We have to be really clear here. I was looking to see whether or not the government was prepared to implement...and we had seven specific criteria. Was a there commitment and responsibility identified? Canada got a tick mark for that. Have they established a governance structure for a whole-of-government approach to this? Have they done engagement and consultation with Canadians? Have they done the planning? Do they have a measuring system, a monitoring system, and a reporting system? Those are the seven things we were looking at.
You'll see in our report that we identified the five lead departments. In fact, they were identified by the government. We indicated what the five departments had done. Many of them had started to match what they were doing to the SDGs. What we are looking for, what auditors general are looking for, is this. You've signed on to these. Have you developed targets for the ones that apply to Canada? Have you identified what is high risk to Canada? Have you identified targets for that? Do you have a plan to achieve them in all the areas?
What the government has done to date is it has said, “We're doing a feminist systems policy. That links to SDG X. We're doing climate change. That links to SDG 13.” What I guess auditors would look at is this. You've signed on to the objectives. Look at all of them; look at all the targets. Decide which ones will be Canadian targets, and develop a whole-of-government plan, including working with the provinces and territories, and with Canadians, in terms of consultation and engagement in order to get to the overall objectives.
This is not to say that government is not doing a lot of work that you could link back to this. It's going from the work you're doing in linking it back, versus starting from the SDGs and deciding how we are going to meet the high-risk areas for Canada.