Environment committee  Thank you for the question. To reiterate, last week the Auditor General gave an overall study on the nature of the trust. I think this one is different because, as you say, there's no obligation for the provinces to report. However, the government set a target on what they expected performance of the trust would be for the climate changing theme.

Environment committee  Not that I'm aware of, sir.

Environment committee  I think this is the first time the Auditor General has actually provided a study to Parliament on the nature of the trust funds.

Environment committee  Thank you for the question. The team looked at whether the department has a system of verification in place in order that they know whether their warnings are timely and accurate. The team is aware of where there have been episodes where events have taken place where a warning has not taken place, thereby placing people at risk, but we didn't go through and categorize or catalogue those.

Environment committee  There's none in the report. I would be glad to provide you with information that the team has compiled, where there are instances. We didn't put it in the report, but there are instances where there actually had not been either timely or accurate information.

Environment committee  Yes, it is.

Environment committee  What we looked at was if there was a national verification system itself. That was the focus. There was anecdotal information, but as you said, there's been work carried out in the prairies. There was work carried out in British Columbia on pilot studies. I'm looking at the verification system.

Environment committee  Thank you. If we found that there were unreliable reports, then we would have stated that. What we have said is that the department itself doesn't know the degree of its reliability because it doesn't have a national system in place. On the second part of this, we also looked at the network and the capacity of the network in the future to deliver.

Environment committee  Thank you very much for the question. As you say, there is a pollution prevention plan, and we've looked at whether that plan actually led to prevention, which is what one might expect. What we found is that--you're absolutely right--there was between 2003 and 2006 a 50% reduction in that source of acrylonitrile that they had identified, and it looked, from Environment Canada's perspective, that actually things were well in hand and that actually it was going to lead to absolute reductions.

Environment committee  As you say, the chemicals management plan is in place now. Acrylonitrile is one of 93 substances that now have been declared toxic, so Environment Canada...this is difficult to manage these things. We're not underplaying the order of magnitude of what a challenge this is to management.

Environment committee  I think what the team found was that there was a wide scale of projections in terms of assumptions on changes in ridership. It was wide, in terms of the range of magnitude. But as I said before, it was hard to get a substantiation. Part of it was because we did not have full access to the analysis, so we didn't see the assumptions the department was making in terms of actually doing those projections.

Environment committee  It was the latter. Well, we don't know whether or not they were performed. There were some calculations that were made available to the team; however, there were calculations that were done by Finance Canada that the team had asked to have access to in the duration of the audit, and that access was denied because they are classified as cabinet confidence.

Environment committee  Let me just underscore that in the government's plan there are multiple objectives. But to reiterate, there was only one objective that actually had a target that you can count. So that's what we looked at in order to see what the outcome of that was in terms of a number. The number is what it is: it's 35,000 tonnes.

Environment committee  What we've said is that there are disappointing results and negligible results. We base that on what is the total magnitude of the problem. Disappointment means that we would have an expectation of probably higher results, stronger results on the amount of money that has actually been allocated, because $635 million is a significant amount of money.

Environment committee  Thank you for the question. First, just to underscore and echo your comments, what I think is important--and you know, this has been a goal of environmental policy now for 25 years--is that it's sending the right pricing signals to encourage Canadians to adjust their behaviour in favour of more sustainable, environmentally sound practices.