Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Bon après-midi à tous.
I'll be rather brief, Mr. Chairman. I have, in preparation for this afternoon's meeting, reviewed fairly carefully the proceedings of this committee that led to the creation of the function of Commissioner of the Environment back in 1995, to make sure I had a fresh memory of what took place, although I was quite personally involved in all of those discussions at the time.
I've also reviewed the proceedings of your committee held in the last two weeks, and I found many similarities between the questions and concerns that were raised back in 1995 and those that are raised today, including, for example, the question of the expectation gap, which was well identified in 1995.
Let me just say that after considering all of what's been said in the last two weeks and what was said back then, my overall position is that the structure adopted in 1995 still makes sense. I think it's just as effective, if not more effective, than other approaches that could be adopted, such as that of a stand-alone officer of Parliament. In fact, this particular model has been recently adopted by the Province of Quebec, which has just appointed a commissioner of the environment following exactly the same model, the same structure, as in the federal government.
The expectation gap, of course, will always be a challenge. However, if an aggressive advocacy role is what is wanted by Parliament, as opposed to that of what I would call a vigilant watchdog, then Parliament should create a separate office. But in my books, there's no guarantee it will necessarily be more effective. I would also say that there are limits to how much advocacy an independent commissioner can really carry out and still respect the relationship with Parliament.
In any case, before a final decision on this is made, I think a proper analysis of the pros and cons of this structure and other comparable structures should be carried out, including an analysis of the successes and the failures of other approaches and models found in other jurisdictions.
On that, Mr. Chairman, I'll be quite pleased to answer questions of the committee.