'Failed Experiment': Alberta Folds Oilsands Monitoring Agency

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The Alberta government has shuttered its armโ€™s length environmental monitoring agency after a report concluded the program was a โ€œfailed experiment.โ€
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Minister of Environment Shannon Phillips announced Tuesday the Alberta Environmental Monitoring, Evaluation and Reporting Agency (AEMERA) would be disbanded and environmental monitoring will return back to the government.

โ€œIt ensures government is directly accountable for environmental monitoring and that issues or gaps in monitoring are responded to immediately,โ€ Phillips said at a press conference.

Phillipโ€™s ministry commissioned a report that described the Alberta Environmental Monitoring, Evaluation and Reporting Agency as overly expensive, poorly co-ordinated and plagued by bureaucratic bickering.

โ€œIt is hard to escape the conclusion that AEMERA is a failed experiment in outsourcing a core responsibility of government to an armโ€™s-length body,โ€ wrote report author Paul Boothe, director of the Lawrence National Centre for Policy and Management at Western Universityโ€™s Ivey School ofย Business.

The agency was created in 2012 as a reaction to criticism about Albertaโ€™s lack of environmental monitoring in the oilsands โ€” but ultimately, the program failed to attain the โ€œworld-classโ€ monitoring standard the government touted.
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โ€œCritical dollars were being diverted away from monitoring and science to overhead and administrative duplication,โ€ Phillips said.
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Under AEMERA, provincial scientists were meant to collaborate with Environment Canada to monitor the oil industryโ€™s impacts on air, land and water. It was funded by $50 million from industry and another $28 million from the province.
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The new structure will have two panels: a science advisory panel and a traditional ecological knowledge panel. For the first time, environmental monitoring results will be made available to the public.
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โ€œThis openness and transparency is essential to allow Albertans to rationalize the ministerโ€™s decisions and ensure they are making decisions in the best interest of Albertans,โ€ says Andy Read, an analyst with the Pembina Institute, a sustainable energy thinkย tank.ย 

Risk of Political Interferenceย Remains

Experts warn legislative changes are needed to avoid political interference.
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โ€œItโ€™s not enough just to fold this and roll it into environment and parks,โ€ says Martin Olszynski, an environmental law expert at the University of Calgary. โ€œIf theyโ€™re committed, the next piece has to be legislative change with provisions around making monitoring mandatory.โ€

Olszynski says he would like to see enforceable deadlines for the delivery of data through legislation.
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โ€œThis kind of monitoring is costly, and it will always be costly,โ€ says Olszynski. โ€œIt would be very easy to fold that division without a public bru haha.โ€
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Even AEMERA, which amalgamated individual monitoring programs across the province and was meant to operate as an independent organization, was never full free of political influence, Read said.
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ย โ€œThey were still reporting to and needed approval from the minister to release environmental information,โ€ Read said. ย 
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Bootheโ€™s report confirmed that: โ€œA lack of clarity around the governmentโ€™s expectations regarding AEMERAโ€™s โ€˜armโ€™s-lengthโ€™ nature contributed to the poor relations between partners.โ€
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Three years after its creation, AEMERA had not expanded to become a province-wide environmental monitoring program and had failed to find a stabile funding structure.
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There remain unanswered questions about the new monitoring system when it comes to the role of stakeholders within the province and the relationship with the federal government.
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โ€œItโ€™s still somewhat of a gap,โ€ Read said, pointing out the decision has implications for groups such as the Wood Buffalo Environmental Agency.
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โ€œYou need to build trust with regional representatives across Alberta,โ€ Read said. โ€œThatโ€™s crucial in even identifying what monitoring needsย are.โ€

Role of Federal Governmentย Unclear

One of the reportโ€™s major criticisms of AEMERA revolved around the role of the federal government and the agencyโ€™s inability to accept Environment Canada as a partner. As of now there is no clear path on how the federal government will be involved in the new structure.
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โ€œThis is a classic issue and tension in environmental law in Canada,โ€ Olszynski said. โ€œItโ€™d be nice if everyone could accept that it is shared jurisdiction.โ€
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The announced changes maintain AEMERAโ€™s funding model, which werenโ€™t adequate for the province-wide mandate of the agency.
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Read says the polluter-pay model has to be implemented province-wide to ensure adequate funding to deliver on monitoring the entire province.
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โ€œWe definitely will be paying attention to how they establish themselves to collect funding,โ€ Read said.
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ย The Alberta budget will be announced on April 14 and the government expects the new monitoring system to be operational by this summer.

Photo: David Dodge via Flickr

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