Mr. Speaker, the first principle of course is that those who get the benefits of government services should whenever possible be those who pay for the costs. This is where the user pay policy comes from.
In the case of the various departments, the departments are responsible for deciding in which circumstances, for what products and for what groups of users charges are to be paid. Once this is determined they make impact analysis and if they realize that their user fees have affects that were not foreseen or are negative then they are free to change their policies.
For specific initiatives each minister is responsible for their impact analysis. The Treasury Board then looks at the overall policies and if there is any consequence that appears to be improper it is then changed and we amend the policy accordingly.