The Canadian government lacks conviction on the environment. It spends a fair bit of money and works reasonably hard, but it is missing the essentials of leadership and attention to detail. The resulting bill in damage caused by invasive species and toxic waste sites could run into the billions and affect generations to come.

That is the disturbing message of this week's report from Johanne Gélinas, the federal Commissioner on the Environment and Sustainable Development. It should not surprise anyone who has watched Ottawa let three bills on endangered species die since 1996. Or flounder on the Kyoto Protocol; Ottawa supports the pact to address global warming, but seems unable to craft an intelligent plan to meet this country's commitments.

Ms. Gélinas's report underscores the need for accountability and transparency in Ottawa -- a need accepted belatedly by the government, which introduced a new ethics package yesterday featuring an independent ethics commissioner reporting annually to Parliament.

Having a public reporting mechanism is no guarantee that the government's missing conviction (on the environment, or ethics, or spending more carefully) will suddenly materialize. If it were, the Auditor-General would not be so busy each year. The commissioners' first task, though, is to give Canadians a clear view of their government's performance. And the view is not terribly pleasant.

"The federal government," Ms. Gélinas writes, "is not investing enough -- enough of its human and financial resources; its legislative, regulatory and economic powers; or its political leadership -- to fulfill its sustainable development commitments. The result is a growing environmental, health and financial burden that our children will have to bear."

To some extent, this may reflect Canadians' ambivalence toward the environment. They place a high value on protecting and nurturing the lakes and rivers, natural habitats and wildlife; yet economic issues and the deficit often feel the most pressing. That may explain why federal spending on the environment dropped 6 per cent in the past decade, while the government's overall spending grew 17 per cent. Or why the federal budgetary deficit was wiped out in the 1990s while the environmental deficit, as Ms. Gélinas puts it, has grown.

There are bright spots. Canada has been a leader in protecting the ozone layer. It has achieved steady reductions over the past decades in some of the pollutants that combine to form smog, such as sulphur dioxide and nitrogen dioxide. But levels of ground-level ozone and particulate matter (microscopic particles that include aerosols, smoke and pollen) still pose a health risk in some cities.

There are "many disappointments," Ms. Gélinas writes. The Sydney tar ponds in Nova Scotia, for instance. The federal government has spent $66-million over 20 years on studies and cleanups of the heavy metals and other contaminants, with little to show for it. And though it began 13 years ago to look at contaminated federal sites, Ottawa does not yet have a full picture of the health and environmental risks; nor does it have stable, long-term funding or a plan to deal with high-risk sites in a timely way.

On invasive species -- those alien fish, plants, bacteria and other organisms that can crowd out native species and destroy habitats -- Canada faces a severe threat. Dutch elm disease killed 600,000 elm trees in Quebec; the potato wart on Prince Edward Island potatoes prompted a U.S. import ban that cost PEI $30-million in lost sales. Ottawa has not identified the invasive species, their paths of entry or the risks; it has not created a national plan of action.

Canadians want and need more rigour on the environment than they are getting. As Ms. Gélinas says, the government seems to have adopted a wait-and-see approach. It needs a tough-minded, precautionary one.