Thank you. That is a very good question, but unfortunately it has no simple answer.
In our view, the major challenge is the issue of partnership — partnership among a number of sections in both departments.
The challenge we face in measuring performance is that CEPA is a large act. It is shared between Environment Canada and Health Canada, and within the different departments, different areas are responsible.
Each department has a number of sections, and all of those sections have very specific responsibilities.
One thing that we tried to do with the evaluation was to be very transparent about what we were doing and how we would measure it.
As we did the report, we realized that on new substances, you worry about the specific act and what it says on new substances. On existing substances, you worry about what you have to do with respect to existing substances. If you're in food and drugs, you worry.
Thus, each section of a given department has its responsibilities and its success indicators, naturally.
What are the things that are important in order to say we've achieved success? We realized that when you added them all up, there wasn't a coherent picture.
So in general it is the overall framework which is lacking.
Specifically, we found that we could measure individual transactions. But when you put the pieces together, was there a shared framework that we all used for measuring success? It's one of the things we've learned.
This report has taught us a number of things. Your answer is that a framework will have to be developed for all parties involved, and for both departments.
We are working to develop a shared framework that will allow us to have the same success measures among the different parts in the same department and between the two departments.
I hope that answers your question.