I would certainly agree that you can do both, and to harken back to Mr. Albas' concerns about democratic deficit, I don't think, and certainly I haven't heard any suggestion by any of the three panellists today, that the power of decision-making should be given to the commissioner. The commissioner would hopefully be, under a new, improved and strengthened mandate as an officer of Parliament, an independent expert providing advice to Parliament, to government and potentially to the public.
Much has been said, and, Mr. Lindgren, you alluded repeatedly to the limited nature of the mandate. The mandate as it currently stands is a line and a half in the Auditor General Act, more specifically subsection 15.1(2), and it says that the commissioner helps the Auditor General to comply with his functions with respect to environment and sustainable development.
It is an extremely narrow mandate that has produced, unfortunately, limited results, and picking up on Dr. Le Quéré's examples of what has worked elsewhere in countries that have succeeded in reducing their emissions as opposed to Canada, I think we should look to those examples. She mentioned the U.K. and France. New Zealand also has an independent commissioner of the environment directly reporting to Parliament who has been doing excellent work and whose mandate is much broader than the commissioner's currently is in Canada. I think that would be another useful model.
Thank you.