Audit of the Regulatory Development Process: chapter 3

Objectives, scope and methodology

Objectives

The objectives of this audit were to assess whether ECCC:

• Follows a rigorous process that complies with government policies and respects ECCC World Class Regulator criteria for the choice of instrument and the regulatory development process;
• Has an effective regulatory management process in place to meet the Department's regulatory objectives.

Scope

The scope of the audit included the choice of instrument, the regulatory development process, and to more limited extent the monitoring of regulations. The items examined as part of the sample were either in-progress or completed between 2011 and 2014 to ensure the audit considered most relevant and recent examples.^Footnote11

The audit did not include:

• The environmental pre-risk assessments leading to the proposal of a regulation, as this activity is a prerequisite and not a part of the regulation making process;
• Regulatory enforcement activities;
• The evaluation and review stages of the regulatory life cycle, as they are more appropriately considered in cyclical program evaluations.

Methodology

The audit evidence was gathered through a combination of interviews, document review, and file examination to determine ECCC's compliance with the Cabinet Directive on Regulatory Management, the World Class Regulator criteria, and the Regulatory QMS.

The file examination consisted of a judgemental sample of 20 items: 16 regulations and 4 non-regulatory instruments; the latter were included to verify whether the choice of instrument was evidence-based. The items were selected to provide representation of ECCC instruments administered under various legislation (11 under CEPA, 3 under SARA, 2 under MBCA, 2 under Fisheries Act, 1 under EVAMPA^Footnote12, and 1 under WAPPRIITA^Footnote13) and across program directorates of EPB (including Energy and Transportation Directorate, Industrial Sector, Chemical and Waste Directorate, LRAD) as well as the Canadian Wildlife Service.

The detailed audit methodology is provided in Annex 1 of this report.

Statement of conformance

This audit conforms to the Internal Auditing Standards for the Government of Canada as supported by the results of the quality assurance and improvement program.

In our professional judgement, sufficient and appropriate audit procedures have been conducted and evidence gathered to provide a high level of assurance on the accuracy of the conclusions reached and contained in this report. The conclusions were based on a comparison of the situations as they existed at the end of the fieldwork in December 2015 against the audit criteria.