Thank you very much.
Thank you for taking the time to come here today and talk to us about this important bill.
I'm from Newfoundland and Labrador, so I'll use that to put it in context. There are roughly 500 not-for-profit corporations under the federal guidelines from Newfoundland and Labrador. About 210 are harbour authorities. This is to give some context of what kind of not-for-profit corporations are under this act federally.
My question goes to the mechanism for implementation. When I look at these harbour authorities, there's no paid staff, they're very small and in small communities, and there are very limited resources available to them. Luckily for harbour authorities, of which roughly 50% are from the federal registration, they can lean a little on DFO for support, but there are a lot of others that do not have that mechanism for assistance in implementation.
I have two questions on this particular issue.
First of all, this bill affects change in a system of all sizes and sophistications, and the minister has acknowledged that up front. Can you give us some assurances of how your department will go about the education process, the assistance process? I know, for example, in the implementation of some of their regulations CRA reached out to give some technical support and they had a mechanism and means for assisting some of the charitable organizations in compliance. Perhaps you could talk about that.
The second question goes to the costs and compliance burden. We all know that accountability is exceptionally important, both financially as well as from a governance perspective, and it is essential, but not-for-profit organizations can become overburdened.
Perhaps you can take those two questions as one.