Dianne Saxe was named Ontario’s environmental commissioner last year, replacing Gord Miller, who’d held the office for 15 years. Saxe has already gone to work exposing the facts about the province’s energy subsidies and the failings of Ontario’s current environmental rules. She spoke with TVO.org about her time in office so far.
How’s the year gone?
Well, it’s a tremendous privilege, and it’s only been eight months so far. I had 40 years practising law, mostly in the energy and environmental sphere. I loved it, but in private practice the question is always what’s best for the client. As an officer of the legislature my question is what’s best for the province. It’s a much harder question to answer, but it’s a good question.
Is there an example where that difference has been most stark?
For example, our report on annual energy conservation looked at what the public policy barriers are to achieving the results the government has set for us. It’s the government’s job and responsibility to determine public policy, but then very often the results don’t match the announced goals. I’m interested in areas where one provincial policy conflicts with another, and prevents them from achieving the results they’ve set on our behalf.
Fossil fuel subsidies are a really good example of that. We’re about to adopt a cap-and-trade system specifically to put a price on carbon to reduce the use of fossil fuels and the emissions from fossil fuels because of the enormous damage they do. But at the very same time, the taxpayers of Ontario are subsidizing the consumption of fossil fuels by $628 million in 2015. It’s an example of the left hand and right hand not doing the same thing, working against each other with public money.
You tackled fossil fuel subsidies early in your tenure, but that caused a minor uproar among Ontario’s farmers who benefit from lower taxes on diesel fuel. What did you learn from that?
It was very interesting to discuss this in farm communities. Of the $628 million in provincial fossil fuel subsidies each year, only $28 million goes to farmers. [More than half goes to airlines.] That was a big surprise to farmers, even! I had the opportunity to tour the province and to talk with farmers all around the province. Farmers don’t want to lose those supports, because [farming is] a hard way to make a living.
One of the things I found is there’s quite a lot of interest among farmers in having their ecosystem services recognized. We’re more aware now of how farm management affects the land and water and everyone downstream, and farmers are mostly expected to do their best at their own cost without any kind of compensation. There’s a real appetite for a discussion about the best way to support farmers in what they do for all of us, not just discussing taking any supports away from farmers.
‘Something important for the province to recognize is that only 20 per cent of our energy is from electricity.’
When you’ve identified a case where one government policy is hindering a public goal, how do you see your role?
All we can be is a reliable, non-partisan source of facts. What I’ve found generally is there’s very little understanding of where our energy comes from, and where our emissions come from. In Ontario, the fastest growing source of emissions is transportation. It’s also our largest form of energy consumption, in the form of gasoline and diesel.
Something important for the province to recognize is that only 20 per cent of our energy is from electricity. That’s the smallest and cleanest of our energy sources. The newspapers would suggest our energy policy is mostly about electricity, we talk about it an awful lot. But we talk about it without realizing that natural gas, gasoline and diesel are a much larger part of our energy supply and make up a much larger percentage of our greenhouse gas emissions.
So we show people the data, and hope they get a sense of that. I’ve had many people come up to me and say “I had no idea!”
There are other potential conflicts out there. At TVO.org we’ve reported about the tension between curbing greenhouse gas emissions and expanding access to natural gas.
On natural gas, the most important thing is to absolutely minimize any leaks, because natural gas has a warming potential 84 times larger than carbon dioxide. Leaks of natural gas do enormous climate damage and zero economic good. In the United States, there’s good data from the last year or so that shows the government has dramatically underestimated methane leaks from oil and gas infrastructure. Leak levels are lower in Ontario, but there’s still a lot of benefit to minimizing leaks.
As for how we use natural gas, we have to use it much more efficiently than we do. It’s not just a question of our climate — countries like Sweden which are just as cold as Canada have half our emissions per capita. That suggests there are lots of opportunities to use natural gas, but to use it much more efficiently for the next decade or two. Even so, natural gas consumption will eventually have to go down dramatically if we’re going to meet our Paris Agreement commitments.
What’s been the biggest surprise for you since taking office?
The wonderful people I get to meet across Ontario and in other places around the world. There’s a tremendous respect for the office of environmental commissioner, and I find many people have a real passion to be helpful. If we’re trying to learn more about a policy area or we need better facts, I find I can ask almost anyone for help. It’s very impressive.
What kind of topics are you tackling in coming reports?
We have a very broad remit, with 15 prescribed ministries and the fields of climate, energy and environment, with a very small staff. So we have to be extremely careful about the topics we have to write about. And because of the lead times involved many of the topics for the next annual report were already set before I got here.
That said, we did have a public “pitch window” where we invited the energy community and anyone else to suggest ideas for the 2017 energy conservation report. We got a number of good suggestions, and we’re in the process now of finalizing topics for next year. We will probably do the same this fall, after we release the environment report.
I look for the sweet spot in an issue, between its importance, our ability to influence policy, and our resources. So for example, has the issue already been well-covered by another office or agency? It can’t just be a question of an issue I’m interested in, because I’m interested in a lot of topics.
One of the other big changes the government is making is to the Environmental Bill of Rights. Has your office made any submissions on changes to it?
We’ve made two submissions. One is on the registry itself. That software is totally obsolete. It’s very difficult to use, it’s incredibly frustrating for the public, and regularly misleads people. So we’ve pushed hard at the ministry to update the software. They’ve promised to work on that, though they tell us it will be a minimum of 18 months before that gets done.
On changes to the act, my office has been calling for updates to the act since 2005, and I wrote a letter to Minister of Environment and Climate Change Glen Murray in June with some of the procedural changes we think are essential. This is nuts and bolts stuff, after 23 years of experience in being the guardian of the Environmental Bill of Rights.
We haven’t yet commented on some of the more substantive questions, particularly whether there should be a substantive environmental right. We’re considering whether we should make a submission on that point.
What would you like people to say about your time in office when this five-year term is up?
I want the office and the [Environmental Bill of Rights] to matter more to more Ontarians, and to have contributed to better environmental outcomes. We’ve already had impressive success in getting ministries to take the bill of rights more seriously. When I took office, there were obsolete entries on the environmental registry going back to 2005, where the government had simply never told the public what their decision was. It made a mockery of everything the bill of rights stood for, and I’m pleased to say there’s been enormous progress.
That’s something I’m very proud of, something that’s important for the people of Ontario. We’ve also seen our recommendations reflected in the Climate Change Action Plan, and I’m hopeful that we’ll be able to contribute to better outcomes on other issues. That’s why any of us take these kinds of jobs.
This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
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