Canada's veterinary product regulators were once seen as world leaders.

Hon. David Tkachuk: Honourable senators, the Ottawa Citizen of October 1, 2003, reported that, to prevent abuses of public money similar to those alleged in the Radwanski affair, Paul Martin promised to hire a financial comptroller for every department and agency who would report to a comptroller general responsible for the overall government.

‘tiered priced product’ means any pharmaceutical product used in the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of a disease referred to in Annex IV which is priced in accordance with one of the optional price calculations set out in Article 3, verified by the Commission or an independent auditor as provided for in Article 4 and entered in the list of tiered priced products set out in Annex I.

Products are now clearly within the scope of the EMAS Regulation in the same way as activities and services, i.e. their significant environmental impacts have to be included in the environmental review, management and audit system; their impacts have also to be verified by an EMAS verifier, information about them has to be included in the environmental statement and their environmental performance has to be continuously improved.

An EMS certification by itself does not guarantee a specific environmental product performance but in the case of EMAS it provides a framework for validating information about such performance by the EMAS verifier.

Mr. Neville, the Deputy Comptroller General of the Government of Canada, has asked that the committee accede to the request for the publication waiver in the Public Accounts of Canada for the fiscal year ending March 31, 2001, respecting the ex gratia one-time relief payments for higher heating expenses to those individuals who qualify for the goods and services tax credit for the year 2001, applied on their 1999 income tax returns as requested in the letter dated December 21, 2000, from Richard J. Neville, Deputy Comptroller General, provided that the nature, the number, and total amount of payments are published in the Public Accounts ...[+++]of Canada.