Finance committee  No.

Finance committee  You're correct in the sense that people can opt out at the front end because their circumstances just don't allow them to make those contributions, but to the extent that their employer is a participating employer they can choose to join at a later date. What the employer cannot do, though, is force the auto-enrolment of somebody who has opted out at the front end.

Finance committee  It's an independent task force, and they are in the process of preparing their final report. If you are interested, a consultation report was released by the task force. It's basically a report on what they heard through their public consultations process. It's called The Way We Pay and is available on the task force's website.

Finance committee  The task force is expected to report before the end of the year, and it is too early to say what is going to be in that report.

Finance committee  The mandate was quite broad. It was to look at all aspects of payment systems regulation in Canada, looking at questions of effectiveness, safety, soundness, and competitiveness, etc. So it was to take quite a holistic approach in looking at payment systems, which essentially has not been reviewed in Canada in the last decade.

Public Accounts committee  The Business Development Bank of Canada is the responsibility of the Minister of Industry. I'm sorry, but that's not our area.

Public Accounts committee  Private pension plan regulations are under shared jurisdiction in Canada. And federal jurisdiction is quite narrow. We are only responsible for private pension plans when the employer is under federal jurisdiction, such as banks, the transportation sector and sectors like that. Regulations mostly fall under provincial jurisdiction.

Public Accounts committee  I don't have that information with me.

Public Accounts committee  The Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions is responsible for the prudential oversight, the stability and strength of financial institutions. The Financial Consumer Agency of Canada is responsible for consumer protection.

Public Accounts committee  Nothing is ever guaranteed. The disclosure is there, but how investors use it is another story. All we can do is to make sure that the information is available.

Public Accounts committee  The Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions does the monitoring. The Financial Stability Board also did a peer review to see to what extent the various member countries of the Financial Stability Board have enforced and complied with these new disclosure standards.

Public Accounts committee  The way the system now works, the IMF has instituted this financial sector assessment program, or FSAP, program. Canada was one of the first countries to go through an FSAP when it was still a pilot project in 1999. We did an update in 2007-08. The commitment now is for significant financial sectors, including countries like Canada, to do an FSAP about every five years, with regular updates through the article IV process.

Public Accounts committee  If I understood correctly, there were two parts to your question. One was about capital standards for complex products and derivatives. In the new Basel Accord, called Basel III, capital standards are obviously stricter for financial institutions with products like that. The Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions and the Canadian government have made a firm commitment to apply the new Basel standards to Canadian institutions.

Public Accounts committee  I'm not sure that falls under the Department of Finance, but we are going to look into it.

Public Accounts committee  I sure don't have that kind of information with me.