I will. Good morning.
I do have a statement to read, just to indicate in more detail what we're proposing. Before doing that, I'd like to provide some context. These proposals are part of a generalized review we've been undertaking within the Treasury Board Secretariat, looking at reporting requirements and trying to find ways to reassess them in terms of the resources that are put into creating them and to try to eliminate where it seems appropriate to do so.
There are three elements here.
The repeal of section 12.4 of the Financial Administration Act and section 28 of the Public Service Employment Act would eliminate the requirement for the President of the Treasury Board to table the annual report to Parliament on human resources management. Effectively, the report duplicates information that is available elsewhere in a number of sources, and therefore the cost of producing and tabling this report is no longer seen to represent an efficient use of resources. Also, the information that comes to Parliament is often out of date by the time it reaches Parliament, and it is available in a more accessible and timely manner through other vehicles.
The next element is that a new section 151 would replace sections 151 and 152 of the Financial Administration Act. It would create a report that consolidates the quarterly financial reports of crown corporations and provide regular updates on the tabling of their corporate plan summaries and annual reports in Parliament. It replaces effectively the annual report to Parliament on crown corporations and other corporate interests of Canada, which provides readers with information that is often outdated at the time of publication. The new reports would include information on the composition of government and the businesses and activities of federal crown corporations, and the President of the Treasury Board would make it available electronically to the public four times a year rather than once through the annual report.
Lastly, the repeal of section 8 of the Alternative Fuels Act would eliminate the requirement to produce an annual report to Parliament on the application of the act. This section is being repealed because the report presents the same conclusion every year, in effect, and has done so for quite some time, namely, that the use of alternative fuels is not cost effective and is only operationally feasible in select areas of the country. Because of its repetitive nature, the report is of limited use to parliamentarians and Canadians, and the effort required to gather and analyze the data to prepare the report represents again a substantial burden on departments and on the agencies to collect that information.
Those are the three elements. As I say, they represent three legislative changes we're seeking as part of a generalized review of reporting requirements. Again, the idea is to make information more readily available through other means and not to have information duplicated annually in this manner.