I hear you on that. I have to say, though, that I'm still just one member. I'll listen to my colleagues, but I would have liked to hear a little more seriousness. What I'm getting is that you want us to acknowledge how well you've done, and what I'm looking at is that it's been pointed out that you haven't done that well, and you don't seem to want to say that. That always makes me frustrated.
Let me get into a question on this, on a detail. Again, it seems to me that everybody wants to talk about doing something, but nobody's really doing anything. That's my biggest concern.
On the reporting burden, the report states on page 18, at point 2.56, “The Secretariat brought to our attention its policy renewal initiative, which it believes will lead to fewer policies and fewer reporting requirements”. You've already alluded to this. It states, “The initiative was launched in 2005 with the objective of streamlining policy instruments and clarifying the accountabilities and responsibilities of ministers and deputy heads”. Later in that paragraph, it says, “Treasury Board officials informed us”--that's the Auditor General's department--“that this project will be ongoing into the 2008-09 fiscal year”. Finally, it says, “The impact of this initiative on the reporting burden will not be known before it is completed”. That just blows me away.
Then in March 2008, there was a committee formed. In point 2.57, the AG tells us, “However, at the time of our audit, the committee was just getting started and had not yet made specific plans or taken any concrete action”.
We've had reports going back for years. In 2005 you decided to do something about it and get serious, but we don't know exactly how much of the burden will be reduced when you've done the exercise, and the exercise is not going to be done until, at the earliest, next year. That's half a decade.
That's a long time to merge policies or to reduce policies. I'm sure there's a good answer, but it blows me away that you're going to go through this whole process and you really don't have any idea of how much of the burden it's going to alleviate at the end of it. Help me understand.