Capstone Group 2: Coordination between agencies and jurisdictions

Drive coordination between agencies and jurisdictions both within Canada and internationally

Notes from kickoff meeting 180410

What are the reasons why we don’t coordinate:

-Mandate and resources.

-Legislative framework for each agency. (restrictions on information sharing). Can be a disincentive to working together.

-Example: nuclear experience (different than other industries)

-Collaboration driven by crisis not by efficiency.

-Example: manage recalls. Alternate service delivery providers. From a field perspective, challenge is jurisdictions overlap. An impediment, uncertainty on what can be shared between gov departments when they are on an inspection together. Can I tell my provincial inspector this… (governed by MOUs). Need more broad sharing capabilities.

-Ont: work very closely with colleagues in other provinces and federally. Question: more react and cure or more to get ahead of the agenda to anticipate and prevent. Ans: not that closely with other departments beyond meeting and talking and sharing. Takeaway: not good mechanisms. Slater: Is there a demand side or pressure? Yes and differences amongst provinces. More about political will.

-Question: Do you see the feds as a catalyst or the provinces. Don’t see the fed gov as a catalyst at all. Always going to court to resolve issues.

-Scope and Scale is huge. Is it not working? Disincentives and barriers are not the same. Consensus is very difficult. Disincentive could be that it takes too long.

-Are we doing good enough?

  • Different agendas.
  • Major project management review process

-What are our metrics?

  • How do we know?

-To what extent are your regulatory actions reported? Needed to be complex bc we are the decision makers. Have we invested enough in the partnerships?

-Is the accusation a fair one? Where do we start to develop metrics? Do you start with the regulated? Where do you start: self assessment? What do you self assess against?

-Heidi’s experience: in transport it worked well. Comes down to relationships. Looked at many measurements. Would not both go into an audit on the same carrier (US/CAN or Fed/Prov???).

-Slater: Did you do one audit that served the needs of multiple agencies?

-Michael: interjurisdictional cooperation that worked, there was relationships that worked. How did those relationships work? Heidi, long term serving employees.

-Slater: On study tour: Take a couple of examples to describe how these things are happening.

  • Examples:
  • TSSA
  • Maple Leaf foods in Hamilton Ont.

-Mike: What about the new innovation?

  • What are the coordination issues associated with the unknown.
  • Sandbox: has something new in their garage. Figured out the problems. Then they come to the regulator, consultation transparent, approval process (in one silo). How do you develop the sandbox to play in how do we create a culture with entrepreneurs that they can trust.
  • Jay: forming advisory groups. Supporting the innovative approaches of stakeholders on how they want to improve Veterans well being.
  • Depends what the innovation is.
  • Steve: IDEAS (1.6 bln).
  • Slater: Whats the trigger: collaborative engagement with the investment community. Vested interest could be the investment community.

Lunch

-Priority for the fed gov. What about the other jurisdictions? Is it as much a priority?

-Business case inputs to how much budget you get. Would need meaningful metrics in that case.

-Jay: 2nd question: what about current cabinet directive…

-Shine a light wherever there is a difference.

  • Example: rail operators hearing. What are the competitiveness implications? In this case it was none.

Argument: settle and then allocating tasks.

Dinner next week as a group to discuss.

What are the best examples of FPT coordination.

Eric Lemoine Notes for Discussion:

-What is our circle of influence (or TBS)? We may have to limit our scope to just federal regulatory agencies. Once that’s complete then can look at international/provincial cooperation.

-Can we expand the scope or increase the mandate of the community of federal regulators? Can they run a project where they approach the different levels of regulators and get a single point of contact to discuss at workshops how to remove redundancies and share information?

-Is there a community of provincial regulators?

-This is an efficiency questions. If we share the load between regulators (international, federal, provincial, municipal) then we can cover more information and thereby providing the public with a better product (or safer product).

-Some regulators may already be doing this (CNSC at the international/federal level). I don’t know how we coordinate with for example the Ontario Ministry of Environment. But in the area of Pressure boundary we work very well with for example the TSSA as there pressure boundary inspectors become our agents.

Key characteristics/dimensions of the theme.

Multi-governmental approach required. Or not??? Can focus on federal to start.

Can we set up a system within the community of federal regulators by which the public or licensees/stakeholders can submit efficiency problems (duplication of effort). Then the agencies involved can be assigned a specific task to look into why its that way and drive out a solution. There may be different reasons why different regulators look at the same piece of information.

Challenges

Falls outside our circle of influence (to international).

What’s the budget? How much will this cost? Will it cost more to execute this project then the projected benefit to Canadians?

Opportunities

Better product or service for Canadians.

Better coordination at the federal level with the same outcome (more efficient use of resources to make sure Canadians are safer.)

Concerns.

Licensees should not see this as a reduction of requirements but rather as more efficient use of government resources.

Implications for public services.

Better product or service for Canadians. Canadians should be safer if regulators can use their resources more efficiently.

Implications for present and future leadership.

Not sure… Can say that we went through the exercise. Can say there is a public process in place to deal with inefficiencies.

Discussion Paper:do we have this?