At the national level, Canada is the only country that has a commissioner of environment and sustainable development located in the office of the supreme audit institution. There are seven or eight other commissioners of environment and sustainable development at a national level, and they are not found in the audit office.
It's true that in the definition in the Auditor General Act, there is a clause that says that taking care of the needs of future generations is within our mandate. When you're in an audit office, however, you must stick to audit methodology. You must remain objective and deal only with the facts of the audits that you do, so there are advantages and disadvantages to the model. In terms of taking care of the needs of future generations, I would suggest that I could do that by trying to select really good audits that deal with that, but oftentimes, I can't give you an opinion based on 30-odd years of working in this area, because I am in the audit office. There are pros and cons.
The commissioners of environment and sustainable development who are outside the audit office, however, have the disadvantage that it's much easier to say, “Oh, that person's just a greenie, and we can disregard whatever he or she says,” whereas when you're listening to me talk about an audit, I am effectively the auditor general talking about that audit. It's very difficult to dismiss it because we use the exact same methodology as the auditor general.
That was a long and complicated answer to say that it's not clear and that there are both advantages and disadvantages to having the commissioner's office in the audit office. Does that help?