Environment committee  I have received communication from them. If I don't find a good calibre candidate in the current search that I'm doing, I am committed to expand that to use, perhaps, the services of a headhunter if I need to. I do invite them to reach out to our office if they would like to make some recommendations for us as we do this very important search for a new commissioner.

Environment committee  One of the sustainable development goals—I believe it's sustainable development goal 16 that talks about good accountable institutions—gives us an opportunity to take a bit of that expertise and make sure it's everywhere. Every audit that we do, whether it be a financial audit or special examination or a performance audit, should be able to identify which sustainable development goal our work is touching and then be able to comment on whether or not the organization is helping to move that yardstick to improve the country.

Environment committee  The government is definitely moving in a direction where there is a lot of cross-organizational push for programs to be delivered in such a fashion. I think the challenge from an audit perspective is that this just adds some complexities, as you can likely appreciate, to an audit.

Environment committee  As we've mentioned, it's always a good recommendation to make sure that, when you launch a program, you've thought about how you're going to measure its successes. When we see that missing in a program design, we take the opportunity to recommend that. You achieve what you measure, so every good plan should have some good performance indicators and good measurements to make sure that you know when you're achieving your intended result.

Environment committee  I just want to make sure I understand your question. You are asking what we are going to do to enable us to audit a greater number of agencies. Is that right?

Environment committee  When mandates are laid out in the law, we organize ourselves to be able to fulfill our commitments. This is what you are seeing when our organization reduces the number of performance audits. All our office's financial work is required by law. We make sure we fulfill our mandate, which is non-discretionary.

Environment committee  There are about 100 departments and agencies, 101, I believe. They would all be subject to assessments.

Environment committee  Do you mean tools in general, or tools related to sustainable development in particular? Mr. Hayes might want to answer that question.

Environment committee  Are you talking about harmonization in our office?

Environment committee  I don't know. Mr. Hayes, could you answer the question?

Environment committee  If I could just add, Mr. Longfield, we are already incorporating the sustainable development goals into our work, but we can and we should be doing a better job. That is exactly our goal. Regardless of how we decide to structure or set ourselves up to manage our people, it doesn't mean we're taking away the importance of them.

Environment committee  When it comes to the kind of expertise we have within the office, we have CPAs, lawyers, economists, environmentalists, engineers, so many. We do have a pocket of rich experience and knowledge about the environment and sustainable development area, and we're trying to make sure that we broaden and expand it.

Environment committee  You are correct. We launched a countrywide search for the new commissioner of the environment and sustainable development at the end of October. What we have done so far to find—

Environment committee  I personally have not yet. They have communicated with me, and we are reaching out through our professional networks to make sure that people know we're searching.

Environment committee  As I mentioned earlier, while we do have a group that we call the commissioner's group, it is more of an administrative function because of who they report to within our organization's structure. Our performance audit practice has specialists from all fields.