Environment committee  Mr. Chair, the work of the commissioner's group has to continue. Audits are under way. We need someone who will lead that, and Mr. Thompson is a very experienced professional within the office. He has been responsible for a number of portfolios, including work on the north, which would include contaminated sites, for example.

Environment committee  That's one of the options we considered. Allow me to explain the strategy, because a lot of information was conveyed without me ever explaining to you what it was about. It all started with a request from the Standing Committee on Public Accounts that we review the due dates of our reports.

Environment committee  Mr. Chair, I'm definitely not an expert in communications, but our communications staff conducted a study comparing the reports that are tabled by the other officers of Parliament concerning quite unique subjects, official languages, privacy and others. The Commissioner's report attracts a lot more attention than those other reports, but not as much as ours, simply because we cover a broader range of subjects.

Environment committee  Absolutely not. Moreover, in paragraph 10, I say I believe we've faithfully carried out the mandate given to us and that we have not strayed from it. As I mentioned, every report that comes out of the office is approved by senior management, including myself. If I had ever found that we had gone too far in the report, it would not have been published.

Environment committee  Honestly, as far as I know, no. I must say that sometimes we're generally accused, as the Office of the Auditor General, of going beyond our mandate. For my part, I don't believe we've crossed the line. I'm not aware that such a call was made concerning Ms. Gélinas or the previous commissioner, Mr.

Environment committee  We have not been contacted by the government at all. It was we who, in seeing the initial bill, wrote to the committee to tell it that this was an inappropriate role for us and one that would ultimately have caused harm to the Office of the Auditor General. We worked with the member to amend the bill to give it a form consistent with our present mandate.

Environment committee  I would prefer not to get into that discussion.

Environment committee  Ms. Gélinas continues to be an employee of the Office of the Auditor General.

Environment committee  What I said yesterday, and I will quote, is that “In the course of our analysis”—and this was over frequency and timing of reports, and I'll come back to that in a minute: ...we also noted that performance audits on environmental and sustainable development issues do not appear to have the same impact as our other performance audit work.

Environment committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. As I indicated in my opening statement, I will not comment on Ms. Gélinas' departure from her position as Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development. I would be glad to discuss any of the other issues that I have brought forward, but there are a number of reasons why I cannot give the kinds of answers that I think the member would like to hear.

Environment committee  The only thing that I would like to clarify, as I said in my opening statement, is that there seems to be, certainly in certain quarters, people trying to attribute this to the audit report that was produced in the fall of 2006 on climate change. This situation has absolutely nothing to do with that.

Environment committee  Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. I am pleased to be here to discuss these issues with members of the committee. I would like today to provide clarification around three issues: first, the appointment of an interim Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development; second, the internal review of our environment and sustainable development audit practice; and, finally, the role of the Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development as defined in the Auditor General Act.

Environment committee  I have absolutely no objection, Mr. Chairman. In fact, I think it might be quite useful if the transcript of that meeting was made public.

Environment committee  Yes.

Environment committee  The commissioner will be Mr. Thompson.