Mr. Chair, I want to thank Madam Pauzé for recognizing the hard work of Ms. Collins. She laid out many of the arguments that my colleague made at ENVI. I note that Ms. Collins brought forward a motion at this committee to both strengthen the mandate of the environment commissioner and make the environment commissioner an independent officer of Parliament. Unfortunately, other members chose to vote against that motion and it was not successful.
We certainly support the spirit of this. The challenge that we have with this amendment is that it's putting the cart before the horse. It's speaking to an expanded mandate for the commissioner before that mandate has been created. We are going to keep up our efforts in the House to expand the mandate of the environment commissioner and make that position an independent officer, and hopefully at some point in the future, once we're successful with those efforts, we will be able to amend this act accordingly.
At this point, I think we're essentially calling in this amendment for the commissioner to perform a role that he or she is not empowered to perform under the legislation.
I'll leave my comments at that, but I appreciate Madam Pauzé's recognition of Ms. Collins' work and the spirit behind this.