Thank you, Chair.
Mr. McGuinty, Mr. Cullen, and myself were asked this question on Friday, and we had a healthy dialogue as we debated the issue when we were being interviewed on CBC. The position of the government remains neutral on this. We would be open to considering this and open to hearing from witnesses.
At this point the plan is the motion has been tabled. Some statements have been made, and witnesses will be called. I don't have a problem with that, but I would like to correct some of the statements made.
Mr. McGuinty did mention that there was a promise made in the 1993 red book that the Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development would be created as an independent commissioner. They were the government since that time up until a little over a year ago, so a question is relevant: when they had that opportunity to appoint that position as an independent, why didn't it happen? I think that's a legitimate question.
The other comment was made using the example of Madam Gélinas no longer being the commissioner. There was a statement made that there were problems with the office being within the Office of the Auditor General. I think Mr. McGuinty said he didn't want to surmise what the difficulties might be. We don't know that there are problems within the office. Again, we are surmising, and Mr. McGuinty said we don't want to surmise. Just as a caution, we're prejudging the situation here. We're possibly making some assumptions that may not help the situation.
We want to look at the position of the Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development as good policy and not base it on a specific instance. We don't know if there are problems with the present structure. We need to approach this with an open mind.
Also, a comment was made that we need a more effective, independent commissioner. Again, we need to look at this with an open mind. Is it indeed more effective to have the commissioner independent from the Auditor General's office? We haven't heard from witnesses yet. We don't know that. Also, Mr. Cullen mentioned that what is being proposed with a change of reporting--which I think is what he was referring to--would bury it deeper within the Office of the Auditor General. Again, we don't know that. So hopefully we can all approach this with an open mind.
I do have some concerns with the motion, and we may want to consider some amendments, but the second bullet saying, “clearly affirming and appropriately circumscribing the duty of the Office of the Commissioner to advocate on environmental and sustainable development issues”, is a vague term. Ms. Fraser has provided a caution to the committee saying, “As I mentioned last week, policy advocacy and legislative audit simply do not mix.” There would be a possible conflict. “Auditors cannot in fact, or in appearance, audit their own work.” I would agree with that. Again, we need to clarify what is meant by that. The mover may want to consider changing that or clarifying what it means.
I do have some concerns with some of the statements that have been made. I'm neutral, open to hearing from witnesses and then moving on. I don't know if we want to consider some amendments to what we have here before us for direction to the committee, but those are my comments.
Thank you.