Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members of the committee.
My name is Alan Dean. I'm very pleased to be here today in my capacity as vice-president of the board of governors of the Canadian Red Cross. I also chair the pension committee and the governors committee of the Red Cross in Canada. I fulfill these roles as a volunteer and have been involved with the Red Cross for eight years, both at the provincial and the national level. In my professional life I'm a partner with the law firm of Gowling Lafleur Henderson.
The Canadian Red Cross is Canada's leading humanitarian organization, providing services in Canada and abroad ranging from health intervention to disaster response. The Canadian Red Cross is an independent organization governed by a volunteer board of governors. Internationally, we are members of the Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies. In Canada, we are a large and a complex organization. We have over 6,400 staff, supplemented by a trained volunteer force of approximately 20,000 people.
The volunteers and the staff are responsible for carrying out the Canadian Red Cross's mandate. They also ensure, in doing that, that our programs are properly funded and that our funds are managed efficiently. Our revenues in 2009 were $372 million, and we are fully compliant with the CRA filing regulations.
Our governance model is woven throughout the organization from a regional to a fully national level. We strongly support the objectives of accountability and transparency. We strive to maintain the highest level of public trust through our efforts. We believe firmly that our donors deserve no less, both in terms of accountability for the use of the funds donated by Canadians who work hard for their money and of the best possible information upon which to base their charitable donation decisions.
So we commend the work of this committee in ensuring that Canada's laws and regulations are up to date and sufficient in terms of ensuring an appropriately high level of transparency.
We are pleased to note that the sponsor of Bill C-470 has chosen to amend the bill in order to remove the previously included compensation cap. Directors of charities must serve without remuneration. They bear a heavy duty and are viewed as higher-order fiduciaries with trustee-like responsibilities, unlike their counterparts in the for-profit sector. A salary cap would have severely limited a board's ability to select qualified management staff and hire the best and the brightest, so we applaud the amendment to remove the compensation cap.
We currently comply with the robust reporting and transparency requirements mandated by the Canada Revenue Agency. As you know, charities like ours are now required to identify the salary range for their ten highest-paid positions, and these salary categories have been expanded. If parliamentarians decide that the existing disclosure regulations, including the new Canada Revenue Agency requirements of 2009, are lacking, we would welcome the opportunity to work with you in examining other models for disclosure and transparency.
In particular, we take positive note of the proposed amendment to Bill C-470 that establishes a floor for salary disclosure of $100,000. We have no objection to this proposed floor, nor to the concept of releasing specific information regarding job titles or descriptions and specific salary amounts for employees who would fall into the categories for disclosure that Parliament might establish. That said, there may be specific circumstances in which the information related to a particular individual should not be disclosed, to protect that individual's safety and security. To address those, we agree with the notion of giving the minister responsible some discretion to withhold information, to protect individuals from harm.
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair and members of the committee. I would be pleased to respond to any questions you may have.