Thanks very much for the question.
I think you can see from the opening statements between the two the contrast of the mandates between Mr. Miller's work and the work that we do through the OAG.
In a nutshell, most of the work that we do in providing reports to Parliament are through assurance engagements, meaning that we won't say something until we are absolutely certain of what we are saying. That assurance is based on looking at implementation to a fixed date. So trying to speculate, for example, or doing an ex ante forward assessment on what might be an area of potential regulatory inconsistency....
We certainly will do whatever Parliament wants, but it seems to me, and I was trying to suggest, that there already are mechanisms in the government. I think they certainly can be strengthened, they can be clarified. Regarding the strategic environmental assessment, there's been a new cabinet directive which requires ministers to ensure consistency among all the policies government-wide, and to ensure consistency within the context of environmental goals and sustainable development. And there are others. I mentioned the regulatory impact assessment.
The second part of this, though, is that if, for example, we did do that forward-looking ex ante type of assessment on what might happen in the future, it's important for Parliament to be able to rely on the OAG to go back and say, “Well, what has been the performance? Has the government done what they've said they were going to do?” Our recommendations are, by nature, forward-looking. If we see something that's broken, we will make recommendations to the government, hopefully, to fix it. We will go back and audit them and provide additional clarification to Parliament on saying, “Is it working? No. How best to fix it? Is it fixed?” The government will say what it is going to do.
So part of it is duplication, but it also gets in part to the different mandates between what we do and what Mr. Miller's office does.