We are back in order. We're moving on to our second panel of people from the Department of the Environment.
We have Basia Ruta, the assistant deputy minister and chief financial officer, who is no stranger here; Cynthia Wright, acting assistant deputy minister for environmental stewardship; and Mike Beale, who is the acting associate assistant to the deputy minister. Michael Keenan is not here, but he'll be joining us. He is the assistant deputy minister for strategic policy.
From the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency we have Daniel Nadeau, who is the director general of corporate services, and from Parks Canada Agency we have Céline Gaulin, who is from the office of the chief administrative officer.
Welcome, all of you, to the table.
Before we start off, I like to always remind committee members that when we have public servants at the table, we want to pay particular attention to the rules. I'll quote from O'Brien and Bosc, page 1068, chapter 20:
Particular attention is paid to the questioning of public servants. The obligation of a witness to answer all questions put by the committee must be balanced against the role that public servants play in providing confidential advice to their Ministers. The role of the public servant has traditionally been viewed in relation to the implementation and administration of government policy, rather than the determination of what that policy should be. Consequently, public servants have been excused from commenting on the policy decisions made by the government. In addition, committees ordinarily accept the reasons that a public servant gives for declining to answer a specific question or series of questions which involve the giving of a legal opinion, which may be perceived as a conflict with the witness' responsibility to the Minister, which are outside of their own area of responsibility, or which might affect business transactions.
I just ask that everyone keep that in mind. I will be excusing witnesses from making those types of comments.
With that, I'll kick it off with a five-minute round, starting with Mr. Scarpaleggia.