2.2 Countries have increasingly recognized this environmental interdependency and have responded by developing a wide range of international environmental agreements. Canada has participated actively in negotiating these agreements and needs to continue doing so in order to protect its national interests.
2.3 Canada has often played a key role in shaping the international environmental agenda, and is a party to a significant number of international agreements dealing with environmental and sustainable development issues. Canada devotes considerable time and effort to developing these agreements. For each agreement, there is a timetable of international work and meetings, as well as a separate domestic process that Canada follows to prepare its negotiating position.
2.4 In entering into these agreements, Canada has made commitments to the international community. Canada, in turn, stands to benefit from the environmental commitments made by the international community.
2.5 A fundamental tenet of international law is that countries will act in good faith to carry out their international obligations. In some cases, this means that they must translate these obligations into meaningful action at home. In other cases, the commitments require countries to undertake co-operative efforts at an international level with other parties to international agreements.
2.6 However, Canada does not systematically track the implementation of its international environmental commitments. As a consequence, Canada does not have an overall picture of how good a job it is doing at meeting the obligations it has undertaken: where it has been successful; what gaps remain; what lessons have been learned. This lack of accessible information is a significant barrier to Parliament's oversight of the implementation of Canada's current and future commitments in this area.
2.7 Having and using adequate information is key to effective management of our commitments. Working with departments, this Office is constructing a publicly accessible data base of Canada's international environmental commitments in an effort to improve accountability by the government to Parliament for their implementation. We will also continue in-depth analysis of the extent to which selected individual agreements are put into effect. We expect, however, that Foreign Affairs and International Trade and Environment Canada will work with other departments on a broader assessment of the extent to which Canada is living up to its obligations under these agreements.