The Environment Ministers of Canada, Mexico and the United States agreed in Puebla, Mexico, in June 2004, to set directions for the future research and information programs of the Commission for Environmental Cooperation. They stated:

We want the CEC to be an organization recognized for its credible, balanced and timely information on the North American environment, and want to ensure that this information is available and accessible to all interested parties in order to provide governments, the private sector, and citizens alike with information to address the key environmental challenges and opportunities facing the region. - Puebla Declaration

To achieve this goal, and at the request of the Council, a tripartite Expert Group on Scientific Integrity and Quality Assurance prepared a Draft Quality Management Framework "to insure scientific integrity and quality assurance for all projects, activities and publications" disseminated by the CEC.

The Framework was developed in the context of CEC's Information for Decisionmaking priority area, which takes a strategic and integrated approach to the application of information technology to information management in the North American context. The Framework was endorsed at the Regular Session of Council in June 2005.

It has seven parts that provide a structure and gives guidance for building on, consolidating, and documenting theexisting quality management policies and practices of the CEC.

The present document, Quality Assurance Policy and Procedures, builds on the Framework and is divided into two chapters. The first articulates Sections 1 though 6 of the Framework as policy, while the second elaborates the components of Section 7 of the Framework as operational procedures.

Thus, the CEC's Quality Assurance Policy and Procedures establishes the principles and mechanisms for ensuring the objectivity, utility, accuracy and integrity of CEC's research and information products and services.