Evidence of meeting #74 for Finance in the 39th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was million.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Conservative
Mike Wallace Conservative Burlington, ON
Okay, so of the 1% that you're underneath your budget, from actual to budget, that budget of last year included those positions being filled?
Acting Superintendent of Financial Institutions, Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions Canada
Do you want to respond to that, Michèle?
Michèle Bridges Director of Finance, Finance and Corporate Planning Division, Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions Canada
The positions were factored into our budget. We also factor into our budget an expected vacancy rate. We anticipate a certain level of turnover, and that turnover level exceeded our planning assumptions.
Conservative
Mike Wallace Conservative Burlington, ON
All right; that's good.
You haven't actually met with the organizations that pay the majority of this increase. Does that happen in the next little while?
Acting Superintendent of Financial Institutions, Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions Canada
Yes, but we meet with them every year and we give them a three-year projection as well.
Conservative
Mike Wallace Conservative Burlington, ON
Is this accurate to last year's projection? Do they understand that this is coming?
Acting Superintendent of Financial Institutions, Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions Canada
Yes.
Conservative
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Brian Pallister
Thank you, Mr. Wallace.
Would you like to briefly overview for the committee how your revenues are derived, from which category of institution—not in incredible detail, but just as a bit of an overview?
Acting Superintendent of Financial Institutions, Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions Canada
You're asking from which category of institution?
Acting Superintendent of Financial Institutions, Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions Canada
We will have revenues from the banks as one category, revenue from life insurance companies as another category, revenue from property and casualty insurance companies, revenue from pension plans. The Office of the Chief Actuary's revenue would not only come from appropriations; he has memorandums of understanding with various departments for the actuarial work he does, and revenues also from CIDA for the international training we do.
Have I missed any source?
And there are surcharges.
Conservative
Director of Finance, Finance and Corporate Planning Division, Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions Canada
We receive approximately 55% of our costs as recoveries from the banks.
Director of Finance, Finance and Corporate Planning Division, Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions Canada
I would say it's probably about 20%.
Director of Finance, Finance and Corporate Planning Division, Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions Canada
It's about 11% or 12%.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Brian Pallister
Okay. Thank you.
Madam Wasylycia-Leis, welcome back, and it's over to you.
NDP
Judy Wasylycia-Leis NDP Winnipeg North, MB
Thank you very much.
Thank you for appearing before us, and congratulations, Ms. Dickson, on your responsibilities to fill in on this file for now.
Can you indicate when the permanent position will be filled?
Acting Superintendent of Financial Institutions, Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions Canada
The order in council is a six-month order in council, which can be extended.
Acting Superintendent of Financial Institutions, Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions Canada
I'm loving every minute of it.
NDP
Judy Wasylycia-Leis NDP Winnipeg North, MB
I'm glad to hear that, and it's nice to see all women up front here on financial issues.
Since my colleague Mike Wallace has asked a lot of in-depth questions on estimates, I'm going to go to a couple of current issues for which I think OSFI has a role. The first has been in the news quite a bit lately and has to do with conversion fees.
Of course, you know that it used to be that if I had an RRSP and invested in U.S. bonds that matured and I wanted to reinvest that money, I'd have to pay to convert from U.S. to Canadian currency and then pay again to convert back into U.S. currency, but that was supposed to have changed on June 14, 2001. However, it's clear that some financial institutions are continuing to charge those fees without the consent of their clients. It's been very much in the news, as recently as March 24.
I'm wondering what you have done. What has OSFI done to investigate the situation, what have you found out, and what can you do about it?
Acting Superintendent of Financial Institutions, Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions Canada
Certainly, OSFI will read articles about things like that, because we are interested, but under our mandate we are to focus on safety and soundness. So we look for things that, if not corrected, could have a profound impact on a bank's safety and soundness.
When issues like this come up—issues concerning fees charged by banks to consumers—we look at those issues with interest, but we don't do anything further than that, because it would be our sister agency or other agencies that would look at—