11. Miscellaneous matters

Part 11 sets out general authorities or conditions for:

• disclosure of information;
• general regulation-making provisions;
• regulations regarding cost recovery;
• use of economic instruments, including deposit/refund systems and tradeable unit systems;
• prepublication requirements;
• boards of review; and
• review of the act.

A central element of Environment Canada's new environmental innovation agenda is the use of economic instruments to substitute for or complement regulatory and voluntary approaches. Over the past year, Environment Canada has worked, in some cases in collaboration with other federal departments, to explore complementary measures to regulation (e.g., fiscal instruments) in areas such as nature conservation, reducing sulphur dioxide emissions, and curbing releases of substances of concern.

The department also sponsored an international conference in Vancouver in December 2000, to help build momentum for more substantial use of economic incentives and to share information and experiences on their use. More than 180 people from eight countries attended the conference. Entitled ‘Supporting a Sustainable Future: Making Dollars and Sense,' the conference was organized in collaboration with the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the CD Howe Institute, and the National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy.

Environment Canada has also been an active participant in the work of the National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy, which has launched an Ecological Fiscal Reform project. The project has two main objectives: to conduct an in-depth exploration of the concept of ecological fiscal reform, and to focus on a few specific environmental issues with a view to developing a suite of concrete measures. Working groups under this project have been examining possible economic incentives in the areas of conservation of agricultural landscapes, smog, and chemical substances of concern.