Recommendation 322: The Ministries of Attorney General and Public Safety and Solicitor General should play a leadership role at the provincial level, including developing a coordinated policy framework and an advisory body, linked to [a] senior government coordinating body…to help ensure a consistent approach to the development of specialized justice processes in BC and to ensure adequate monitoring and evaluation of new approaches, building on the experiences of other jurisdictions. This advisory body should include key community stakeholders, including representatives of marginalized groups. (p.61)

Recommendation 19: The Human Rights Tribunal had made significant advancements in the effectiveness of its early mediation procedure, resulting in many complaints being resolved before going to formal adjudication. There may even be potential for further improvements around alternative resolution practices by embracing the concepts found in restorative justice. While use of a restorative justice model will be limited to appropriate cases, a restorative justice dialogue between parties can be expanded to include a discussion of their perspective of the harms and the impact on the parties, the issues, and what parties are seeking as an outcome. Restorative justice processes are holistic in nature and can facilitate a move toward resolutions that are cost effective, time effective and lasting.

Recommendation 4: The federal government—with leadership from the Privy Council Office—should work with the Sustainable Finance Action Council, securities and financial regulators, provincial and territorial governments, standards associations, and Indigenous organizations to accelerate the development and require the use of quantitative and comparable company- and product-level metrics, standards, and certifications that measure climate, environmental, social, and Indigenous performance.

Recommendation 6: The federal government should strengthen federal climate policies related to the electricity sector

Recommendation 2: The federal government should set legally binding emissions milestones only at the national level.

Legally binding milestones are particularly important at the national level given Canada’s commitments under international processes. As such, we provide additional advice specifically to the federal government.

We recommend that a federal climate accountability framework set binding milestones only at the national level. Legally binding sectoral or provincial and territorial milestones risk creating a rigid approach that raises the overall cost of reducing emissions. In the absence of a trading mechanism, binding subnational milestones would force GHG reductions in particular parts of the economy or regions when there are more cost effective or practical options to reduce emissions elsewhere. Moreover, binding subnational milestones would require governments to directly confront difficult decisions about regional burden-sharing (sectoral milestones would do the same, albeit indirectly) only to have these debates resurface when the details of policy mechanics were being discussed. Forcing these debates to occur at the early, milestone-setting stage is likely to be divisive. It risks making it even more challenging to move over time toward better policy coordination and convergence in federal and subnational policy ambition.

However, it is useful to provide public information on the contributions provinces, territories, and sectors are projected to make to the national budget or target to illustrate implications of pathways rather than to prescribe explicit reductions at these levels. Detailed projections strike a balance by providing public, transparent projections for sectors and regions that can guide policy while still remaining non-binding. They can increase transparency, helping to inform challenging conversations about the contributions of different sectors and regions.

In terms of process, we recommend that the federal government set the national milestone pathway in consultation with other governments, stakeholders, Indigenous Peoples, and a non-partisan expert advisory body. Allowing the federal government to make the final decision, but with requirements that it consult widely, ensures that regional and sectoral circumstances and diverse perspectives are considered without paralyzing the pathway process. Similarly, including reporting obligations that require the federal government to justify its decision in the event it rejects the expert body’s advice creates incentives to ensure milestones are rooted in evidence and science.

Recommendation 3: The federal government should produce a document or a series of documents for the general public explaining in plain language its proposed integrated multi-jurisdictional identity system, including the on-going costs and business case for the proposal.

Recommendation 8: The federal government should leverage its convening and spending powers to encourage greater integration between provinces and territories

Recommendation 1: The federal government should legislate a framework for climate accountability consistent with best practices; other orders of government should consider implementing them as well.

Climate accountability frameworks—implemented according to the best practices we identify—can help governments across Canada. To follow through on its commitment to enact legally binding emissions milestones, the federal government should legislate a climate accountability framework nationally. Provinces, territories, Indigenous governments, and municipalities should also explore implementing their own accountability frameworks, as British Columbia and Manitoba have done.

Subnational climate accountability frameworks could complement a national framework in multiple ways. First, given Canada’s shared jurisdiction over climate policy and the fact that some policy instruments are uniquely available to particular orders of government, Canadian climate policy would be more robust if subnational governments were accountable to their citizens for policy implementation in the same way the federal government would be. Second, subnational frameworks would clarify the intended plans of provincial, territorial, Indigenous, and municipal governments, providing a clearer picture of subnational ambition and, where applicable, the gap that would need to be closed under the federal framework in order to meet national milestones. Third, having both national and subnational accountability frameworks would surface issues where climate policy ambition differs across jurisdictions, clarify regional tensions slowing progress on climate policy under the federal framework, and create conditions for ambition and policy to converge over time.

When implementing climate accountability frameworks, governments in Canada can look to the experience from other jurisdictions we present in our case studies. […] To deliver on the governance processes and transparency mechanisms that a climate accountability framework requires to function effectively, all six of these common elements must be in place:

• Formalizing climate governance structures and processes
• Clearly defining roles and responsibilities
• Establishing interim emissions reduction milestones
• Producing action plans to meet milestones
• Requiring monitoring and reporting
• Broadening the scope beyond reducing emissions

Second, governments in Canada should implement these common elements consistent with best practices. The best practices we identify […] include the following:

• Legislating governance structures, processes and long-term targets
• Ensuring independent advice and assessment
• Supporting a whole-of-government approach
• Providing clarity on how milestones are set and will evolve
• Defining emissions reduction milestones as cumulative carbon budgets
• Linking progress on milestone commitments to policy course corrections
• Requiring government to provide formal responses to independent advisory reports
• Integrating multiple objectives into pathways and policy

Recommendation 7: The federal government should financially support electricity system transformations—for multiple reasons

Recommendation 9: The federal government should explore offering sustained, predictable financial support to provinces and territories to accelerate electricity system transformations, in exchange for certain high-level conditions being met