Thank you very much for the opportunity to appear before the committee today. It's a great pleasure for me.
I'll perhaps keep my remarks quite brief, so that my colleagues from the National Energy Board can follow.
Let's start by indicating that we all recognize that Canada's pipeline infrastructure is critically important to the country. Certainly every day, the pipelines deliver energy to Canadians, businesses, our trading partners, and support many facets of our economy.
Before we get into the specifics and before we get into the details, perhaps it would be useful to draw out the distinctions between the department and the National Energy Board and how we're orchestrated and organized. That would be for the benefit of committee members who perhaps have not yet had the full brief on that.
The Department of Natural Resources provides advice to the minister and helps to set the government's approach to energy and energy policies in those areas of federal jurisdiction. This includes advice to the minister on the National Energy Board Act, which provides the fundamental authorities that the board operates under.
The National Energy Board is an independent regulator. It reports to Parliament through the Minister of Natural Resources. Its primary responsibilities are set out in the act, and these responsibilities include the regulation, construction, operation, and abandonment or decommissioning of pipelines across interprovincial and international boundaries. Any of these regulatory oversight roles directly support the objectives of the safety and protection of the environment, and the safe operation of pipelines.
Natural Resources Canada appreciates the work that the commissioner has done to report on this oversight of pipelines. We consider it both timely and relevant in the current context, and certainly in the context of looking at all of the perspectives related to pipeline operations and safety. I think my colleagues will report on this further, but the NEB has publicly accepted the recommendations of the commissioner and has already implemented action plans, many of which are well along the path to addressing a number of the audit findings.
I'd like at this point, as well, to make reference to one of the points that was raised in the audit report that related to the Pipeline Safety Act, which received royal assent well over a year ago in Parliament, and will come into force in June of this year. That particular piece of legislation changes the number of the authorities. It has several references within the audit report, and should there be any questions about that and how it relates to this particular audit, we'd be happy to take those questions as well.
Thank you very much, Madam Chair.