Environment committee  There was some economic analysis, but it was not detailed. We couldn't find any social, environmental, and risk analysis linked to this. Climate change is not only about the environment, it's also about sustainable development; it's about our way of living, because it's linked

Environment committee   question to start out. In your chapter 5, I believe it is, on environmental petitions, you said that “Since 2001, climate change and air quality issues have been referenced increasingly in environmental petitions received by the Auditor General of Canada.” So those are the issues

Environment committee   there was a situation that needed to be better controlled, and they decided to pilot this. With respect to climate change and horizontal issues involving a number of departments, they wanted to put a system in place so that we could capture this kind of information, so they piloted--

Environment committee   are not coded the right way, and what is climate change and what is something else--sometimes it's not obvious. They call things different things. But we were still able to get to the amount of money spent on those programs.

Environment committee  I'm trying to understand this--and I asked you this question during the last committee hearing. Who is in charge? What minister was in charge of climate change in Canada?

Environment committee  Do you think this tool would still be advantageous for Canada and that it should be taken into consideration in the future climate change mitigation plan?

Environment committee  Yes. The National Climate Change Secretariat produced a report in 2003, if I'm not mistaken, the latest one. Their function was one of coordination amongst the departments.

Environment committee  The section you are referring to is entitled “Integrate energy and climate change”. In our audit, it became clear, quite quickly, that economic development was increasing, as was consumption and energy production, and that in this context, climate change was at stake

Environment committee  Okay. My other question deals with pages 26 and 27 of Chapter 1 of your report. They deal with emissions trading. From what I understand, you do not consider this system a panacea, but instead an interesting climate change mitigation policy tool. Moreover, I am very happy

Environment committee  I don't know. The only thing I can say at this stage is that it will be interesting to get answers from the departments. On the basis of what we have seen on the climate change file, many times decisions were made without sound analyses and good analyses. So in this case

Environment committee  Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I would like to begin by thanking you once again for your 2006 report. It is, in general, highly elucidating, although it makes only scant reference to how climate change programs are performing. Even though you may not be able

Environment committee   to what you were proposing. Would it be useful if every year the Minister of the Environment had to come up with a climate change plan that would report, as you have asked, on such things as what measures have been taken to meet our obligations under Kyoto concerning emission limits

Environment committee  That's great to hear, because tomorrow night we're going to be voting on such an idea, Bill C-288, proposed by my friend, Pablo Rodriguez, to ensure we meet our global climate change obligations under Kyoto. If the bill passes, we'll be debating it here, but it's good to hear

Environment committee   in the near future, so we have to look long term, and climate change is a long-term issue. But short term, in our mind, was really dealing with the Kyoto commitment.

Environment committee   accompanied by Neil Maxwell, Richard Arseneault, David McBain and Kim Leach. This report is the fruit of 18 months of work. It deals mostly with the federal government's approach to climate change covering up to mid-June 2006. In the course of our audit work, we have tried to answer