You're absolutely right about the common objective. The other thing we've seen, however, is that the departmental SDSs were often driven by nothing more than a deputy minister's committee on the departmental SDSs. The committees changed and had a series of long, convoluted names. Sometimes the words “sustainable development” were in there and sometimes the terms “economic” or “prosperity“ were in there as well. In any event, this bill mandates that there will be a central body, namely, a cabinet committee with a secretariat out of PCO overseeing the creation and performance of the departmental SDSs. This has a ring of effectiveness about it—more so than we've seen before.
On April 28th, 2008. See this statement in context.