Sustainable Development Strategy – 2001-2003

Cooperation and Coordination with other Federal Departments

• DFO works very closely with other departments to encourage cooperation across departmental mandates to address various sustainable development issues. A key link is the "5NR MOU", involving a 1995 Memorandum of Understanding between five natural resource departments, originally Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, Environment Canada, Fisheries and Oceans Canada, and Natural Resources Canada, and, since 1998, Health Canada. The MOU encourages collaboration and coordination in applying federal science and technology (S&T) to sustainable development challenges that cut across the departments' respective mandates. The main strength of the MOU is its ability to bring signatory departments together to address issues of common concern that are either current or emerging. Much of the work under the MOU is undertaken by Working Groups established to address particular S&T issues and to collaborate on production and dissemination of scientific information and expertise.

DFO is also planning to work with other federal partners to support achievement of sustainable development objectives in areas where a partnering approach is required to provide a consistent voice to our stakeholders. For instance, DFO and Transport Canada (TC) will review and revise the provisions of their 1995 Memorandum of Understanding to provide an administrative framework to ensure consistent marine transportation safety and environmental protection. As part of this undertaking, the two departments will explore development of performance standards for environmentally sound ship operations under the Green Ship Initiative and implementation of regulatory programs to incorporate international agreements on marine pollution deriving from vessels. DFO and TC will also work cooperatively to maintain a National Aerial Surveillance Program to act as a deterrent to potential polluters that transit Canadian waters.

Cooperation across departmental mandates to deliver sustainable development commitments needs more effort however. Eight sustainable development themes have been identified as priorities for coordinated, government-wide sustainable development planning. They constitute a framework for enhanced efforts by federal departments to coordinate their objectives and to cooperate with each other in delivery of their commitments. Of the eight, DFO has targeted four for special attention: 1) sustainable development in the North; 2) sustainable government operations; 3) research, through the Policy Research Initiative, on sustainable development indicators and the federal role in capacity building for sustainability at the community level; and 4) sustainable communities. Each of these four targeted sustainable development themes is discussed below.

Northern Sustainable Development Strategy

As a federal department with a natural resource mandate, DFO has significant sustainable development responsibilities in the three northern Territories. DFO is working with other federal departments, under the leadership of Indian and Northern Affairs Canada (INAC), to develop a federal sustainable development strategy in the North. Two rounds of consultations, in the fall of 1999 and the spring of 2000, have been undertaken with Northern stakeholders and in Northern communities. The consultations identified clearly sustainable development issues of concern at present to Northerners. Some of these touch on DFO's mandated responsibilities, including fish habitat protection and environmental assessments of development projects, scientific research on fisheries and oceans questions, such as climate change, integrated management of oceans resources, and safe shipping.

While DFO's contribution to the northern strategy is still being developed, a major commitment under Goal 1 in this strategy is an oceans integrated management project in the Beaufort Sea in the Western Arctic. Mackenzie Delta communities face the challenge of reconciling protection of a pristine marine environment with oil and gas exploration and development and ecotourism. A federal team, including possibly Environment Canada, NRCan, and INAC will work on this project with Inuvialuit Land Claim organizations, Mackenzie Delta communities and territorial governments over the next three years. As part of our commitment to developing an Environmental Management System for DFO Operations, nationally-implemented Environmental Initiatives will also occur in the North. These include Contaminated Sites Assessment and Remediation, Baseline Studies and Compliance Audits, Halocarbon and Storage Tank Management. DFO's fish habitat management and protection program will continue. Departmental Arctic science activities, in partnership with Environment Canada and Natural Resources Canada in particular, will contribute to advancing sustainable development in the North.

Sustainable Government Operations

A federal approach to sustainable government operations has been a focus of interdepartmental discussions over the past few years. Under the leadership of Public Works and Government Services Canada, Environment Canada and Natural Resources Canada, federal departments have reached consensus on moving forward together in a number of key areas to reduce the environmental impact of departmental operations. The framework document, entitled Sustainable Development in Government Operations (SDGO): A Coordinated Approach, recommends seven priority areas, such as green procurement, waste management, water conservation and wastewater management. To support effective results, sample target outcomes and performance measures have been developed to support government-wide progress and performance measurability in these areas. DFO has contributed to development of the framework document and also participates in the Performance Measurement for Sustainable Development Operations committee to actively influence the development of performance indicators for greening operations.

DFO's commitments in the draft Sustainable Development Strategy for 2001-2003 incorporate the seven SDGO priority areas but implementation will proceed in accordance with DFO's Environmental Management Framework, which requires DFO to address first the most significant, or highest risk, aspects of its operations. Proceeding on the basis of a risk assessment is consistent with the ISO 14001 environmental management standard.

Policy Research Initiative -- Sustainable Development Project

The Sustainable Development Project is part of the federal Policy Research Initiative (PRI). The purpose of the interdepartmental Sustainable Development Project is to improve the federal government capacity to implement sustainable development through conducting and disseminating policy research in collaboration with partners inside and outside the federal government. DFO is one of three federal departments, along with Environment Canada (EC) and Natural Resources Canada (NRCan), which have championed this initiative. Public distribution of research papers will be accomplished through posting on the PRI Sustainability Project Internet web page. DFO's has chosen to support in particular research projects on: a) Indicators of Sustainable Development: Lessons Learned for Canada; and b) Sustainability at the Community Level.

a) Knowledge and Reporting: Sustainable Development Indicators
The Sustainable Development Indicators project will review and analyze the many national and international approaches to developing interlinked indicators of sustainable development. It will also explore sets of indicators relevant to policy making in Canada. A key objective of the research project is how to move beyond individual sets of indicators (regarding social health, for instance, or economic well-being) toward integrated or interlinked sets of indicators that track simultaneous movement in all three aspects of sustainable development -- economic, environmental and social. Complementary work has recently been undertaken, and funded by the federal government, by the National Roundtable on the Environment and the Economy (NRTEE). The aim of the NRTEE project is to develop a set of national indicators of progress toward sustainable development that integrate environmental, social, health and economic considerations that will be used by all public, private and voluntary sectors throughout Canada. DFO supports such work as critical to enhancing our ability to understand and measure progress and performance in sustainable development in Canada.

b) Sustainability at the Community Level
The purpose of this PRI research project is to clarify the issue of the federal role in building capacity in Canadian communities for sustainable development, to identify best practices and to propose options for a framework to guide future federal government work in this area. The project will focus in particular on rural, northern, Aboriginal, remote and coastal communities, which may have less access than other communities in Canada to the skills, leadership and technology that supports sustainable development. This initiative is important to DFO because many of our departmental stakeholders live in such communities. It also responds to increasing expectations on the part of Canadians that they will be involved in making decisions that will affect them and the communities in which they live and work. In addition to the three PRI champion departments, other federal departments such as Human Resources Development Canada (HRDC), Health Canada and the Rural Secretariat of Agriculture and Agri-foods Canada will contribute to this project.

Sustainable Communities

A great deal of ongoing DFO program delivery by Regional Offices involves working with local communities, in development of fish habitat protection or restoration activities for instance, in support given by Small Craft Harbours to local Harbour Authorities to help them adhere to environmental management standards, or in fisheries diversification initiatives. Significant cooperation between DFO and other federal departments is also fundamental to the establishment of Marine Protected Areas and in implementation of ecosystem initiatives under the leadership of Environment Canada.

Specific projects have also been initiated to test ways to enhance effective co-ordination across departmental mandates and jurisdictions to facilitate support to communities seeking sustainable development objectives. In Nova Scotia, for instance, DFO is one of the champions of the Sustainable Communities Initiative (SCI), which includes about 40 other federal and provincial government departments. The Initiative is aimed at having all levels of government working in a more integrated and collaborative way with each other and with communities to address sustainability issues. Two watersheds in Nova Scotia -- Bras d'Or Lakes and the Annapolis River Basin, together with the adjacent Fundy Shore -- have been identified as the initial partner community areas. During the first phase, the government departments involved in the SCI are concentrating on strengthening their own connections and collaboration mechanisms to improve their capacity to deliver their programs and services in a more coordinated and community-centred way. The next step is to formally engage First Nations and municipalities. These two steps will help lay the groundwork for engaging the partner communities. The third phase is to identify solutions to issues and priorities brought forward by the communities themselves. The outcome will be new and evolving governance structures that will provide a more streamlined and effective government response to community needs. This collaborative community based and led planning process should improve the quality of life for citizens.

DFO employees in Regional Offices across Canada are also contributing to Canadian Rural Partnership (CRP) initiatives. This program, with total funding of $20 million, is in its fourth year and is aimed at testing new ways of responding to rural issues such as the need for better access to financial resources, to employment opportunities for youth, and better program and service delivery in rural areas. DFO employees have participated in inter-governmental teams that organized rural community development pilot projects and in consultation sessions under the Rural Dialogues program during 1998-1999. The Rural Dialogues consultations took place in rural communities across Canada to identify their challenges, opportunities and priorities and resulted in the Federal Framework for Action in Rural Canada, announced in May 1999.