Cleaner Production in China -- Environmental Policy in Canada, a Case Study

The introductory paragraph in the Chapter "Developing a Culture of Industrial Environmental Compliance" in the World Bank Group’s "Pollution Prevention and Abatement Handbook" is quite reflective of the Canadian experience. It is worth repeating here as an introduction to this Executive Summary.

"Efforts to reduce industrial pollution in developing countries have focused on developing environmental and legal frameworks, largely by establishing command and control regulations and market based incentives. Overall, however, formal regulation by itself has not proven very effective in reducing industrial pollution in these countries. While there is no substitute for an environmental regulatory regime, there is a need to focus on what makes industry take action. Several innovative approaches are now emerging as effecting ways to improve environmental compliance including pollution inventories; information on enterprise performance; cleaner production; environmental management systems; negotiated agreements; and government-industry partnerships. International experience is still limited but suggests that industrializing countries may have much to gain from these approaches in developing a culture that fosters improved industrial environmental compliance and overall environmental performance."

Initially in Canada, as described in the Pulp and Paper Industry case study, government embarked on a unilateral "command and control" initiative which resulted in draft regulations that were focused almost solely on costly end-of-pipe treatment approaches. When presented to industry it pointed out that government had chosen the most inefficient options for dealing with industrial pollution. Fortunately, government agreed to work with industry to develop jointly, regulations and strategies for dealing with pollution from the pulp and paper industry. From that beginning evolved an industrial pollution strategy that became the basis of environmental policy in Canada. Today pollution inventories, information on enterprise performance, partnerships, negotiated agreements, voluntary compliance, environmental management systems, and cleaner production have all become part of the government-industry environmental culture in Canada.

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Figure 1: Microscopic Examination of Paper Mill Effluent by the Chinese Study Tour at Pine Falls, Manitoba

At the beginning Canadian regulators would have insisted that operators of sulfite pulp and paper mills install chemical recovery systems, and end-of-pipe treatment systems. Industry countered that more efficient approaches were needed, and that technologies which used wood (the raw material) more efficiently would ultimately result in a more competitive industry with less pollution. In the end much of the sector using sulfite pulping technology opted for technology conversion to TCMP (thermo chemical mechanical pulping) which resulted in a significantly higher yield in terms of wood fibre, and significantly less pollution and less water consumption per tonne of pulp produced. The policy that resulted from this experience was that government would not dictate solutions to industry. Governments would establish pollution limits but leave the solution-choices up to business.

Subsequently industry proposed voluntary solutions and even offered to work together with government in terms of their implementation and explanation to the Canadian public. Examples of these are the ARET (Accelerated Reduction of Environmental Toxics) initiative and the National Pollutant Release Inventory.

Canadian industry has lead the world in a number of major initiatives including the Canadian chemical industry’s "Responsible Care" programme which is trademarked to the Canadian Chemical Producer’s Association, and now being emulated world-wide in more than forty countries. The "Responsible Care" programme is in effect a voluntary response by industry aimed at ensuring a new ethic within the industry for the safe and environmentally sound management of chemicals over their life cycle. This initiative flowed from the view of industry that by embracing voluntary programmes that they could design more efficient solutions to their problems than if they were regulated to do so by governments. More information on CCPA’s "Responsible Care" programme can be found at their website, http://www.ccpa.ca .

From the lessons learned through the Canadian experience the following are worth noting here

Environmental policy as an issue of public policy began to have significant attention paid to it in Canada in the mid to late 1960s. To understand the evolution of environmental policy in Canada one has to have an understanding of the constitutional provisions that assign certain responsibilities to the Federal Government and others to the Provinces.

In Canada, as in most democracies, public policy has generally followed issues. Public policy is generally in response to public concern for issues or problems. Almost invariably the public leads on public policy issues. This has been true for the area of the environment as it has for most other social policy issues.

In the area of the environment, governments have tended to respond only after the identification of a problem. Until the recent past, governments on environmental issues were in the "react and cure" mode. It was really only in the mid 1980s that governments began to shift to a policy framework that was aimed at anticipating and preventing environmental problems – the "anticipate and prevent" mode. Earlier initiatives having a prevention component were undertaken but the preoccupation was with correcting problems that resulted from inappropriate, or lack of public policy in the past.

A description of the evolution of environmental problems in Canada will illustrate the shift in focus of public policy, as will the case study on the pulp and paper industry included as an annex to this report.

In the late 19^th century, and at the turn of the century, environmental problems were linked to local activities of man which had altered, or polluted their local environment beyond its natural capacity to clean itself, or which physically changed the character of the environment. Fish migrations were blocked by the dams built to support logging enterprises, or the milling of grain. Fish habitat was affected by the dumping of sawdust from sawmills directly into streams. Some of the earliest examples of environmental rule-making in Canada can be found in the Fisheries Act of 1868, one of the first acts of the Canadian Parliament. The Fisheries Act included provisions which made it an offence to discharge "deleterious substances" to waters frequented by fish. The penalty for violation of these provisions was a fine. An offence had to occur before action could take place – clearly a "react and cure" policy.

Also around the turn of the century waterborne disease outbreaks were occurring, resulting in the loss of lives. Some of these incidents were occurring along the border between Canada and the United States, specifically in the connecting channels linking the Great Lakes. Typhoid outbreaks on both sides of the Detroit River prompted the two governments to undertake joint action which led to the conclusion of the Boundary Waters Treaty of 1909, and the creation of the Canada-US International Joint Commission – a body which has facilitated the resolution of boundary environmental disputes between the two countries for almost one hundred years. The specific response to the waterborne disease outbreaks in the Great Lakes Connecting Channels was a recommendation that all public water supplies be chlorinated. Again a policy response directly related to addressing a problem and one that was of the "reactive" kind.

During the period between 1900 and 1930 most of the environmental problems were of a local character resulting in nuisance conditions and affecting the value of property (an area of provincial responsibility ). These problems were largely responded to by local ordinances (municipal by-laws) making it an offence to cause such pollution, or by similar requirements established at the provincial level. Most of these requirements were set by the public health agencies of the provinces, as health was the primary concern associated with such pollution problems.

By the 1940s and through the 1960s Canada was experiencing an unprecedented growth in population particularly in urban areas, related to the wartime and post-war industrialization which was taking place, and the large post-war immigration from devastated countries in Europe. This growth in industrial capacity, and very rapid shift of people from the countryside to urban areas, was accompanied by very large pressures on the environment. Air and water pollution problems were commonplace and were highly visible. Fish kills were a regular occurrence and public beach closures became the norm. Responses were still largely at the local or provincial level, still largely responded to by health agencies.

One exception to that was in the Province of Ontario, where the Provincial Sanitary Engineer, Dr. Albert E. Berry, convinced the Provincial Government that a broader strategy for dealing with water pollution problems had to be undertaken. Dr. Berry correctly recognized that the issue of water pollution needed to be attacked on two fronts, that which originated from municipalities and that which was of industrial origin. Dr. Berry’s strategy, adopted by the Province of Ontario, was to initially concentrate on cleaning up municipal discharges, the logic being that if government expected clean-up from industry it had to be showing leadership by first cleaning up those activities which were of its own making (municipalities being creatures of provincial governance).

The Province of Ontario accepted the advice of its chief sanitary engineer and in the late 1950s created the Ontario Water Resources Commission, with the passage of the Ontario Water Resources Act. It gave this agency of provincial government sole responsibility for managing water resources in the Province of Ontario. It was also given unique powers that allowed it to enter into contracts with municipalities to build and operate water supply systems and sewage treatment plants, and to charge the capital and operating costs back to the municipalities who in turn billed the users of the system. The OWRC was given additional clout in that it was able to take initiatives under the provincial Municipal Act that had the effect of stopping development in municipalities until they had put in place appropriate plans to deal with their water pollution problems. Once this strategy was in place the OWRC then mounted a parallel clean-up programme with industry (with one significant difference – there was no financial assistance made available to industry). The Commission reviewed all new industrial developments to ensure that appropriate pollution control measures were included as part of development plans.

Also in the 1960s, largely in response to the growing conflict between industrial polluters and the management of the fisheries resource, the first modern amendments to the pollution provisions of the Fisheries Act were enacted by the Federal Government. The new provisions included powers for the Minister of Fisheries to request plans and specifications of new industrial developments that might threaten fishery waters, in addition to higher fines for offences. This was one of the first steps toward a systematic assessment of environmental impacts of new or expanded industrial operations, albeit limited to their impact on fishery resources. It was certainly one of the first steps toward embodying pollution prevention into the approach by governments in dealing with pollution problems.

During the 1960s and into the 1970s, environmental problems took on a regional character. They were no longer confined to local effects. We began to observe widespread pollution of our airsheds, river basins and lake systems. Rachel Carson in her monumental work "Silent Spring" raised the consciousness of North Americans and Canadians about the risk of serious effects associated with the uncontrolled release to the environment of toxic chemicals. Advanced eutrophication was observed in sections of Lake Erie, one of the St. Lawrence Great Lakes, and some prognostications were made that Lake Erie was dying. Public concern over environmental problems resulted in environmental policy being forced to the top of the political agenda.

Environmental agencies were created. In Canada the Department of the Environment was created by Act of Parliament in 1971 (about the same time that the EPA was created from the old Federal Water Pollution Control Administration in the United States.) Across Canada, Provincial Governments followed the federal lead, and in response to public pressures created provincial environment departments. The national parliament and provincial legislatures passed a plethora of legislation to respond to environmental problems. At the national level, Parliament passed the Clean Air Act, the Environmental Contaminants Act, the Canada Water Act, the Ocean Dumping Control Act and the Fisheries Act was once again amended. Within the areas of their legislative competence provincial legislatures passed their own versions of legislation intended to respond to the concern over environmental deterioration.

At the national level a major policy debate ensued as to whether the thrust of environmental policy should be based on resource management principles with environmental policy being solely based on the most efficient use of the resource, or on the other side of the debate a policy with a more immediate goal of targeting efforts at the clean-up of serious pollution and the prevention of future pollution. The Canada Water Act passed by the Canadian Parliament embraced the comprehensive resource management approach and included provisions permitting the federal government to enter into agreements with the Provinces to jointly establish water quality management areas across Canada. The Provinces viewed this as an intrusion into their area of resource management responsibility.

Parliament also passed major amendments to the Fisheries Act which became the primary federal legislative authority for responding to serious water pollution problems. National industrial water pollution standards were to be a major component of the environmental policy aimed at clean-up and prevention. The Canada Water Act became a vehicle of effecting cooperative agreements between the Federal Government and the Provinces on watersheds of national significance, but each jurisdiction retained the right to use its own legislative authority for meeting the goals of those agreements.

National industrial pollution discharge standards were developed under the authority of the Fisheries Act. The author was charged with completing the task of putting in place industrial pollution discharge standards for all major industrial categories over a period of 18 months. In reality each industrial pollution discharge standard took from 24 months to 36 months to complete. Standards were developed for the pulp and paper industry, the petroleum refining industry, the chlor-alkali industry, the food processing industry, the fish processing industry, and for base metal mining operations. The standards were developed cooperatively with industrial sectors, using an "experts" task force approach, and were all based on the availability of existing technological solutions. At the time we called the approach one based on "best practicable technology" (BPT).

The International Joint Commission received a report from its panel of experts that urgent action was needed in the Great Lakes to curtail the pollution being observed there and to reduce the loading of nutrients which were causing the biological explosions which were occurring in Lake Erie. In response to the recommendations from the IJC, Canada and the United States concluded "The Canada – US Water Quality Agreement (1972)" which set out obligations and targets for clean-up for both parties. In Canada regulations restricting the amount of phosphorus in laundry detergents were passed under the Canada Water Act. Similar actions were taken at State and local levels in the United States. As well, major municipal clean-up programs were undertaken in both countries.

By the 1980s, environmental problems had reached the stage of transcending provincial and national borders. Some problems were even global in their effects, requiring global strategies for their solution. There had developed even greater public concern about the widespread effects of toxic substances. Acid rain became a major issue of public concern in North America, and scientists were observing disturbing depletion of the ozone layer in the upper atmosphere. At the same time it was pointed out to Canadians that they were the most wasteful society on earth (on the basis of per capita production of waste) – even more wasteful than their cousins to the south in the United States. Public concern was at a very high level and public opinion polls continually placed environmental concerns as one of the top concerns of Canadians.

Predictably this level of public concern was reflected in the political response. But by the 1980s Canadians were demanding that public policy on the environment take a more prudent course. Prevention was being demanded. National and international commitments were entered into. In Canada, the Federal Government and the Provinces entered into a national acid rain control strategy with targets for reduction in SO2 loading. A national management plan was concluded for the management of urban smog. Waste reduction strategies were agreed to by Provincial Ministers and the Federal Environment Minister at the Canadian Council of Environment Ministers. It also began to be realized that it was difficult to manage environmental issues as "water issues", or "air issues", that an integrated and holistic approach was required.

In 1986 the Canadian Parliament passed the Canadian Environmental Protection Act which shifted the strategy from one of "react and cure" to "anticipate and prevent". The focus of this progressive legislation was on a management system for implementing a "life-cycle" control on toxic substances (they would be managed from cradle to grave.) Pollution prevention began to emerge as the primary strategy for environmental management. This was coupled with the rigorous application of environmental impact assessment procedures for new projects at both the provincial and national levels.

In the early1970s, the federal government established a policy requiring environmental impact assessment of all projects either funded by the federal government or which were being undertaken on federal lands. This was another major step in moving environmental policy toward preventing pollution rather than reacting to it.

Under the Canadian Constitution the Provinces in effect are the owners of natural resources. The exception to this is on lands owned by the federal government or for which the federal government has fiduciary responsibility. Such lands include the northern territories, National Parks, military reserves, land set aside as reservations for aboriginal peoples, and other lands for which the federal government has acquired title. As the owners of natural resources, the Provinces are empowered to make legislation governing their management and use.

There are other areas which are the exclusive jurisdiction of the federal government, areas of shared jurisdiction, and there are areas that are not specifically addressed by the Canadian Constitution. Areas of exclusive jurisdiction of the federal government include the fishery resource, navigation, marine waters, international trade and negotiation of international treaties and agreements. Areas like health, and agriculture are shared jurisdictions. The assignment of constitutional responsibility between the two major levels of government is a reflection of Canada as it was in 1867 when the British North America Act, Canada’s first Constitution was framed. Over time there has been clarification of areas of responsibility of the two senior levels of government through references to the Supreme Court of Canada. That Court has also determined that there is legitimacy in some areas for the two levels of government to legislate. Some of these decisions have related to the authority of the two levels of government as related to the environment.

The environment, as an area of public policy, was not contemplated by the drafters of our original constitution, so the British North America Act was silent on it. The Constitution Act which repatriated Canada’s Constitution from the Parliament of Westminster (Great Britain) merely established that Canada had the exclusive sovereign right to amend its own Constitution. No broad modernization of the British North America Act was included in the Constitution Act of 1982.

As an area of public policy for which there is no exclusive constitutional right given to any one level of government, both the Federal Government and the Provinces have both passed legislation and undertaken environmental programmes within their areas of constitutional authority. There has been some debate about the efficiency of both levels of government engaging themselves in the same area, and of the burden on industry of having to meet standards set by the Provinces and also by the Federal Government. Canada’s response to this issue has been the creation of the Canadian Council of Environment Ministers as a vehicle of attempting to set national environmental priorities, and to minimize overlap and duplication. The Council has a rotating Chair, and the Federal Minister of the Environment assumes the Chair once every eleven years. Ministers are considered equals and the Council functions very much as a collegial body and aims to find consensus on issues. Since its creation in the early 1960s there has been much healthy debate in this forum (began as the Canadian Council of Resource Ministers). Today it is a mature institution [supported by a Secretariat in Winnipeg, Manitoba] which is generally effective in the harmonization of governments’ responses to environmental issues.

Municipalities are entities created by Provincial legislation, and derive their powers to make municipal rules and by-laws from Provincial authority. Generally municipalities make the rules on how environmental issues will be handled within their boundaries but usually municipal pollution control facilities, waste dump sites, etc are operated under a provincial approval or permitting system. Municipal waste treatment plants are also subject to national environmental requirements made under federal law (eg. the general provisions of the Fisheries Act).

More specifically as related to water policy, the Federal role in water management and water pollution control has been a selective one. As noted previously, at the time of Confederation, and in amendments to the British North America Act since then, the ownership of natural resources within a province and the legislative responsibility which goes with ownership have been assigned to the Provinces. Federal resource ownership and its accompanying legislative responsibilities have largely been restricted to federal lands, the northern territories (which are not yet provinces), and National Parks which might exist in either the northern territories or within the provinces.

Water (and for that matter air) do not fit into the general ownership and legislation pattern for resources as easily as do land, timber and minerals. Water and air move. In so doing they frequently cross both provincial and international boundaries. In addition water contains fish which, like other forms of migratory wildlife, cannot be said to be "owned" by the possessors of the land they pass over.

Consequently, in its natural state, water is traditionally viewed as "not owned" in the normal resource sense. It also possesses some special characteristics which have become Federal responsibilities. The first of these special characteristics to be assigned to Federal care, was the navigability of Canada’s waterways. This power was assigned to the Federal Government in the original British North America Act. One year later, in 1868, the responsibility for fisheries and the prevention of pollution of fisheries waters were similarly assigned to Federal care. Since then the Federal responsibilities for Canada’s waters have been further defined and have grown. For example, in 1898 the legal principle that the Federal Government could legislate in respect to resources, irrespective of provincial ownership, was developed. It asserted that both levels of government could legislate in respect to the same resource; the Provincial Government because it would be legislating in respect to what it owns; the Federal Government because it would be legislating in respect to something within its legislative competence. In other words, while the Federal Government cannot, generally, claim to own water within provincial boundaries it may still pass legislation in respect to water.

Through the years extensive federal scientific and engineering surveys of water resources were conducted across the country and, from time to time, the Federal Government became involved in some of the great water resource developments. For example, it carried out early irrigation projects on the prairies and was involved in flood control dam building in Ontario, in the St. Lawrence Seaway project, the Gardiner dam construction and in the Columbia, Nelson and Manicouagan River Projects. From time to time, it also passed various pieces of legislation involving water. By the late 1960s a number of Federal Acts contained provisions for the prevention of certain kinds of water pollution and a number of federal agencies were engaged in various water pollution control activities.

Similarly there has evolved a legitimacy for the Federal Government to legislate in other environmental areas such as air quality and air pollution control, including motor vehicle emissions; and in toxic substance management.

From the 1960s, Canada has had an overriding policy that the "polluter pays" reflecting Canada’s support for the OECD principle on this issue. Generally what it means is that those who are responsible for the creation of pollution are also responsible for cleaning it up. There should be no transfer to society as a whole of the costs associated with pollution clean-up. At the same time the use of the "public commons" as a repository for treated and untreated waste is a transfer to society of some of the costs of pollution. There has not been established a national or provincial tax for the use of the natural environment in this manner, however some municipalities have in place effluent discharge fee schemes.

There was a recognition, at the time of embracing the "polluter pays" principle, that many older industrial facilities had been built under a different set of societal expectations and rules, and that assistance could be appropriate under certain circumstances to facilitate the attainment of current standards. However, there was no broadly based direct industrial pollution control assistance programme put in place to assist industry. Indirect assistance occurred in instances where federal or provincial assistance programmes facilitated the construction of municipal sewerage systems and treatment plants. Industrial facilities discharging into municipal systems derived an indirect benefit from these subvention programs.

In the late 1960s and early 1970s, both levels of government had a number of incentive programs to assist municipalities, industries and institutions to finance pollution control facilities.

There were no specific loan or grant programs from the Federal Government to assist industry in meeting its pollution control obligations. For industry there were some tax schemes put in place to ensure that pollution control expenditures are treated tax-wise in a similar manner to investments for productive equipment and machinery, basically making the statement that pollution control expenditures are nothing more than a legitimate cost of doing business. The ACCA, (Accelerated Capital Cost Allowance Program) was one of these. Under this program, established by an amendment to the Income Tax Act, equipment used primarily for the purpose of preventing, reducing or eliminating the pollution of Canadian air and water qualified for a 2-year write-off for income tax purposes. This programme was administered by Environment Canada and was due to expire on December 31, 1973. The program is still in place, but is currently being reviewed by the Department of Finance to determine whether its benefits warrant the administrative costs associated with it.

It is worth noting in the language of both of these subvention programs that they specifically include the term "prevention", even in the early 1970s. They were not solely restricted to expenditures for pollution control and treatment."

Under the amended Excise Act an exemption from Federal sales tax was granted for equipment for the prevention or control of pollution. This applied to "machinery and apparatus sold to or imported by manufacturers or producers for use by them directly in the detection, measurement, prevention, treatment, reduction or removal of pollutants to water, soil or air attributable to the manufacture or production of goods". In the 1980s the Federal Sales Tax was replace by a national "value added" tax, the Goods and Services Tax (GST) which was applied at the retail level for goods consumed in Canada. Under the new tax no special treatment was given to the classes of equipment previously exempted from the Federal sales tax.

Assistance to municipalities from the Federal Government for pollution control works was begun in the 1960s through the Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) under a revision to the National Housing Act. The net effect was to provide long term financing at government interest rates for two-thirds of the eligible project value, and a subsidy of one-sixth of the value at the end of the repayment period. This program was terminated in the 1980s. It was never offered on the scale of assistance programs made available to municipalities by EPA in the United States. The fact that the municipality had to commit at the outset to one-third of the cost, and the fact that it was available to all on the same basis, meant that municipalities did not delay necessary pollution control expenditures until they received their government grant for construction. Pollution control facilities in municipalities were generally constructed sooner and put into operation much earlier than their counterparts in the United States. The point being made is that big subsidy programs do not necessarily accelerate pollution control investments.

In 1970 the Federal Government authorized the development of a comprehensive research program on water pollution abatement in cooperation with the pulp and paper industry of Canada. The concept of the cooperative programme was a jointly managed initiative with participation of the several ministries of government having an interest in the industrial sector and senior representation from the pulp and paper industry. In 1970, the ministries involved were the Department of Fisheries and Forestry (later to become the Department of the Environment) and the Department of Energy, Mines and Resources. Industry representatives were nominated by the Canadian Pulp and Paper Association and came from a cross-section of the Canadian industry. A joint committee of government and industry experts was established to assess priorities, plan the program, review progress and advise on the allocation of funds. In 1970-71, under the original plan, the program was funded in the amount of $500,000, and was increased to $1,000,000 per year for the next five years. The federal funding was conditional on the increase by industry of their spending on water pollution abatement research by a similar amount, over the $1,400,000 then being expended by the industry in 1970. The objective of the program was to accelerate and coordinate the Canadian research efforts on the problems of water pollution caused by the pulp and paper industry, and to develop more effective means of pollution abatement.

This program was subsequently supported by a program funded by the Federal Government to share the risk of being the first to adopt innovative environmental technologies. This support program (DPAT), the Demonstration of Pollution Abatement Technologies, and its cousin (DRECT), the Demonstration of Resource and Energy Conservation Technologies, were conditional that the private sector partner commit at least 50% of the costs of the demonstration project. This research assistance program was not confined to the pulp and paper industry sector, but applied across all industrial sectors.

Most provinces in the early 1970s had financial assistance programmes that assisted municipalities in accessing capital for pollution control expenditures (for the construction of sewerage systems and treatment plants.) This assistance was generally ensuring that the municipality could borrow money at an interest rate at least as good as the Province itself could, and in some instances forgiving a certain portion of loans taken out for the construction of such works. These programs were generally complementary to the CMHC (Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation) Sewage Loan programme that was national in application.

With only a few exceptions, Provinces did not provide direct assistance to industry. In one instance a Province, with the objective of getting immediate pollution clean-up and avoiding a pulp mill from shutting down and moving its operations out of the Province, entered into a contract with the company to receive its liquid effluents and to provide treatment in a lagoon facility to be constructed by the Province for the purpose. Land was expropriated (annoying owners of recreational property, and an aboriginal community that occupied adjacent lands); the lagoon was constructed and put into operation by the Province. It never worked properly, caused serious odour problems, but because of the Provincial government’s intervention and contractual obligation, it became the responsible party and had to assume all of the costs of remedial action.

The federal government is currently in the process of amending the Canadian Environmental Protection Act and is emphasizing pollution prevention as the central theme of the legislative revisions. Specifically companies that are users or producers of substances declared toxic under the legislation will be required to develop and submit pollution prevention plans for their operations which use or manufacture those substances. Much detail relating to current environmental policy is available at the Environment Canada website, "the Green Lane", www.ec.gc.ca. which is linked to the project website at www.chinacp.com.

Little information has been included here regarding current environmental policy initiatives because these have been the subject already of extensive sharing of information as well as the focus of two study tours to Canada. A large collection of information on current environmental initiatives has been provided to Mr. He Bing-guang, of SETC and is available in the Project Office. It is detailed in Annex 2, as are listed a number of important websites relevant to the issue of pollution prevention and cleaner production. Many of these are also hot-linked on the project website identified earlier.

Figure 2: Chinese Study Tour at Pine Falls, Manitoba, Pulp and Paper Mill

The CIDA Canada-China Project on Cleaner Production is but one of a number of "cleaner production" projects currently underway in the People’s Republic of China. A World Bank/UNEP Project (initiated in 1994), which is being undertaken concurrently in a number of developing countries has been instrumental in the setting up of the China Centre for Cleaner Production and in the conduct of the first internationally supported efforts at "cleaner production" in the People’s Republic of China. This project has supported some effort at documenting the policy framework existing in China within which the China Agenda 21 goals for "cleaner production" are being implemented. Many of the policies which have an impact on "cleaner production" pre-date the commitment of the Chinese Government to attaining sustainable industrial development through a strategy of modernisation and expansion employing the principles of cleaner production.

There are many similarities in "rule-making" in China as compared to Canada, as well as some notable differences. The differences are largely related to the different economic systems which have driven policy development in the two countries, as well as the most significant difference, the degree to which the public is given the opportunity to contribute to the formulation of public policy in Canada. Keeping the public informed, involving them in the development of policy and public accountability are becoming central features of Canadian governance. In terms of the value of sharing experiences, the changes which are taking place in the Chinese economy - the shift from planned economy to one which is more respondent to market forces, coupled with the similarities in policy formulation make sharing a useful exercise.

In both countries policy is effected by "top-down" and "bottom-up" initiatives. In both countries there is a policy hierarchy that is similar, if not always described in the same terms. China’s 5-year development plans are not dissimilar in some respects to the Throne Speech that is presented at the opening of every Parliament in Canada. Each sets the intended direction of government. This direction is then translated into legislative, policy and fiscal initiatives to give effect to achieving government goals.

In China, "basic" laws are made by the National People’s Congress. Regulations and Executive Orders are made by the State Council. Directives and operational policy are made by the respective Ministries and Agencies of government who have been given certain powers through legislation and regulation. The same is true in Canada. Legislation is made by Parliament. Regulations and orders are made through "Orders-in Council", which is in effect nothing more than rule making by Cabinet (the Canadian counterpart of the State Council) in accordance with the authority given in legislation. Operational directives for the Government are made in the name of the Treasury Board, or where they relate solely to the business of any one Department or Ministry, and are consistent with law are made by the respective Canadian Ministries.

Canadian laws, regulations and orders are made public through the Canada Gazette. In China, laws, regulations and orders are made public through their publication in the printed media.

There are enough similarities in the process of governance and the making of laws and rules of governance that it is useful to share experiences.

There are other similarities in the process of governance. These are not always positive but they exist nonetheless. In both countries there is competition between ministries, and agencies of government, and between the various levels of government. Both countries have governments at the national, provincial and municipal levels. In each country powers have been assigned to each level of government but it is impossible to precisely define the powers of each and the areas of intersecting interest often result in dispute and competition. The challenge in both countries is how to harness healthy competition to achieve national goals, and to prevent such competition from frustrating achievement of goals.

It is not uncommon or unnatural for Ministries and institutions of government to want to have a stake in major new governmental initiatives. In the environmental area, in China we have China’s Agenda 21 Action Plan, and in Canada we had the Green Plan (the former government’s agenda for the environment for the 21st millennium). In both countries, Ministries and institutions of government have tried to ensure that they were part of these important strategic new directions of government. Initially in Canada, Ministries other than the Department of the Environment saw the Green Plan as threatening, and it is suspected that the same was probably true in China for China’s Agenda 21 Action Plan. This fear was subsequently replaced by a desire to "carve out" their stake in the initiative (a part of the usual "competition for resources" characteristic of ministries), to an eventual embracing of the initiatives with many departments/ministries wanting to play the lead role.

On the "cleaner production" initiative in China a number of Ministries/Institutions of Government are jockeying to play the central role. That this is happening is not entirely bad, nor unpredictable. "Cleaner Production" is certainly not exclusively an environmental initiative, nor is it exclusively an "industrial policy" initiative, even though its ultimate goal is attainment of "sustainable industrial development". "Sustainable" incorporates environmental factors as well as "economic" factors. Development will not be sustainable if the environment on which it depends is seriously deteriorated, nor will industrial development be sustainable if it is not profitable and able to compete in global markets.

The "China – Canada Cooperation Project in Cleaner Production (CP)" may indeed be one of the vehicles of forging a convergence in policy making and cooperation between ministries, industrial enterprises and the public-at-large. Indeed it will be a goal of the CIDA Canada-China Project to facilitate this new partnership.

Canada’s experience with environmental policy is summarized below and reinforces several messages:

Peter M. Higgins, P. Eng., M.Sc., N.D.C. is uniquely experienced to write this summary of the evolution of environmental policy in Canada. He has worked at all three levels of government. At the time of his retirement from government service he was the Assistant Deputy Minister, Conservation and Protection, Environment Canada. Early in his career he worked as a project engineer with the Water and Sewage Plants Division, Operations Branch of the Ontario Water Resources Commission. He subsequently worked as the Industrial Waste and Research Engineer with the City of Winnipeg, a pioneering municipality in sewerage engineering and wastewater treatment plant innovation. In 1969, after having been a key member of the study team on the St. Lawrence Great Lakes International Joint Commission studies, he was engaged by the Department of Fisheries and Forestry as Principal Pollution Advisor and charged with the development of the national industrial pollution standards under the Fisheries Act. He subsequently became the first Director General, Water Pollution Control in the newly created Department of the Environment, and went on to be the principal architect of the Canadian Environmental Protection Act before assuming the responsibilities of Assistant Deputy Minister. He was involved in all major environmental protection policy development initiatives during the 1970s, 1980s and early 1990s. In preparing this summary of the evolution of environmental policy in Canada he has drawn upon his extensive personal library and his unique personal experiences as a policy proponent and administrator.