Environment committee  There's a need, Mr. Chairman, Mr. Cullen, to put in place an overarching plan. That's clear. The government agrees with that. We've agreed with that. We're hoping this review will flesh that out. There are a number of programs now in place within the government that look at clim

Environment committee  Mr. Chairman, Mr. Cullen, I haven't been able to find and we haven't been able to find any sanctions for bad performance or rewards for good performance, quite frankly. We mentioned that during the in camera briefing a couple of weeks ago, and I'll say it again on the public reco

Environment committee  One of the reasons I am confident, or I guess a little bit confident, Mr. Cullen, is the hearing we're having today. I have to tell you, in my experience with the federal government, if there's one thing that bureaucrats listen to it's the committees of the House. It seems to me

Environment committee  Mr. Cullen, the short answer, I think, sir, is yes. Let me embellish that a bit, from the viewpoint of how we see it. It seems to us that sustainable development is about a lot of things, but one of the things it's about is getting ahead of the curve a bit. It's encouraging the

Environment committee  Mr. Chairman, Mr. Cullen has two questions. Let me address them sequentially. In terms of climate change illustrating what we mean by sustainable development...it's a very good illustration, I think. If the government puts forward a government-wide climate change plan, that's on

Environment committee  Mr. Chairman, Mr. Lussier, I certainly hope so. Let me explain what we've done to select these 14 chapters. We've looked back over the history of this office, and we've tried to select some of the key recommendations we've made to Parliament and to the government over that perio

Environment committee  No.

Environment committee  No.

Environment committee  Mr. Chairman, perhaps Mr. Arseneault could reply.

Environment committee  Almost.

Environment committee  Mr. Chairman, Mr. Bigras, yes, the panel, as I understand it, has virtually completed their work. They had a very busy summer, as I understand it. I don't know whether you've appeared before them; I certainly have, and our group has. I don't know how many people they've intervi

Environment committee  Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I will respond to those two questions from Mr. Bigras. In terms of the green ribbon panel, certainly when the panel provides its report to Mrs. Fraser, she's going to spend some time studying it, I suspect, with people on the executive committee. She fu

Environment committee  Mr. Chairman, Mr. Godfrey, we've been calling for an overarching sustainable development strategy for the Government of Canada for some time. The government itself committed to putting one in place, I think by the middle of 2006, and it isn't here yet of course. We still believ

Environment committee  Are you asking for me to comment on the private member's bill, sir?

Environment committee  I will go as far as to say that I think there is a need--we all think there's a need--to have an overarching strategy. There's a need to have sufficient guidance given to the government as a whole and individual departments to make that strategy work. In particular, there's a nee