At the time, he proposed the same arguments: namely, that the role of the advisor to the government cannot be assumed by an audit office. The two functions are incompatible. The Office of the Auditor General at that time had been doing environmental audits since the early 90s, and Mr. Desautels wanted that activity to continue being performed by the office.
If the committee wanted to set up another organization that would play more of an advisory role, that would be fine. However, we have to make it clear to committee members that these two activities are incompatible. Actually, the committee did make some recommendations along these lines at the time.