Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'm happy to be joining this committee.
Welcome to the witnesses.
I'm just trying to learn as we go along here, but I would think that if your audit is going to have some integrity and credibility, it has to be taken seriously by the government and responded to appropriately by the government, and it should inform future decisions of government or paths that government would take.
In terms of climate change--because this has been a big debate now within the country and a big debate within the House of Commons--it seems like our colleagues on the other side of the House have said all of this is bad and for naught, and we're going to change and go in a different direction. It would seem prudent to me that they would at least wait for an audit of what was already taking place, or in some cases may not have been taking place, to inform a strategy.
Your report is not going to come down until the fall of 2006, as I understand it, but they're already planning for another plan in 2006. So how useful is the audit going to be in that particular context, and how difficult is it when you have what I would call major policy shifts on huge pieces of work that have been undertaken for some time? Are you just catching up and then it moves ahead? The audit should have more of an impact, I would think, if it's going to inform policy and help us make good decisions for the future.
I'd like to know what your comments are on that.