Mr. Speaker, in the spring 2010 audit, the Auditor General criticized both INAC and Environment Canada for failing to deliver on their duties to monitor cumulative environmental impacts in the Northwest Territories. She also reported INAC's failure to monitor compliance with federal permits. Yet we hear reports on hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars spent to fast-track mapping of the Arctic shelf to support resource extraction.
Given the government's professed policy of balancing economic development and the environment, does this not indicate a serious tipping of the scales?