Environment committee  It's probably 10 to 15 people on each.

Environment committee  And other issues.

Environment committee  Yes, of course. We do not, as I mentioned earlier, actually conduct effectiveness studies ourselves. In our mandate it's very clear that we can look to see whether departments have measured the effectiveness of the programs. And the only way you can really measure effectiveness

Environment committee  No. You were the first to see the announcement.

Environment committee  It's because of privacy issues, and as I am sure you can imagine, there are now lawyers involved in this file, and discussions continue.

Environment committee  Yes, but let me add, Chair, that we began this review and began the discussion about the reporting strategy and actually looked at all of this close to a year ago now. At that point the reports were not getting the same kind of visibility as the last one has, and I take that. O

Environment committee  No. It is an advisory committee that reports to me and to the Commissioner. We aren't currently subject to the Access to Information Act. We will be, but a lot of audit-specific subjects would be excluded. So this is private advice.

Environment committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. Let me just talk a minute about the word “advocacy”. The Office of the Auditor General and the commissioner are advocates. We are advocates for responsible spending, we are advocates for open and transparent contracting processes, and we are advocates for g

Environment committee  We use indicators such as the number of reports that have been subject to parliamentary hearings, which gives us an indication of usefulness. We will look for other work: the number of times our recommendations have been endorsed by a parliamentary committee; we look, obviously,

Environment committee  As the committee perhaps knows, we have a number of advisory committees at the Office of the Auditor General of Canada. Among others, we have what are called the Panel of Senior Advisors and the Panel of Environmental Advisors. The people who are members of these advisory committ

Environment committee  Indeed, our advisors, especially former parliamentarians, have told us that this was a question that, in their view, deserves to be raised with the committee so that it can say whether or not it is an issue that should be considered.

Environment committee  We don't proceed by votes, but I would say that most of them were indeed of the view that this was an issue that we should raise in committee.

Environment committee  I agreed to raise the issue in committee. Obviously, I'm not recommending that you do it, but I agree that it should be raised in committee.

Environment committee  There have been two full-time and one acting.

Environment committee  For a little more than six years, approximately six and a half years.