Goals, Objectives, Strategies and Results

Overview

Ministry Goals

The ministry's goals bring an effective and balanced approach to environmental management, encourage collaboration across ministry divisions and reflect the long-term results the ministry intends to achieve.

Ministry goals include:

• Clean and safe water, land and air.
• Healthy and diverse native species and ecosystems.
• British Columbians understand that they share responsibility for the environment.
• Sustainable use of British Columbia's environmental resources.
• A high performance organization.

Linkage to the Five Great Goals

The ministry's goals reflect the leadership role it plays in achieving the government's objectives under Great Goal 4 and support the leadership of other ministries in achieving objectives under Great Goals 2 and 5.³

• Lead the world in sustainable environmental management, with the best air and water quality, and the best fisheries management, bar none.

• Providing sustainable environmental management supported by decision-making informed by science.
• Leading British Columbia's response to climate change, monitoring air quality and taking action to limit air pollution.
• Ensuring safe, high quality drinking water, reducing and removing toxins and wastes from the environment, and responding to and reducing risks from and to the environment.
• Managing British Columbia's freshwater fisheries, and fostering collaborative decision-making processes for marine fisheries, ocean resources and marine protected areas.
• Maintaining and restoring the natural diversity of provincial ecosystems, and fish and wildlife species and their habitats.
• Building greater understanding among British Columbians of the effect their actions and choices have on the environment.

• Lead the way in North America in healthy living and physical fitness.

• Building greater understanding among British Columbians of the benefits of healthy living.
• Providing healthy, active outdoor recreation opportunities related to British Columbia's parks, fish and wildlife and clean, free-flowing rivers.
• Maintaining the high quality of air, water and land in the province.

• Create more jobs per capita than anywhere else in Canada.

• Contributing to the economy and job creation through camping, hunting, angling and wildlife viewing opportunities.
• Promoting British Columbia's seafood in the global marketplace and, through good stewardship practices, building confidence in the long-term sustainability of the fishery resource and its role in the B.C. economy.
• Ensuring sustainable access to water for agriculture, hydroelectric generation, mining and industry through timely and efficient allocation and regulation of water use.
• Providing investment opportunities and job creation through sustainable environmental management.

Cross Ministry Initiatives

To help achieve its Five Great Goals, the government has identified several major strategic themes that require collaboration and action across all government organizations:

• Mountain Pine Beetle: Projections indicate the mountain pine beetle infestation could kill 80 per cent of the pine forest in British Columbia by 2013. Pine forests dominate the interior of B.C., and their loss has significant implications to the forest environment, economy and the communities that depend on those forests for sustainability. The B.C. government, through coordination by the Ministry of Forests and Range and the Provincial Mountain Pine Beetle Action Plan, is working across a number of ministries to minimize and mitigate negative environmental and socio-economic impacts of the infestation, while recovering the greatest value and protecting public health, safety and infrastructure. The Ministry of Environment is a strong contributor to this initiative through activities that include removing infested trees from provincial parks as part of a spread control program. In addition, the ministry, in collaboration with the Ministry of Forests and Range and local communities, is involved in strategies to reduce wildfire risk. These include reducing fuel accumulation within provincial parks that interface with communities and implementing a provincial smoke management strategy to reduce the impact on human health resulting from increased prescribed burning. In addition, the ministry is conducting watershed risk assessments and hydrologic modelling to identify potential impacts to water quality and fish habitat. The ministry is also planning and implementing ecosystem restoration projects to address impacts to environmental values, and developing guidelines to enable forest licensees to conduct salvage activities in a manner that protects environmental values such as air quality and wildlife habitat.
• ActNow BC: ActNow BC, led by the Ministry of Tourism, Sport and the Arts, combines cross-government and community-based approaches to promote healthy living choices for British Columbians. The programs and initiatives champion healthy eating, physical activity, ending tobacco use, and healthy choices during pregnancy. The ministry is a committed participant in ActNow BC with projects such as Healthy Ecosystems (Healthy People Outreach), Enhanced Conservation and Outdoor Recreation Education, Wild at Heart (Knowledge Network Television series) and Regional Outreach (Angler Participation Action Plan) support this strategic theme.
• 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games: All provincial ministries, agencies and Crown Agencies have been working together to ensure that every available opportunity to develop sustainable economic legacies is explored and pursued so that businesses and communities in British Columbia receive benefit from the Games. The ministry continues to work with the Vancouver Organizing Committee for the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games to encourage innovative approaches to waste management such as vegetative debris plans that minimize or eliminate the need to burn when clearing land for venue development. Upgrading of parks, improvements to recreational fishing and wildlife viewing opportunities and enhancement of outdoor opportunities along the Vancouver to Whistler corridor continue in anticipation of the games and promise greater economic return to local communities and businesses after 2010.
• Asia Pacific Initiative: The British Columbia Asia Pacific Initiative ensures the province has a coordinated and targeted strategic plan in place that takes full advantage of B.C.'s Pacific Gateway advantages and Asian cultural and language base. The Asia Pacific Initiative defines B.C.'s future role in the Asia Pacific economy and identifies the immediate priority actions that must be taken to further increase sales in Asian markets by B.C. producers of good and services. The ministry is working to cultivate expanded export markets in the Asia Pacific for British Columbia's seafood products.

The ministry continues to make significant headway on two other significant cross government themes: regulatory reform and citizen-centred service.

Regulatory Reform

British Columbia continues to make regulatory reform a priority across government, making it easier for businesses to operate and succeed in B.C., while still preserving regulations that protect public health, safety and the environment. A citizen-centred approach to regulatory reform will reduce the number of steps it takes to comply with government requirements or access government programs and services.

Regulatory reform has been and will continue to be undertaken throughout the Ministry of Environment as the organization pursues its move to a results-based regulatory approach. For example, the implementation of new regulations and codes of practice under the Environmental Management Act and Integrated Pest Management Act will reduce regulatory burden, clarify responsibilities and make more efficient use of ministry resources. In addition, current legislation and regulations such as the Wildlife Act and Hazardous Waste Regulation are being updated to reflect this results-based approach and to encourage stewardship.

The ministry continues to support the government's plan for regulatory reform and is committed to controlling regulatory burden and improving regulatory quality. The cross government target of a zero per cent increase in regulations will be maintained through 2008/09. Over the next two years, the ministry will continue its review of legislation and regulations (e.g., the Wildlife Act and the Organic Matter Recycling Regulation) and look for opportunities that will shift the ministry's regulations toward being more citizen-centred, cost-effective, results-based and responsive to our clients by reducing and/or streamlining the steps or processes involved in complying with ministry regulations.

Citizen-Centred Service Delivery

The ministry serves the citizens of British Columbia as well as industry, business, associations, communities, academic and environmental organizations and other government agencies. The ministry is continuing its efforts of providing citizen-centred service by identifying service needs and expectations.

Citizen-centred service delivery is a government-wide initiative to coordinate information, programs and services so that they can be presented to citizens in a way that takes their needs into account from beginning to end. The vision is to make it possible for citizens to access the government information and services they need in a simple and timely manner with a phone call, a mouse click or a visit to a service centre, no matter how many programs or ministries are involved in their request.

To gauge its success, the ministry has implemented a performance measure to monitor changes in the level of client satisfaction with ministry services. The ministry is applying innovative service solutions that support quality programs and services.

Specific activities include, but are not limited to, the following:

• The ministry continues to work with the Integrated Land Management Bureau in its FrontCounter BC initiative to support that agency's delivery of a "single point of contact" for a number of natural resource ministries and agencies. The ministry's clients are able to seek information and make applications for the use of natural resources through FrontCounter BC's regional centres.
• The ministry's Permit and Authorization Service Bureau handles approximately 20,000 applications for park use permits, fish and wildlife permits and commercial licences per year. Applications can be downloaded over the Internet, faxed or mailed to one office.
• The ministry continues to increase its capacity and responsibilities for the collection, storage and dissemination of scientific information. Through its website, the ministry provides accurate and updated information for British Columbians.
• The ministry will continue to lead, inform, involve and support clients, partners and citizens in environmental protection and management through consultation, outreach and shared stewardship.
• The ministry will continue the annual visitors' satisfaction survey for park and campground facilities, evaluate client satisfaction with fish and wildlife opportunities through a regular hunter/angler survey and monitor client satisfaction as a service plan performance measure.

Performance Plan

The Budget Transparency and Accountability Act sets out government's accountability framework and planning and reporting requirements. The framework provides a continuous line of accountability from government through ministries to core business areas and individual employees. It is characterized by a cascading series of goals, objectives, strategies and performance measures to assess progress toward their achievement. Also included in the accountability framework are employee performance plans to align personal responsibilities with accomplishment of the ministry's goals and objectives.

The following table provides an overview of what the ministry is planning to achieve, how its goals, objectives and performance measures are linked and how the work of the ministry supports government's Five Great Goals.