Environment committee  Thank you for the question. I'll ask my colleague, Kimberley Leach, to answer it.

Environment committee  If I may...? Thank you. I'll just say two things. We've included the most recent emission trends data, notwithstanding the report that was released in early April on the emissions trends—

Environment committee  First of all, I'll say that I think it's an important report because it shows there's a decoupling between economic growth—

Environment committee  But it showed an increase. It didn't show a.... It said the economy grew by 3% and the emissions grew by two million tonnes.

Environment committee  Correct. No. When we go to press, yes.... But the report you're referring to showed a two million tonne increase, which was a lot lower than how much the economy grew.

Environment committee  Yes. It's actually a requirement. It's a requirement of the federal government that, for all regulations proposed, the costs and the benefits are worked out before.

Environment committee  Well, that would be a policy decision. What we've said is that right now the overall costs of all the regulations together on the Canadian economy is unknown. Whether it's prudent or not—

Environment committee  —that would be a policy decision.

Environment committee  Mr. Chair, thank you very much, and thank you for having us here. I'm pleased to appear before the committee to present my spring 2012 report, which was tabled, as you know, in the House of Commons earlier this morning. With me are Bruce Sloan and Kimberley Leach, as well as Trevor Shaw.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Let me ask Frank to....

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Thank you. First of all, you're quite right. We said in the 2009 audit, on which my colleagues were here before Christmas, that because of regulatory gaps on reserves, there's a considerable amount of confusion. We quoted a first nation chief from Ontario who said that for dumping, landfill, incineration of garbage, waste water, sewage, and other areas it was vague and uncertain which regulations applied and which ones did not.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  That's correct. Particularly on reserves, where the Department of Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development knew the laws they were required to enforce, we pointed out that the difference between what they said they would do in terms of enforcement and what they actually achieved in enforcement was actually a huge order of magnitude.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Mr. Chair, thank you. On the oil sands environmental monitoring—

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Correct. On that, we don't comment on policies. We follow the recommendations of the JRP. They came out with 176 recommendations; the National Energy Board had responded to some for which they had jurisdiction. My understanding now is that since the response of the government, we haven't seen anything formally, so it may be useful, sir, to ask the departments where they are in putting in place those components of the recommendation.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Yes. Mr. Barrett could also give you an answer on the topic. However, we noted in a certain chapter for example that, from time to time, there are delays in the negotiations. There are more formal procedures. We noted that, in circumstances where there are delays, the managers at Indian and Northern Affairs Canada, INAC, as it was previously known, used other approaches and informal approaches to advance negotiations between the first nations and the department.