It is an area of unclarity, to begin with. My title has the term “ethics” in it. Nothing in the act or in the code refers to the word “ethics”. However, I'm in a context of ethical issues and I'm cognizant of ethical aspects of the matters that are provided for in the code and in the act.
In any specific case, I'm not sure how far I would go to comment on an ethical aspect of a matter, but nothing stops me from commenting on an ethical matter. But my mandate is to administer the act, and I'll just talk about the act since this is the forum that I'm in.
My mandate is to administer the act, to assist public office-holders to comply with the act, to advise and to report and to carry out investigations. But I have to ground myself in the provisions of the act, which is not to say that I cannot comment around a situation, but I cannot recommend actions that go beyond the provisions of the act.