 5: Other Items of Interest

Strategic Integration Activities

Description

Clear, consistent, and integrated departmental policy advice, coordinated interactions with partners and stakeholders and effective communication are important tools to help Environment Canada deliver on its mandate and commitments.

Environment Canada is leading the development of federal strategies to integrate environmental sustainability into government-wide policy priorities in a concrete manner. As part of this work, the Department is advancing a policy framework that recognizes the inextricable linkages between the environment, our economic competitiveness, and the health of Canadians.

Environmental Canada's work to develop a unified departmental policy approach is organized into two program areas:

  • Integrated policy advice, communications and information strategies enable effective decision-making; and
  • Partnerships with other governments and partners are effectively managed in support of environmental priorities.

Plans and Priorities

Over the next three years, Environment Canada plans to focus on:

  • Achieving departmental coherence in delivering and communicating environmental policy and program outcomes. Work will include developing strategic plans for the Department's science and technology; developing an international environment framework; developing a natural capital framework and a health framework, communicating environmental policy and program goals and outcomes to target audiences; conducting policy research and leading on the development of a federal sustainable development strategy; working interdepartmentally toward better-integrated federal science and technology; and advancing the competitiveness and environmental sustainability framework as a means to integrate, guide, and promote the federal government's environmental agenda.
  • Improving how Environment Canada engages provincial and territorial governments, stakeholders, and citizens in policy development and sustainable actions. The Department plans to advance the development of a national approach through collaboration with provinces and territories to achieve results; develop a strategy and tools to systematically and consistently engage key stakeholders in policy development and environmental education; develop a sector table strategy; and effectively communicate the strategic environmental framework to Canadians.
  • Advancing a Canadian environmental sustainability indicators initiative as a first component of a broader state-of-the-environment indicator and information strategy and moving forward on national environmental objectives as core policy tools to guide long-term departmental priority-setting and specific policy deliverables.
  • Delivering analytical and evidentiary support to demonstrate explicit linkages between the environment and the economy to allow for informed decision-making on environmental issues and the building of a policy-research-communications strategy to proactively communicate important environmental information to Canadians.

Planning Context

Integrated policy advice, communications, and information strategies enable effective decision-making

A key priority is to improve the coordination of the existing but dispersed policy capacity of the Department in order to work more effectively and bring department-wide perspectives and scientific evidence to bear on all major policy work. Increased focus will be placed on policy research and economic analysis, and on strengthening the linkages between science and policy.

Better coordination and strategic direction for Environment Canada's education and engagement activities is also an important priority. Emphasis will be placed on particular target groups (such as consumers, small and medium sized enterprises, youth, educators, and communities) where greater return can be expected by understanding their needs and challenges, and working to address them. Key partners will be identified and approached, in particular those that are better positioned than Environment Canada to deliver education and engagement activities because they have deeper and broader reach.

Environment Canada's indicator related work is being repositioned to provide better management of environmental and environmentally-related data within the Department; enhanced comparability of the available data and the mechanisms by which that data is available; and data and information that is more relevant to departmental priorities and indicators that can be used to communicate environmental implications to citizens, policy-makers and decision-makers. The Department will continue to develop the partnerships, principles, and technologies required to integrate disparate environmental data and information in a consistent, credible, and timely manner.

Relations with other governments and partners are effectively managed in support of environmental priorities

Environment Canada doesn't achieve environmental outcomes on its own. A more consistent approach within and amongst governments and collaborative partnerships with other governments will help the Department deliver more effectively on its mandate. This program area focuses on managing partnerships and working relationships with provincial and territorial governments, protecting and promoting Canada's environmental interests internationally and engaging stakeholders.

Environment Canada's partnerships and consultations work is aimed at transforming our relationships with key stakeholders (including NGOs, business leaders, the financial community, academia, and the general public) and advancing constructive consultations and participation in Environment Canada priorities. This includes: having clear polices and guidelines to inform the consultations Environment Canada does in developing programs and policies; providing logistical and analytic support to one of Environment Canada's main consultative vehicles, Sector Sustainability Tables; and a new strategy on how we engage with a key partner in sustainability – Aboriginal Peoples.

Many planned activities are new for Environment Canada and stem directly from the Department's vision of helping Canada to build a globally competitive and sustainable economy. Realizing this vision means integrating environmental decision-making into all aspects of our economy. This level of integration will require all players to be more engaged in sustainable development policy development and implementation. The Department's agenda commits the Government to improve its decision-making structures and give stakeholders a more coherent agenda around which to engage, thus reducing conflicting policy signals and burdensome demands on stakeholders time and resources. Effective partnerships and consultations provide critical vehicles for advancing departmental priorities, many of which are best achieved in close cooperation with external economic and societal players.

The oversight and coordination of federal/provincial/territorial relations is key to supporting the implementation of Environment Canada's agenda both on a national basis and on a regional or bilateral basis within a national context. Because provinces and territories share responsibility for environmental management with the federal government, their active engagement is essential to ensure the successful implementation of policy across Canada. Strong relationships and close communication with each province and territory are instrumental to working constructively and achieving common goals in an efficient manner. Work under this program is being repositioned to focus on the most important departmental priorities and to provide a more consistent departmental approach to intergovernmental affairs.

Corporate Services and Corporate Management Activities

Description

Integrated and effective corporate services help Environment Canada deliver on its mandate. The Department is continuing to transform the way it does its business in order to be better positioned to play the central role it was given by Parliament to coordinate the policies and programs of the Government of Canada with respect to the preservation and enhancement of the quality of the natural environment. Environment Canada's internal transformation agenda helps the Department deliver on its goal to protect the health of Canadians, preserve our natural environment and strengthen Canada's long-term competitiveness.

Environment Canada is putting significant effort into repositioning its enabling programs and services in order to better support results-based management and internal governance changes in a way that allows the Department to successfully address the environmental priorities of Canadians. This work is organized into two program areas:

  • High quality corporate services and advice enable the Department to meet its strategic objectives.
  • Strategic management support enables the Department to meet its objectives.

Plans and Priorities

Over the next three years, Environment Canada plans to:

  1. Establish a viable foundation for its enabling programs and services, with a focus on high-risk areas in human resources, finance, administration, and IM/IT. Environment Canada continues to build management and staff capacity in human resources, finance, administration and IM/IT so that corporate functions can build internal capacity, appropriately assist other parts of the Department and implement strategies to address the immediate capacity concerns. This work is expected to include implementing strategies to address critical departmental risks including better recruitment and retention plans, training for enabling staff and departmental managers, and implementation of a one-department approach for the provision of core services.
  2. Ensure the delivery of essential financial, administrative, human resources, corporate management, and information management and information technology services to address mission critical, operational and key governance needs across Environment Canada. Work to support the greening of federal government operations and the government-wide Corporate Administrative Shared Services (CASS) initiative are also priorities.

Planning Context

The Department is continuing with its process of transformation that will enable it to fully plan, manage, and report by results. The transformation has involved the re-definition of the results structure (Program Activity Architecture), the establishment of new management structures and processes, and the re-structuring of the organization.

These changes promote integrated management and decision-making in the context of a clearer view of results and strategic direction. Financial and human resources are clearly linked to results through a planning process that connects capacity to work. Performance information will support informed departmental decisions and transparent and balanced public reporting.

Results in this area are aimed at transforming Environment Canada's management framework in order to strengthen control and accountability, provide high quality service, support and systems related to governance and program delivery, and support key departmental and government-wide management initiatives. The Department's corporate services activities are organized as follows:

  • Corporate management and planning support departmental progress on results;
  • Financial management frameworks are established and high quality financial services are provided;
  • Administration and assets management enable effective, efficient and accountable departmental activities;
  • Information and technology are managed as critical enabling assets; and
  • Human resources are managed effectively and strategically in support of departmental objectives.

Department-wide Services

Planning

Environment Canada has significantly revised and improved its overall approach to planning. The former decentralized approach has given way to a centralized "one-department" approach that aligns planning, priority-setting and resource allocation functions to the new Program Activity Architecture. The revised approach significantly enhances the overall transparency of proposed plans and priorities enabling senior executive direction, engagement, and strategic decision-making.

The planning process incorporates corporate planning and decision-making and ensures that internal decision-making on priorities is aligned to annual reporting to Parliament through the Report on Plans and Priorities (RPP). Senior managers undertake business planning through results-based committees and teams. Managers at all levels from across the Department are engaged in the process to ensure consistent application of planning and reporting requirements. National management meetings are held to provide opportunities for managers to work through significant planning tasks on a collaborative basis.

An important focus of the planning process is to fully integrate the financial planning, human resource planning, and business planning. The Department's human resource capacity has been aligned along functional lines through the organizational structure to bring together communities of practice and build collective skills and expertise. The planning of work is done through a series of projects defined through the results structure. The planning process provides the means to connect the skills and expertise of people from across the Department with the work project where those skills are needed and can best be used. The allocation of financial resources to work projects according to priority completes the integration of the planning process. Management tools have been developed and are being deployed to facilitate the integrated process. These tools help identify skill needs and gaps at a working level for business planning. They also provide the means to identify longer-term skills development and recruitment needs and support the development of strategic human resource plans. The management tools also will provide for the planning and tracking of financial, HR, and results related information across the results management structure.

Information Management and Information Technology (IM-IT)

The IM-IT function in Environment Canada is presently in the midst of moving from a decentralized operational structure where associated resources were embedded in program areas to one in which the large majority of our IM-IT staff work under the direction of a Chief Information Officer (CIO). The objective in making this change is to provide more effective, efficient and equitable levels of IM-IT services to all areas of program delivery across the Department, and to develop the capacity needed to provide coherent, authoritative and trusted information systems needed to achieve Government and departmental objectives.

Management efforts in this domain will be directed towards re-alignment of our IM-IT resources to ensure the best outcomes from existing and evolving technological capacities. They will also be highly focused on ensuring that Environment Canada's data and information holdings can be and are treated as critical departmental assets. This will involve providing leadership in Information Management through the development of an integrated IM plan for the Department, by developing and promoting policies and best practices for the management of information, and implementing and maintaining technologies to support the function.

Another key area of focus will be ensuring that the informatics systems used in support of our mission critical and other service support requirements continue to operate without interruption. This will be particularly true for the systems used on a 24-7 basis in support of weather prediction, environmental emergency response, etc given their direct link to the safety and well-being of Canadians. A prime example of such a system is the Departmental supercomputer and related infrastructure used in the production of weather warnings and forecasts.

IM-IT remains a key enabler of program delivery in all strategic outcome areas through the provision of email, processing data storage and network infrastructure and the development and maintenance of software tools to facilitate data and information collection, analysis and dissemination.

Ongoing investment will be required to support the existing infrastructure as well as to respond to new work requirements and evolving technologies being introduced in the workplace. The ongoing development of a comprehensive IM-IT architecture will help in guiding these efforts as it will help in adopting and utilizing consistent policies, standards and technologies that are compliant with those in use in the Government of Canada. The architecture will be supplemented by other efforts to ensure the efficient and effective application of IM-IT in the Department. These efforts include a software management board along with new "greening" policies to promote the effective use and life cycle management of IT while reducing the potential negative environmental impacts associated with that use. Through these policies, we hope to establish Environment Canada as a leader in this area.

Legal Services

The Department of Justice is responsible for the legal affairs of the Government as a whole and for providing legal services to individual departments and agencies. Services provided by Justice Canada include providing legal advice, preparing legal documents, drafting legislation, regulating or conducting litigation, and overseeing the legal mechanisms used to achieve the overall objectives of the Government.

Justice Canada provides legal services to Environment Canada primarily through Environment Canada's Legal Services Unit (Environment Canada Legal Services). Justice Canada also provides services through its Environmental Drafting Services Section, the Federal Prosecution Services and other units located at Justice Headquarters and in the regions.

High-quality legal advice enables Environment Canada to take decisions that are based on a thorough understanding of its legal authorities and relevant legal risks. Legal Services is committed to deliver results by ensuring that Environment Canada has access to appropriate levels of legal expertise; by identifying primary legal risks to the Department; and by making legal training available to Environment Canada officials where needs arise.

Like Environment Canada's other corporate functions, Environment Canada Legal Services is moving towards a "one-department" model with the aim of providing effective and efficient legal support of departmental priorities and objectives.

Audit and Evaluation

Audits and evaluations are used to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of departmental policies, programs, and management. The November 2004 Report of Auditor General outlined the need to improve the quality of the internal audit function across Government and a new government-wide Policy on Internal Audit came into effect on April 1, 2006. The TBS Evaluation Policy requires departments to evaluate programs, policies and initiatives, to use a risk-based planning approach in identifying projects, to use structured and disciplined approaches in carrying out evaluations, and to ensure the four key evaluation issues are addressed (i.e., relevance, success, cost-effectiveness, and design and delivery).

Audits and evaluations are particularly important in the context of the implementation of the new governance framework. To reflect a stronger commitment to the audit and evaluation functions across the federal government, internal audit and evaluation has been bolstered to ensure a comprehensive audit and evaluation program based on sound risk analysis of all departmental activities. To accomplish this, the Department is renewing and strengthening the capacity of the audit and evaluation function to ensure it is well-positioned to provide assurance and advice to senior management.

Integrated Departmental Enforcement

Environment Canada's policy and program initiatives require credible backstops to compel compliance with the law where voluntary behaviour change encouraged through program incentives, education and compliance promotion is not occurring, or not meeting identified goals. A credible capacity to enforce regulations and legislation in a fair, predictable and consistent manner is required to protect Canadians and the environment, and ensure a level playing field for those subject to regulation.

Enforcement activity is aligned with Environment Canada Program Activities of "Biodiversity is Conserved and Protected" and "Risks Posed by Pollutants or Other Harmful or Dangerous Substances in the Environment are Reduced."

An immediate priority is to continue with the integration of two previously distinct enforcement programs while ensuring that enforcement activities continue to be delivered to the highest standards. In the medium term, progress will be made towards the establishment of a more effective and efficient environment and wildlife protection law enforcement function in fulfillment of statutory requirements under the Acts administered by the Department.