Public Accounts committee  I'd like to go back to his point on progress. I think we've made progress. Is it ever enough? No, it's not ever enough. But I think we're positioned to deal with the departments and to engage them really constructively over the next year to 18 months, as I mentioned. I think we

Public Accounts committee  I was supporting his latter point about progress in these areas. It is a changing world, with changing technologies, so expertise is going to be critical toward making progress. That's the kind of supportive leadership that I think we're ready to play for departments.

Public Accounts committee  I'm sorry, I'm stuck on the federal house in order program--

Public Accounts committee  --and I would make the point that it was a sunsetted program, so the decision was, to begin with, that it would be for five years. I just wanted to clarify that, based on Mr. Shugart's previous testimony. In terms of the approach we're taking now, with the leadership that we are

Public Accounts committee  I don't believe there's any reason why I can't. I can commit to that, yes.

Public Accounts committee  As I mentioned, we have done an action plan that's more detailed than our management response to the audit. We're happy to table that today.

Public Accounts committee  I appreciate the question. I think it's a little premature for me to tell you exactly how we're going to be reporting, because really what we're doing is preparing for the 2009 to 2012 sustainable development strategies. We will be working with departments over the next year and

Public Accounts committee  As part of that, one concrete thing I should mention is that in terms of our green procurement, working through these commodity strategies for some 61 goods and services that departments can then buy from us, that will be complete by December 2008. That will cover what the govern

Public Accounts committee  That's an interesting idea. We incorporate green concepts when we're making building decisions. I'd say we're more aggressive on it when we're doing new building construction and we have a commitment to honour LEED's gold standard. So we do incorporate green into our consideratio

Public Accounts committee  I think I'll leave to Mr. Shugart the question of departments' broader sustainable development strategies. Our area of focus is on greening operations per se, and I think we're tipping into another area when we're thinking about companies that might get grants or contributions fr

Public Accounts committee  I think you'd find it increasingly so. In our department, as an example, we committed to reducing the number of printers by 50% over the three-year period 2006 to 2009. For the printers we do purchase, we make sure they're green and are meeting an Energy Star standard. The prin

Public Accounts committee  I think we've already made progress, and I think we have what we need to make more.

Public Accounts committee  Mr. Chair, I think we really are making progress. I mentioned some of it earlier. I can cite other examples just from my own department. We're helped by what's happening out there in industry and how different organizations are taking advantage of new technology. One thing we h

Public Accounts committee  We are; Public Works is.

Public Accounts committee  I think the answer is that departments report annually on their performance, and they report on the achievement of their sustainable development strategies as well. That is an accountable system.