OTTAWA—The NDP says the looming climate crisis means the office of Canada’s environment commissioner needs an overhaul, but the person currently serving in that role is wary of being transformed from a watchdog into an “advocate.”

Andrew Hayes, the interim Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development, acknowledges his office — which currently shares resources with Canada’s auditor general — needs more money to do its job.

But, in an interview with the Star, Hayes said there are good reasons to maintain the current setup instead of heeding a New Democrat MP’s call to change the commissioner into a stand-alone office with a “duty” to “advocate” for the environment.

“The need for independence and objectivity in the reporting that we do is not consistent with being an advocate,” said Hayes, who has been Canada’s interim commissioner since July 2019.

“That’s incongruent with the audit role,” he said.

Hayes made the comments as NDP MP Laurel Collins is pushing for changes to the commissioner’s office and warns the watchdog does not have enough money or the dedicated staff.

As Hayes admits, a “history of underfunding” has reduced the number of reports his office can produce each year. For at least five years, Hayes said his office also no longer has a team of auditors dedicated exclusively to reports on the environment and sustainable development, but uses staff who work on a variety of files across the wider auditor general’s office.

Now that the Liberal government’s new climate “accountability” legislation seeks to give the commissioner the added obligation to report on Canada’s action to slash greenhouse gas emissions, Collins argues it is time to beef up the office’s budget and empower it as its own independent agent of Parliament.