Environment committee  Thank you for your question. There was disagreement between Environment Canada and our office regarding the issues noted in this chapter. We found a number of weaknesses in the department's systems for enforcing the act. These are serious basic deficiencies, and we found a number of them.

Environment committee  If I could help, there could be two possible scenarios. The good scenario is that the entity responsible for the spill cleaned it up. Nobody checked. The other one is that the evidence was washed away. It sank into the soil, went into the groundwater, so no one knows.

Environment committee  Thank you for the question. I would say, first of all, that we have access powers through the Auditor General Act, so I can't speak on what's publicly available. What I could say is that in the two chapters in which we looked at enforcement-related matters, we identified similar weaknesses among the three different departments.

Environment committee  It wouldn't be for us to identify what those risks are. But we looked at the systems that the three entities have in order to evaluate those risks. We've said, for example, that Transport Canada doesn't have a coherent risk assessment strategy at a national level. That literally means that a truck carrying a dangerous product from the Maritimes would potentially have a different risk weighting when it got to British Columbia, even if it's carrying exactly the same dangerous or toxic substance.

Environment committee  That sounds correct.

Environment committee  The warnings are for minor infractions.

Environment committee  Yes. The honourable member is absolutely right. There was an increase in the budget, and I think we've noted that twice in the report. What I would also say is that the returns thus far.... I would like to get to that.

Environment committee  That is correct.

Environment committee  I'll defer to your math.

Environment committee  That's correct.

Environment committee  Maybe I'll ask my colleague Mr. Ferguson.

Environment committee  No, but the committee may want to consider having the head of the NEB here. I'm sure he may have an idea of how NEB compares with regulatory authorities in other countries to see what the resources are. We didn't do a benchmarking exercise, no.

Environment committee  There has been an increase in the last 10 years. It went from an average number of incidents of around 30 or 35 per year to around 60 or 65 per year now. The reason is that NEB has had a 50% increase in the amount of pipelines it has regulatory oversight over. The reason for the increase is that a major pipeline operator in Canada said its wanted to be under a single regulatory regime of the NEB.

Environment committee  Maybe I could ask my colleague Jim McKenzie, who was the lead principal on this, to come to the table. There are several reasons. The demand for scientific information has increased at Environment Canada. The level of complex questions actually needing answers has also increased.

Environment committee  That's correct, sir.