I've been in this job about six months, and I have to say I'm quite impressed with the science capacity of our department—and it's not just me looking at it, but it's the impression when you talk to others.
We talked about oil sands monitoring. I think the recognition of what Environment Canada scientists bring to that table is impressive. We've talked in the past about the number of publications our scientists have.
They are definitely a core group that we are proud of, and they feed into pretty much every aspect of what we do at Environment Canada. When we're designing a regulation, the science is very important for us, to try to make sure we get it right. When we're looking at what to do about cleaning up lakes, which we talked about earlier, that science is very important.
But we know we can't do it ourselves, and I think the core of your point is that we need to make sure we're working effectively with other science departments around government, whether NRCan, Fisheries and Oceans, or what have you, but also with academic institutions.
I've been across the country and have seen how some of our science labs are operating and where we've done some effective joint partnerships with universities, and it has been very impressive. The science capacity we have levers the amount of work we can do to look at some fairly sophisticated things. I think the science is not only about creating an attraction for great scientists within Environment Canada, but also making sure that we can work effectively with other organizations.