CEN Cross-Caucus Workshop

Merrickville
February 17-19, 2004

Summary of Themes / Recommendations / Next Steps

Day One

Dr Barry Stemshorn – Assistant Deputy Minister, Environmental Protection Services

• Substantial growth in the Environment portfolio will allow Minister Anderson to pull together and understand existing links across departments.
• Environmentalists should cultivate the main skill of lobbyists: boiling down information to one simple clear message.
• ENGOs should practice the politics of INFLUENCE rather than confrontation.
• It is more important for CEN and its members to focus their attention on shifting the thinking of other Departments rather than shifting EC’s.
• Environmentalists should focus their attention on building relationships and management skills and becoming more politically sophisticated.

Day Two

Panel Discussion – Perspectives on effective ENGO intervention

James Riordan – National Office of Pollution Prevention, EC

• Environmental NGOs have influence and continue to influence environmental policy within EC.
• Challenge for all of us: setting priorities.
• How can we help you do that?

Joan Kuyek – Mining Watch Canada

• Need to confront power and myth of industry.

Lessons learned:

1. The Mining Industry enjoys power in this country - and others - well in excess of its actual economic contribution.
2. The language of laws, regulation and policy in Canada may appear to support the protection of environment and the human communities that are part of it, but the mining industry and others are well-aware that “the devil is in the details”.
3. Everything is inter-connected.

Martha Kostuch – Prairie Acid Rain Coaltion

• 5-year review on Harmonization Accord over, process very flawed.

Lessons learned:

• ENGO involvement in consultation improves the outcome (makes thing less bad).
• Better coordination is needed between processes, substances, ENGOs.
• Regular stakeholder input is needed at strategic policy level.

Recommendations:

• To John Arseneau: consider holding a priority setting workshop.
• More use of consensus approach is needed.

Matthew Bramley – Pembina Institute

• The Implementation Plan for Kyoto is full of gaps.
• The Climate Change Secretariat has become almost moribund and that there is no central body addressing the issue (and therefore no single entry point for ENGO participation in the process).

Paul Muldoon – Canadian Environmental Law Association

Lessons Learned:

1. We must clearly articulate what we want, in consultation with our communities, and set the agenda for government.
2. We must work with other government and deal with industry, identify their self-interest.
3. We must engage the public and the media.

John Arseneau – Risk Assessment Directorate, EC

• Need ENGOs engaged, otherwise scientific conservatism will rule the day.
• More formalized ENGO involvement is necessary.

Action: Suggest we have a teleconference every 2 months for discussing categorization and update on activities. ENGOs invited to set agenda.

Cross-cutting themes summarized by facilitator:

• ENGO involvement is of primary importance.
• Industry has influence and power.
• We need better communications and coordination within ENGOs and government.
• We need to deal with the power and myth of industry.
• We need to improve dealings with other government departments.

Key Points from Q and A

• Industry with its hundreds of lobbyists has copied what environmentalists do, and then enhanced it with $$.
• The Strategic Priorities Branch is making a list of areas where they expect to be engaging CEN and ENGOs. The are aware of limitations in funding ENGOs and are planning to address this.
• The ENGO community needs to pick its battles: identify the problem; identify the solutions; get the issue on the political agenda.
• An effective strategy requires people both inside and outside the consultation process.
• Issues should be presented to many departments so that an issue gets to the cabinet table via multiple briefing notes rather than from a sole source.

Current ENGO effort for the CEPA review, Paul Muldoon, CELA

• He emphasized the importance of building alliances with Health groups (e.g. Canadian Assoc. of Physicians for the Environment).
• He lamented that in 2004, the onus for proving that something is dangerous still lies with the government and the public.
• He spoke about the need to move the policy agenda to alternatives.
• He ended by outlining the four (4) items that should be discussed by participants at this meeting:

1. How do we organize ourselves to respond to Cynthia’s CEPA review timeline?
2. How do we improve our capacity to ensure that we are fully prepared for the task?
3. We need to analyse and evaluate what works and what does not work in CEPA.
4. What process should we put in place to enable us to set the environmental community’s priorities?

Strategy discussion for ENGO intervention in the CEPA Review

Action:

• CEN Staff will take the lead in drafting a proposal to Cynthia Wright’s Office for setting up a CEPA working group.
• CEN Staff will prepare an issues-based survey for ENGOs, building on the preliminary survey that was circulated by CELA (Fe de Leon).
• CEN Staff will prepare a second proposal focusing on an outreach strategy and the engagement of the grassroots via the Regional Affiliates.

Day Three

Canadian Health Protection Act (CHPA) Review

• Bringing Health Canada into the environmental arena has great potential benefits for environmental advocates. HC’s scientific capacity and budget dwarfs EC’s and HC is much better positioned to raise public concern about issues such as pharmaceutical and personal care product residues accumulating in drinking water.

Action: Participants to send information on food issues to Michelle for inclusion in the 2nd draft.

• The main assumption with regards to CEPA and CHPA is that they are intended to protect the environment and that they constitute enforceable pieces of legislation with a demonstrated ability to be enforced. In reality, both are drafted following a deregulation pattern, and a self-regulation mentality, as illustrated by the Act’s reliance on foreign standards.

Action: Comments from workshop will be incorporated into the current draft. Once this is done, a second draft will be circulated for ENGO endorsement. However, many subjects are not addressed in this current draft, so please develop your own thoughts and send them in to HC.

• HC will be doing a cross-country tour with full-day consultations in March. ENGOs are strongly encouraged to attend. They have been heard to say that they would host a meeting anywhere on demand.
• The current proposal represents a model for the kind of legislation the government wants to draft. The whole process could take a decade, ENGOs need to be engaged at every step. The Act is scheduled to be presented to Parliament by mid-to-end of 2005. In short, it is too early to take it to the grassroots level right now BUT it is important to popularize the issue during the election campaign.
• In summary, we need to consider the outcomes of the legislation in terms of freedom of choice in health care, especially in terms of the need to avoid a further shoring up of a system that is rooted in profit-driven sickness treatment rather than health promotion and disease prevention practices.

Cross-caucus Communications – Open Facilitated Discussion

Action:

Calls for Delegates in the Weekly E-Bulletin are to include the following information, as applicable:

• number of times the Call has been posted
• the number of missing delegates

Action: A notification will be posted when the delegation has been filled listing the delegates and their affiliation.

Action: CEN staff will put out a Call for Interest for the Agriculture Caucus.

Action: Applicants will be notified personally (through email) of the results of the selection process.

Action: CEN delegates will use the Delegate Reporting Template found in the Consultations section on the CEN web site to report back to members after a consultation, unless they are producing a report deliverable. Reports will be posted on the CEN web site.

Action: CEN staff will send an e-mail notice to caucus members to clarify and remind ENGOs that ALL Calls for Delegates appear in the E-Bulletin.

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