Mr. Speaker, I would like to echo the concerns raised by my colleague on the Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development. My particular concern, contrary to what the minister has attested to, is that as the Minister of Environment and Climate Change, she is indeed moving forward on initiatives on climate change. What she has not properly reported is that many of the critical recommendations from the committee were not reflected in the bill before us now. In fact, these are very critical recommendations that also came from the commissioner, and, that is, it is not introducing a whole-of-government approach.
This bill still rests the responsibility for holding all the departments and agencies into account with an official buried within the Minister of Environment's department. That is contrary to what has been recommended for a whole-of-government approach, which is that the responsibility for the oversight should rest with an entity like the Privy Council or Treasury Board. Treasury Board is sort of watchdogging what is going on with climate change but, as we all know, the new United Nations' 17 criteria for sustainable development goes far beyond climate change.
As my colleague noted, the recent audit by the commissioner for sustainable development is finding over the decade and a half that, in fact, the departments and agencies are not observing the cabinet directive, and are not only providing faulty reports but they are not even providing reports, either to their minister or the cabinet. It was 80% percent of the departments and agencies audited that failed to deliver the assessment, and neither the Privy Council or Treasury Board are seeking assurances.
Can the minister speak to why she made a decision not to change the act as recommended by the committee?