Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Ms. Fraser, welcome back.
Mr. Vaughan, congratulations and welcome to the committee. It is appreciated that you've come to the committee so early in your tenure, and it certainly won't be the last.
A sort of frame for my questioning today is around the advocacy of your role in terms of the tone and tenor of the conversation in the public that comes out of this place. I think this time is an extraordinarily critical time, and it has been for a number of years now, and the role you're playing is one important voice--often a voice in the wilderness--of accountability when it comes to the government's performance on the environment, which is obviously important to Canadians.
First of all, Ms. Fraser, I hope this statement wasn't vetted by anybody and I hope that no future statements ever face such a vetting by any spin doctors. Good.
Mr. Vaughan, we've had much debate--Ms. Fraser and this committee and individually--around the difference between advocacy and auditing: the advocacy of programs and capacity of programs to deliver, versus the traditional role of auditing the past, what's happened. It seems to me there's a spectrum, within auditors and between commissioners of the environment around the world, as to where they fall. Some are framed often as more traditional--the audit, the look back--and one by design of their role plays much more of an advocacy role on government policy. If you had to place yourself on that spectrum, where would you be?