Mr. Chair, perhaps I'll start, and then my fellow panellists can jump in.
I would say there's consensus that the federal commissioner has duly and properly exercised his or her mandate under the legislation. The problem is that the mandate is limited. If you have occasion to look at the website of the Auditor General and the federal environment commissioner, there's an express recognition that the merits of government environmental policy are not examined, reviewed or discussed by the federal environment commissioner. Instead, they simply track what the government proposed to do and what it ended up actually doing.
That's important. It's important to hold government feet to the fire. However, I certainly envision an independent environmental commissioner who has more of a policy role. That's consistent with the earliest versions or conceptions of an independent environmental commissioner. He or she should be able to critically review the sufficiency or the merits of government policy, and not just simply do after-the-fact money-for-value audits or performance audits.