Environment committee  It is advancing. There are national programs that were supported by and through Genome Canada. There are other genomics initiatives occurring. I sit on the board for Genome Alberta and other areas. The technologies are developing. This comes back to the point that I was making.

Environment committee  Thank you for the question. It depends on the basin and the system. This is what I was referring to, about trying to at least have standardization across watersheds and basins of what core water quality information should be reported and at what time. Surely in the oil sands area, naphthenic acids and those types of contaminants are very critical.

Environment committee  What is interesting is that one of the recommendations we placed in our brief was that an organization like the Canada water agency could perhaps facilitate the development of a national guidance framework that would provide a more standardized, cohesive and cost-effective approach to best practices and the design of what we would consider an adaptive monitoring and reporting system.

Environment committee  Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair and committee, thank you very much. It gives me great pleasure to provide you with a brief on monitoring, evaluation and reporting challenges for freshwater systems in Canada. In Canada and globally, surface and groundwater resources are under increasing environmental threats associated with anthropogenic environmental stressors.