These clauses broadly apply to the residency requirement for financial institutions. Bill C-60 reduces the Canadian residency requirement for committees of directors of financial institutions. These are smaller groups who deal with particular decisions within a board of directors, and they would report to the full board of the directors. However, a significant amount of business is conducted by board subcommittees, in the same way that there are subcommittees of cabinet that deal with issues and then report back to cabinet. It's the same with corporate boards.
A lot of very important work is done by subcommittees. There are, for instance, audit committees, human resource compensation committees.
There's a concern that this provision is actually much more significant in terms of its impact on decision-making in corporate boards of financial institutions than the government would indicate. I mean, it could create a very significant loophole, if you will, and a significant change in terms of who ultimately would be making very important and significant decisions on the future of our financial institutions.
I would like to ask if Ms. Hardy could explain to Canadians what types of business typically would be delegated to committees of directors and what types of business would not be, or could not be, delegated