Natural Resources committee  Certainly, Mr. Chairman. That was an example. One of the things we do when departments make commitments in those strategies is look to see whether they actually achieve them or not. That was one in which they fell short of what they intended to do, but we were quite complimentar

Natural Resources committee  I can certainly add something to that. However, I hope you don't mind if I make my comments in English. This is a wonderful opportunity to bring to the committee's attention one of our ongoing concerns, which is, as the commissioner has talked about, this particular department r

Natural Resources committee  If I might build on that last point, that really is where we, as auditors, need to turn things over to you as parliamentarians. It's really you who are in the best position to really ensure that departments have stretched themselves. You may be interested to know that one of th

Natural Resources committee  I could speak to that, and perhaps my colleagues would want to add something on it. We talked about one aspect of what we do in our audit work, which is this idea of seeing if commitments have been met, but there are a number of other important aspects in the Auditor General Act

Natural Resources committee  Briefly, the work we did in 2000 was a bit different from what we normally do. Normally we do what we call audits. This was actually a study, which is a bit more broad-ranging and exploratory. In that study in 2000--and we'd be happy to give you the references--we looked at how

Natural Resources committee  Not every single one; there are so many commitments made by departments--we cover more than 30 departments--we take a selection. We will be reporting on a selection of those, and we will be commenting on whether the progress has been satisfactory or unsatisfactory. If I may, Mr

Natural Resources committee  More generally, beyond climate change, that's a very important question. One of the concerns we've had for a number of years is how well departments are in fact telling parliamentarians how well they are achieving those commitments. There is information provided by some departmen

Natural Resources committee  Yes, I guess we all are anxious to talk about that. The most important point is exactly what you've said, that as auditors, we base what we do on objective criteria; we don't make it up or we don't make up policy commitments, but take what the government has said. As your questi

Natural Resources committee  I would like to add two points. Concerning the strategies, the commissioner has talked about developing good strategies. One of the things we also do in our audit work is make sure, once they're developed and once the minister tables them in Parliament, that the departments are

Natural Resources committee  Certainly, Mr. Chair; I could add a very concrete example from last year's report. When we looked at oceans management, and we looked to see how well the government had implemented the 1996 Oceans Act, our conclusion was quite a stark one. It was quite negative. I'll read a cou

Natural Resources committee  Thank you. I'd like to add to that. One of our issues, and it's not specific to Natural Resources Canada, but more broadly in terms of probably being true of most government departments, is that we think that what they do in the strategies are important steps towards sustainabl

Natural Resources committee  Yes, I'd be happy to, Mr. Chairman. I have several responsibilities. I have the responsibility for the commissioner to monitor the sustainable development strategies, which she's referred to, and I've been responsible for a number of different audits through the course of the la