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Federal regulations for coal-fired power plants don’t come into effect until July 2015, and will reduce emissions by half as much as originally planned in 2011, the report said.

On oil and gas, a detailed regulatory proposal has circulated internally for more than a year. The government has so far only consulted with a small group of industry representatives and one province, none of which are named in the report.

“Canadians want to know when the regulations are going to come in, what level of regulation it’s going to be, what level of greenhouse gas emission we’re going to achieve,” Gelfand said.

Opposition NDP critic Megan Leslie called on the government to make the regulations public.

“If you are trying to take the time to do it right, there would be proper consultation,” Leslie said. “It’s been eight years of promises. We need to see action on this sector.”

Gelfand found the government didn’t consult widely on a number of areas her office audited this year, nor did it publicly explain decisions from departments and agency.

This is Gelfand’s first report since becoming commissioner in March.

The government agreed with recommendations made by Gelfand in her report, including creating a process to review, update and measure work on cutting emissions, and report regularly to Parliament about what has been achieved and what remains to be done.

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Four things in the federal environment commissioner’s report

1. Although Environment Canada has made progress monitoring pollution from Alberta oilsands operations – work being done in co-ordination with the province and industry – its role in this area beyond 2015 is unclear. There is still much to be done to fully integrate monitoring information from air, water and biodiversity to better understand the environmental effects of oilsands development. In fact, Alberta’s auditor general released a critical report on the highly-touted joint provincial-federal oilsands monitoring program Tuesday.