As I mentioned in my statement.... First of all, I need to acknowledge that in the economic statement of last fall, I believe something in the order of $18 million annually was set aside in that quasi-budgetary document. However, this was not only for the OPC, but for all of the government institutions that will be called upon to implement Bill C-11. We will have a share of it.
That amount was arrived at after consultation with our office before we saw Bill C-11. Now that we see Bill C-11, we see, in particular, our role in approving codes of practice by industry and giving advice upon request to companies about their privacy programs. We did not know that when we gave our estimates to the government, but now that we do, increased funding will be required.
Beyond increased funding—and I'll repeat the point that I made in my statement—we are totally welcoming of the role given to us by Bill C-11 on codes and advice to companies. However, frankly, we cannot do that for each and every request that we will receive. It's why I think we want to engage with business in that regard. Some additional funds will be required, but we also need discretion to manage our workload and to continue what we have done until now, which is to offer our services but not have to answer each and every request. We deal with those that seem to raise the higher privacy risks, for instance.
This is in part about money and in part about discretion for us to say yes to most requests but no to others if our budget cannot accommodate this.