Environment committee  Yes. I don't know if they've acted on that quite yet. I will be coming back next week, and I can try to get you that answer.

Environment committee  Thank you, Madam Chair. We are very happy to appear before your committee this morning. It is very important to us that parliamentarians take an interest in our work. With me today are two audit principals, Ms. Kimberley Leach and Mr. Andrew Ferguson. With your permission, I w

Environment committee  In our 2014 audit, we noticed in looking at the monitoring governance system that many First Nations and Métis groups were removed from the table. They were still participating in specific monitoring projects, on the ground, for which they were still at the table, but they were n

Environment committee  I can't tell you whether it is satisfactory or not because I did not do another audit, which we call a follow-up. What we did in 2010 was make a recommendation that Environment Canada should use a risk-based approach to develop its water management monitoring system. Mr. Goetze j

Environment committee  I have a seven-year mandate, and I have just finished my first year. So I have six years left. I do five chapters per year. There is a whole range of topics that we could look at. When our office did the risk analysis, the quality and quantity of water came to the surface. It's

Environment committee  I'll pass it to Andrew. In 2012, before I become commissioner, we did do a study on fracking. Andrew and Doreen, one of our directors, both led that study, so they're best positioned to respond.

Environment committee  I'm going to ask Andrew to respond.

Environment committee  What I was going to suggest, Megan, is that we can get back to you as well on the results of the 2011 study that we did. We did publish it. Unfortunately, this request to come today was on very short notice and I wasn't able to review that in great detail. Some of the questions

Environment committee  Mr. Chair, thank you for this opportunity to contribute to your committee's review of the Canada Water Act annual report for April 2013 to March 2014. Joining me today are Jim McKenzie and Andrew Ferguson, principals with our office. Fresh water is essential to the health of eco

Environment committee  It's very clear that the people who participate in hunting and trapping through the North American waterfowl management plan have made a positive impact on those populations.

Environment committee  It hasn't gone through an official audit, but it would probably be an official substantiation document, in my opinion.

Environment committee  Are you asking why it's relevant to my work?

Environment committee  I think what we were thinking of when we were bringing it to the attention of the committee was that you were doing a study on hunting and trapping. Our chapter in our biodiversity report of 2013 focused only on migratory birds, but it didn't focus on the full extent of hunting a

Environment committee  Yes, I guess so. The commissioner of the environment and sustainable development's definition of sustainable development is actually quite broad. People are engaged in conservation, be it the hunters and trappers, but you'll see a lot of other people engaged in conservation of na

Environment committee  We didn't audit any of this. Bob McLean already indicated that a lot of what you're talking about would be at the provincial level. Some of it would even be municipal. What Bob didn't talk about as much was the federal levers in terms of legislation that they have at their dispos