About Environment Canada

• Our Mandate
• What We do
• Our People
• On the World Stage
• Our Legacy

Our Mandate

Environment Canada's mandate is to preserve and enhance the quality of the natural environment; conserve Canada's renewable resources; conserve and protect Canada's water resources; forecast weather and environmental change; enforce rules relating to boundary waters; and coordinate environmental policies and programs for the federal government.

The Department employs about 6000 people and has an annual budget of over half a billion dollars. Approximately 60 percent of its workforce and 80 percent of its budget is devoted to science and technology activities.

Environment Canada's national headquarters are located in Gatineau, Quebec. It has offices in some 100 communities across the country.

What We Do

Environment Canada leads the way in implementing the federal government's environmental agenda. Our broad mandate covers the preservation and enhancement of the quality of the natural environment. This includes water, air and soil, flora and fauna, and renewable resources such as our lakes, forests and oceans. We also help to protect our species at risk, including migratory birds.

Science plays a fundamental role in enabling us to deliver on our mandate by informing environmental decision making and regulations and by supporting the delivery of services, such as cutting-edge meteorology, to Canadians.

To achieve all of these things, we work with all levels of government, the private sector, industry, consumers and the international community to make a difference.

Our People 

Our people are knowledgeable and dedicated, come from diverse backgrounds and are passionate about their work and proud of the contribution they make.
Our 6,000 employees, located in 100 communities across Canada, have expertise in a broad range of fields including biology, business, chemistry, commerce, communications, economics, engineering, law enforcement, environmental sciences and assessment, finance, hydrology, information technology, law, library science, meteorology, policy, social sciences and toxicology.

This diversity in expertise strengthens the Department's ability to deal with increasingly complex and changing environmental issues. From the Canadian Ice Service to the Canadian Hurricane Centre, from laboratories and weather stations to national wildlife areas and field offices, our people deliver quality services.

For more information visit our on-line Photo Presentation.

On the World Stage

Through international discussion, Environment Canada works with global partners to build international consultation in key areas such as air quality, biodiversity, climate change and wildlife trafficking.

For example, Canada played a key role in the negotiation of the Montreal Protocol on substances that deplete the ozone layer, which mandates the phase-out of the production and use of ozone-depleting substances.  Canada was one of the first countries to sign and ratify this international agreement.  The Montreal Protocol has since helped to eliminate 95 percent of ozone-depleting substances from the atmosphere, and still stands today as a model of cooperation in both the developed and the developing world

Our Legacy

Since its creation in 1971, the Department has established a legacy of action on behalf of the environment and has achieved many successes. Environment Canada has in fact become entrenched in almost all aspects of Canadian lives.

Here are some examples of the Department's accomplishments:   

• Every year we issue more than 1,500,000 public forecasts, 200,000 marine and sea state forecasts, 500,000 aviation forecasts, 10,000 severe weather warnings and 9,000 ice condition products.
• We manage the Air Quality Health Index, the first health protection tool of its kind in the world, which lets Canadians determine how much time they should spend outside or how they should adjust their activities under higher air pollution levels.
• We are the second largest manager of protected areas in Canada, after Parks Canada Agency.
• Under our Habitat Stewardship Program, we maintain over 200 partnerships with stakeholders across Canada to preserve and conserve the habitats of over 300 species listed under the Species at Risk Act.
• Through collaborative efforts, we work with provinces, territories, municipalities, industries and individual citizens to eliminate the harmful air pollution that claims over 5,900 Canadian lives every year.
• We help to conserve and restore priority ecosystems in Atlantic Canada, the St. Lawrence River watershed, the Great Lakes basin, the western boreal forest, the North and the Georgia Basin.
• We oversee a comprehensive Chemicals Management Plan to keep toxic substances from endangering the health and environment of Canadians. This plan was set up followinga 2006 review of about 23,000 chemicals and other substances in commercial use.
• We study the economic impacts of environmental change to determine how individual citizens, communities, industries and governments at all levels can collectively protect the environment while maintaining a prosperous economic future for all generations.