Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Mr. Ferguson, thanks to you and your team for being here today.
Let me start by first thanking you for the important work you've done with chapter 7 of your report, and the recommendations as well. Transport Canada, as we've heard already today, has accepted all of the recommendations and has done so with some pretty specific timelines.
I didn't see it in the report explicitly, but I sense that if we were to read between the lines, not only did Canadians expect better from Transport Canada, I suspect you did as well, and I know the government expected better too.
For this committee, I'm not going to presuppose the recommendations that will come, because our study isn't complete right now. We've just begun to look at the implementation of SMS in all modes and the transportation of dangerous goods regime, but I sense already that there's a very strong appetite that this committee will want to recommend that it become an ongoing tool of accountability for Transport Canada in its public commitments and timelines, through to their completion.
Moving to the report, audit work obviously is about precision, so I will try to precisely understand what your audit is and what it is not.
Obviously you're aware of the tragic rail accident at Lac-Mégantic this past summer. Your report is not an investigation into the causal factors of Lac-Mégantic or, for that matter, any individual accident or several accidents. Is that correct?