I want to thank you all for coming today. It's nice to be having a discussion about issues that I think we all agree are very important, like fairness in the system, efficiency, making sure we have less administration and more benefit, and making sure it's a simpler program for seniors.
Mr. Dussault commented on administrative errors before, and I think we got some correction on that, but I don't believe this bill actually changes anything in that respect. The Auditor General has said that the fact that we don't charge interest on overpayments due to administrative errors is in contravention of the Financial Administration Act. On page 3 of the bill it says:
Section 66 of the Act is amended by adding the following after subsection (5):
(6) Section 155.1 of the Financial Administration Act does not apply in relation to amounts owing to Her Majesty under this Part.
We've basically removed the fact that it's in contravention of the FAA to not charge interest, so my understanding is that interest would not be charged on overpayments due to administrative errors.
Mr. Bajwa talked about some of the sponsorship agreements with other countries. I believe that in Canada we have 50 social security agreements with other countries, which is more than any other country has. When someone's here for one year from a country with a social security agreement, the Government of Canada picks up a very small portion of that and the source country picks up the rest.
My first question is for all of you. We've talked about ways that we can go further in this, or things you would add. I've heard some good suggestions there, but let's take a look at the bill we have right now. I want to make sure that the things in this bill are going to improve the system. Are there any changes in the bill that you don't agree with--not that they don't go far enough, but where you don't agree with the direction in which they're going?
We'll start with Mr. Shillington because he has his hand up.