ARCHIVED – National Energy Board – 2017–18 Departmental Plan

National Energy Board – 2017–18 Departmental Plan [PDF 770 KB]

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ISSN 2371-7165

National Energy Board


2017–18


Departmental Plan

Table of Contents

• Message from the Chair and CEO
• Plans at a glance
  • Areas of Experimentation and Innovation
• Raison d’être, mandate and role: who we are and what we do
  • Raison d’être
  • Mandate and role
• Operating context: conditions affecting our work
• Key risks: things that could affect our ability to achieve our plans and results
• Planned results: what we want to achieve this year and beyond
  • Core Responsibilities
  • Internal Services
• Spending and human resources
  • Planned spending
  • Planned human resources
  • Estimates by vote
  • Future-Oriented Condensed Statement of Operations
• Supplementary information
  • Corporate information
  • Reporting framework
  • Supporting information on lower-level programs
  • Supplementary information tables
  • Federal tax expenditures
  • Organizational contact information
• Appendix A: definitions

Message from the Chair and CEO

Our 2017–18 Departmental Plan provides parliamentarians and Canadians with information on what we do and the results we are trying to achieve during the upcoming year. To improve reporting to Canadians, we are introducing a new, simplified report to replace the Report on Plans and Priorities.

The title of the report has been changed to reflect its purpose: to communicate our annual performance goals and the financial and human resources forecast to deliver those results. The report has also been restructured to tell a clearer, more straightforward and balanced story of the actual results we are trying to achieve, while continuing to provide transparency on how tax payers’ dollars will be spent. We describe our programs and services for Canadians, our priorities for 2017–18, and how our work will fulfill our departmental mandate commitments and the government’s priorities.

The National Energy Board (NEB) is proud to be one of the early adopters of the Departmental Results Framework (DRF) under the Policy on Results, which will change the way we assess our performance. We have embraced this opportunity to strengthen our regulatory processes and perhaps even more importantly, ensure that Canadians have the information they need to properly assess and understand our performance.

The NEB has aligned its resources and structure to focus on and clearly define the outcomes we wish to achieve, as the Board delivers its regulatory mandate. The attributes of regulatory excellence – stellar competence, utmost integrity, and empathic engagement – are the foundation for everything we do. To support this and guide management excellence, we have established a Board Member Operating Model and an NEB Management System that will provide the structured governance and an emphasis on assessment and improvement of our performance. This forms a foundation that, along with our emphasis on Public Service values and ethics, will shape the approach we take to our work as a regulator.

Over the next year, the NEB will apply this approach to the programs that support our Core Responsibilities. This includes the delivery of the public review processes before the Board, including those for TransCanada Energy East and Eastern Mainline projects. They will directly support enhanced regional, community and Indigenous engagement in decision-making processes, as per the policy set out in the Interim Principles for the Review of Pipeline Projects, the Minister of Natural Resources Mandate letter, and the Government’s relationships with Indigenous Peoples.

Enhanced engagement will extend into our regulatory lifecycle oversight activities, creating means through which our stakeholders can be informed and active in the processes that impact local land and communities.

The NEB will drive proactive improvement of safety and environmental performance across regulated pipeline companies by improving the quality and scope of performance data we collect and analyze. Connecting our regulatory actions to objective performance data, trends and analysis, will provide an information base from which the NEB can influence systemic changes and improvements in company performance. This in turn will strengthen the Safety Culture and Management System Approach within industry.

Our increased focus on data collection and analysis will feed into the NEB’s energy information programs. We will continue to monitor and publish energy system statistics for the benefit of Canadians; moving forward, we will also focus on the collection and collation of pipeline-related information, including regulatory compliance and enforcement data tracked through our Safety and Oversight programs.

All of the initiatives highlighted above will inform and support active and effective engagement with Canadians and Indigenous Peoples. The NEB is building a stakeholder engagement program and an Indigenous engagement program that will build awareness and enhance confidence in our regulatory processes. Our goal is to facilitate diverse, meaningful engagement opportunities with all stakeholders.

The upcoming year will bring change and transformation to many of the NEB’s existing business processes. Supported by our expert, dedicated staff, we will continue to diligently examine our own performance and strive to be even better at what we do, while providing open, transparent, public information about our performance and that of Canada’s energy industry.

C. Peter Watson, P.Eng., FCAE
Chair and CEO
National Energy Board

Date modified:

2023-11-27