Let's start with who does the monitoring now. This is distributed among such science agencies as Fisheries and Oceans, Environment Canada, and Natural Resources Canada. I suppose, if you were looking at socio-economic monitoring, there would be Statistics Canada. There are a number of government agencies. They monitor in the largest sense, and when I say environment I'm talking about socio-economic as well. They monitor a large range of phenomena. Their monitoring programs may or may not be tailored to specific project impacts, but they are more likely to be useful with respect to cumulative impacts.
It's my impression that the monitoring programs are no longer as robust as they used to be. I don't think it's for me to go into why or exactly how; it's probably beyond my competence. I think we need to maintain and refine the monitoring programs we have, and we have to find a way to ensure, particularly through cumulative impacts monitoring, I think, how to tailor the monitoring we do so that it effectively answers the questions we ask.
I mean, I start with “What's the question, and what are we trying to answer here?”, rather than just go out and collect data. That's a basic principle I've applied in my own private practice for many years and the advice I give.
That's what we have to do. Whether the CEAA should be responsible.... I don't think I should speak to who should be responsible in terms of the specific government agencies, but the--