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RPP – 2003-2004 – Section 3

NRTEE – 2003–2004 Estimates: Part III – Report on Plans and Priorities

SECTION 3: PLANNING OVERVIEW

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3.1 Organizational Overview

The NRTEE consists of a membership of distinguished Canadians, supported by a Secretariat in Ottawa. Members are appointed to the NRTEE by the Prime Minister and represent a broad range of sectors including business, labour, academia, environmental organizations and First Nations, as well as diverse regions across the country. The Secretariat, headed by the President and Chief Executive Officer, provides program management, analytical, communications and administrative services to the NRTEE members and their task forces and committees. General information about the NRTEE and its membership can be found at www.nrt-trn.ca/eng/overview/overview_e.htm.

Although the NRTEE has a limited budget and staff complement, as shown in Table 1, the agency is dedicated to providing high-quality recommendations and advice aimed at reforming environmental and economic policies and practices to help make sustainable development a reality in Canada.

Table 1 – Planned Spending and Full-Time Equivalents (FTEs)

* Reflects best forecast of total spending to the end of the fiscal year.

3.2 Planning Context

In Canada, we are heir to a natural environment that is second to none in the world. Our environment plays a critical role in terms of both our health and our economic prosperity. Whether it is the ores and oils extracted from our landscape, the penicillin produced from mould or the common field burr that was the inspiration for Velcro, there is an interdependence between our environment and our economy that needs to be better recognized and balanced if we are to ensure a healthy and prosperous future for our country.

The NRTEE recognizes that the long-term, systemic changes required to achieve a better balance is contingent on the efforts and contributions of all Canadians. Moreover, the issues we examine to help bring about these changes are complex, interdisciplinary and long-term, requiring many synergies and trade-offs.

To address the need for wide participation as well as expert input, the NRTEE utilizes a multistakeholder, round-table approach in all of its work. This enables the agency to play a leadership role in bringing together key stakeholders, specialists and opinion leaders-from across Canada and from the various sectors of Canadian society-on an NRTEE task force or committee. The task force or committee will examine, discuss and debate critical issues, and develop practical solutions that will help achieve a better balanced, more integrated environment and economy. This multistakeholder process provides a neutral forum that facilitates the development and nurturing of partnerships across all sectors and regions of the country-partnerships that are crucial to breaking down the barriers that stand in the way of real and sustained progress toward sustainable development in Canada. The process entails developing common ground among the stakeholders and narrowing the areas of debate or disagreement. The result is targeted policy recommendations that government and industry can implement or react to with confidence.

As the NRTEE is a policy advisory rather than an operational agency, its programs in each policy area change regularly. It typically takes about two years to move from the identification of a critical issue to be examined by the NRTEE to the production and dissemination of the final report. While this continual turnover of programs enables the NRTEE to effectively address and respond to a world that is rapidly changing, it also means the agency must have a clear focus on the future to be aware of up-and-coming issues that will require examination.

To ensure the relevance of the areas and issues to be examined under a new, discrete program, the NRTEE plans carefully at the outset to highlight and clarify those critical, emerging issues where the agency can play a useful role. NRTEE members, task forces, the Secretariat, federal government departments and others propose issues to be examined by the NRTEE. The agency then subjects these proposals to some key questions to ensure that the issues to be examined in a new NRTEE program are relevant and that solutions will make a unique and valuable contribution to improving the balance between the environment and the economy:

• Is this a complex environment/economy policy challenge?
• Is this challenge interdisciplinary/horizontal in nature?
• Is it a new, cutting-edge/pioneering area?
• Is it a policy challenge the federal government is just beginning to address, or is likely to be facing in the near future?
• Is there NRTEE member expertise or experience in this area?
• Is there a fit with or flow from past or existing NRTEE programs?
• Is there value-added for the NRTEE in pursuing a program in this area?

As highlighted in the September 2002 Speech from the Throne, there are a number of environmental and economic challenges that need to be addressed on our journey to making Canada a land of ever-widening opportunity. From mobilizing the collective efforts of Canadians to address Canada’s commitments under the Kyoto Protocol, to improving the health and competitiveness of our cities, to advancing nature conservation across the nation to a host of other issues, the challenges are often very broad and extremely complex. Making real and sustainable improvements to policies and practices in these areas often takes years, if not decades, as the process to facilitate these changes involves many federal departments, organizations and agencies as well as Canadians at large.

Not only do sustainable development issues in Canada straddle various levels of government, they also often have taxation and other fiscal policy elements or implications. Although some of the broader sustainable development challenges may be under examination in other forums, the NRTEE-by focusing on aspects of those broader issues that lie at the intersection of the environment and the economy and have only begun to be explored-plays a proactive role that enables Canada to better respond to upcoming challenges in these areas. Whether it is developing a national strategy for Canada’s brownfield sites, or designing a set of indicators to help address the erosion of our natural capital, or examining the role fiscal measures can play in enabling the government to simultaneously balance the economic and environmental needs of our country, the NRTEE is continually striving to develop and disseminate high-quality information, insights and recommendations that support sound decision making in the sustainable development field.