Environment committee  Thank you very much. I'd like to begin by thanking everyone for the opportunity to come back and provide an update on Environment Canada's ozone program. As I stated when I was here last December, Environment Canada remains fully committed to monitoring ozone. This time I have

Environment committee  Thank you very much. Yes, as the minister said, we continue to have the separate site at Eureka, a separate building looking at ozone and water and air quality. We have a number of other air quality sites across the north, about eight, and more than 40 sites for monitoring water

Environment committee  Yes.

Environment committee  Yes.

Environment committee  Our intent is to maintain the scientific validity of our data, absolutely. As a science-based department, it's fundamental to Environment Canada that there be an absolutely strong scientific foundation.

Environment committee  Yes. Dr. Lin may be able to describe this. He put in front of his folks some principles for this review of the use of the two methods.

Environment committee  I found the specific principles. The very first one is ensuring scientific integrity, and recognizing our commitments, including the validation and dissemination of the UV index. We've been using the term “ozone” all the time, but one of the reasons we're measuring ozone is to un

Environment committee  No, they won't be purely science-based. As I said, any program needs some management, so any data management database needs some management. We're saying that we're not going to sacrifice science; scientific integrity is absolutely fundamental to Environment Canada as a science

Environment committee  Yes. And Dr. Lin wouldn't want to put his scientists in a difficult position. I wouldn't put my scientists in a difficult position. It is often very clear that media will.... We could roll tapes for you. As journalists, they press and ask our scientists, what do you think? It's v

Environment committee  No. We haven't set a target figure for dollar sign savings. I will say that the level of concern expressed is allayed as soon as we say we are continuing to monitor, we are continuing to measure, we are continuing to use both methods.

Environment committee  I certainly did not say that funds would be redirected to the oil sands.

Environment committee  What I can say—

Environment committee  No specific funds will be saved from program A to be put to program B. What I said is that the department's priorities, the priorities of the branch, always have to respond and evolve as external pressures and interests come to us. The minister made a commitment. The department w

Environment committee  At the branch level, we are clearly looking to increase the level of our activity around the oil sands.

Environment committee  That's exactly the kind of question our scientists are considering now.