1st President of Canadian Academies of Science appointed

Peter Nicholson is the new and relatively well-known president of a new and utterly unknown national body that's supposed to elevate public discussion on many controversial issues facing the country.

That body is the Canadian Academies of Science and the 63-year-old Nicholson last week became its first president and CEO.

Toronto Star - Old hand at helm of new science body - Feb. 18, 2006

The Academies don't seem to have an actual website.  (UPDATE 2006-07-19: www.scienceadvice.ca )  There is only a proposal buried layers deep in the Royal Society website. 

So: where does this fit with the (already complex and obscure to me) overall structure of science advising in Canada?  Do the Academies replace the Royal Society completely?  If not, what is the role of the Royal Society?

The CAS news release says

The purpose of the CAS is to provide expert and independent assessments of science in the public interest. Its mandate is two-fold:

1. to provide a source of credible, independent, expert assessment of the science underlying pressing issues and matters of public interest; and

2. to provide a recognized, unified voice for Canadians on behalf of the sciences, particularly in international inter-academy fora.

About the Canadian Academies of Science

The CAS is an arm's length, not-for-profit organization registered under the Canada Corporations Act. Its founding members are RSC: The Academies of Arts, Humanities and Sciences of Canada, the Canadian Academy of Engineering, and the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences, which have agreed to work together under the overall umbrella of the Canadian Academies of Science. The CAS complements and builds on the mandates of existing science organizations and encompasses the full, broad spectrum of the sciences.

UPDATE: I made a Wikipedia page - Canadian Academies of Science.