Thank you for your question.
We entirely acknowledge the importance of the matter. In our mind, these are not 50 small agencies of no importance, with respect to the nature of their functions or their expenditures and activities. We are very definitely concerned about their proper operation and we want to make progress in that direction. We definitely could have done more in the past five years. In accepting the Auditor General's recommendations, we acknowledge that more could have been done during the period. However, as the secretary noted a little earlier, very significant efforts have been deployed over the past year and a half or so. Many of them have been orchestrated around this commitment stated in the Throne Speech last fall, when the issue was the web of rules and the government made a firm commitment to address the problem.
I'd like to draw a parallel. In the past 10 or 15 years, the Canadian government, like those of most developed countries, has focused on the impact of regulation on businesses, individuals and private sector organizations. There have been all kinds of twists and turns, all kinds of names, but it has very definitely been acknowledged that those regulations weighed heavily on the expenses and operations of small, medium-size and large businesses. It was environmental, regulatory and health and safety regulation. It was based on highly honourable intentions, but it imposed very heavy costs on businesses.
We've addressed those rules in the past 15 years or so. You'll tell me that the work isn't finished in Canada, as in most OECD countries, but it is still advancing. From an intellectual standpoint, we have a similar counterpart within the government: there is what's called the internal regulation of government. I must tell you, having had conversations with my colleagues in the United States, Great Britain, France and Australia, that Canada is in fact one of the most advanced in its thinking in this direction. Now we are at the stage of taking action.
Once the vision is established—the one the secretary stated earlier— we know the direction we want to take, which is to establish a certain balance between the risks and the impact that may occur. We've been told, by the committee chaired by Messrs. Mazankowski and Tellier, not to try to set objectives for five or 10 years, but rather to set short-term objectives over the next year, as you suggest, sir. If we manage to make progress every year, there is a good chance this will produce positive results at the end of the line. That's what we've done over the past year.