Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to comment on some of the statements made by the hon. member for Vancouver South.
I think all Canadians recognize the importance of paying close attention to what is happening with our environment, and certainly sustainability in our environment is a most important factor.
The member mentioned that Bill C-83 contains some amendments unprecedented in Parliament in dealing with the environment. We have had the auditor general's department operating as an exclusive body making a critique of the government, scrutinizing the operations for many years now.
We have seen report after report from the auditor general being critical of the different government departments and making recommendations only to have those reports go somewhere on a shelf and collect dust.
It is one thing to appoint a commission, a body or an individual to be independent, to look at how the government runs its business. It is one thing for the reports to be made, for the recommendations to be made, for the observations to be made clear, for that outside body to call for accountability. Another thing is for the government to act on those recommendations. We have not seen a very glowing record of governments acting on recommendations and criticism by the auditor general's department. We have not seen it in many years. Certainly the government has not done anything to stop that record of ignoring the auditor general's report.
As Bill C-83 contains some amendments unprecedented in Parliament in the field of environmental sustainability, I suggest the government begin to take some unprecedented steps in not only acknowledging the reports of the auditor general and not only receiving them but actually acting on them. It would be a most
unprecedented step if the government would start to act on some of the recommendations of the auditor general's department.
I will leave the hon. member with that thought. I am sure he will want to give me his assurances that whatever criticism and recommendations come from the new position will be acted on by the government.