We have roughly 215 employees at the OPC, and we have proposed budget funding for my office in the 2024-25 main estimates of $34 million. We have had an increase of $4.5 million in the previous year. Half of that is attributable to collective bargaining increases, so that's not really increasing our budget or our ability to do our work; it's just maintaining it. We've had temporary funding, as part of budget 2023, of $2.4 million for that year to help us address the backlog and privacy breaches.
We need increases in our budgets on a permanent basis. This additional funding is useful and very important, but it will come to an end, and the challenges will not come to an end. We are seeing more privacy breaches. We are seeing them on a larger scale. We are seeing that they are more complex, and technology is making it more challenging.
There is a need for more permanent funding on that. Specifically on the point of more proactive and promotion work, we will also need additional resources in this space, particularly if Bill C-27 is adopted. Bill C-27 would bring new responsibilities to my office from an enforcement standpoint, with order-making powers, but also with, just as importantly, more guidance opportunities to help organizations and small and medium-sized enterprises know what their obligations are, to provide clarity on this industry, which needs as much certainty as possible to do its work and to know what the expectations are.
There are very interesting provisions in Bill C-27 that would allow the preparation of codes of practice and certification programs. These are things that businesses around the world have been asking for to give them more certainty, and I would be playing a role in approving them and providing some more legal certainty.
There are a lot of things that we could be doing. The resources limit that. Of course, public resources have to be used judiciously and cautiously. We're looking at that. We've made some requests. We're going to continue to do that in a fiscally prudent manner.