I'd be glad to, because I think you've raised an important issue that is recurrent in many of our audit findings. Of course, in government, given its complexity, there are a multiplicity of systems. Some are used for financial information--the SAPs, Oracles, and whatever.
In 1999, just before the year 2000, the government required that all government departments move to one of seven authorized financial systems at the time, I believe, and it has recently indicated its preference for all departments to move to one financial system, which is SAP. These are obviously very expensive and very time-consuming exercises to move from one system to another. I presume it will take several years before everyone actually moves to SAP, if everyone eventually does.
In addition to the financial information systems, there are also a number of operating systems. For example, CFIS, which you mentioned, is the database for the weapons registry. That is obviously not linked to a financial information system, but it should be linked to other systems--the police information system and others.
We've noted in many of the reports, and in particular the work that Mr. Kasurak has done on public safety, that many of the systems, or I would say probably most of the systems, do not talk to each other. It's because the departments still very much work in a stovepipe fashion and develop the systems for their own needs. I think we even said at the time that especially when you get into law enforcement, the security agencies are very jealous about protecting their information. It will quite frankly take a change in culture before they start sharing it with ease.
Information systems are an issue. They probably don't get the attention they need. I think part of it is that when you come to priorities, are you going to develop and spend money on systems or are you going to spend it on programs? That's part of the issue.
On the reports, you were absolutely right. In several audits on the first nations we raised the fact that there were far too many reports. We mentioned in this report that recipients of grants and contributions are also now saying that the reporting requirements are too onerous. I think if you take each individual program, in and of itself, it looks appropriate. It's when you add them all up that it suddenly doesn't make any sense.
In the case of first nations, we said that the government really needed to streamline programs and to better coordinate programs, and it needs to do the reporting on a risk basis. Quite frankly, the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development is dealing with about 630 communities. Why can't there be a reporting of all programs by community, rather than each program having all its own reports? I think there are ways to do this in a more streamlined and less onerous fashion for the recipients of those funds.