To be clear, we run the process that allows a standard to be established, so we don't set standards per se. What happens is someone comes in with a need. We pull together the committee to ensure that the technical committee can develop the standard. The committee is the one that develops the standard, but we'll facilitate the public comment period, all that. Then once that's done, the standard is established. It's then established under CGSB, so we put our name to it because it has followed the process to arrive at the standard.
So we have standards but we don't set them. We set them through the technical committees that are made up of all the interests that want to set the standards. That's why there's that confusion of we do and we don't. Those standards are then vetted through the Standards Council of Canada, which ensures that it's .... They accredit us for the system we run to set those standards.
In terms of everything has a standard.... In fact, we are the owners of the standard for the national flag of Canada. When I arrived in my job, one of the first things they showed me was the actual standard for the flag, which is an interesting piece. But standards are set everywhere for many things.
One thing though is that standards for certain things do come to an end. If we don't need those objects, they are no longer of interest to us, or another standards organization has begun to use that or modernize that standard, we'll drop them. We had about 1,000 standards back in 2008-09. We went through a rationalization process and we're now responsible for a little over 300 standards, which we continue to maintain.
Every standard has to be maintained and updated. We do it on a five-year cycle. We have to make sure that those standards are relevant to the Government of Canada, as opposed to things that we might have done in the past that have since moved into the private sector and are now available through private sector or the other standards organizations.