Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the questions from my colleague.
We are talking about a lot of money when we talk about savings. After this bill reaches its ultimate effectiveness, savings will be in the neighbourhood of $180 million by fiscal year 1997-98. To all taxpayers in the country that means a lot of savings.
I will give a micro example of that. I spoke about the direct deposit system. By directly depositing cheques the government save money on postage, bank fees and paper. Already about 40 per cent of government employees are enrolled in direct depositing. We would like to have that up to about 60 per cent in two or three years. Just that one initiative alone saves about $20 million. Twenty million dollars here and another million dollars there and it all adds up. In total it adds up to about $180 million.
Businesses know that the government is a big business. The government is involved in a lot of procurement. A lot of contracts have to be made out or extended. It works out to about 1,000 contracts a day, big and small. It is incredible. Businesses people want a system that is open, fair, transparent and above board. Through this open bidding system that is what they get.
Business people want information. They will make the judgments. To make the judgments they have to have information. All federal contracts are available on OBS. A number of provincial governments are tied into the system. It is all there: the price of contracts, the intentions of contracts to be let and so on. It is an enormous repository of information for business people.
In my humble opinion businesses are very happy with the kind of information that is made available to them. From time to time there may be difficulties. When dealing with a department that is as large as this and with a market that is worth billions and billions of dollars, it is hard to be perfect. There are going to be times when there are differences of opinion. In the main, Canadian businesses are very happy and very supportive of the open bidding service. I am glad that it is in place.
The minister wants the system to work even better. Nothing on the face of the earth cannot be improved. If it is made by human beings there will always be imperfections because we are imperfect, so we are looking for ways of improving the system. If there is a way to do it, if there is a way to save money, that is our objective, that is our target and that is exactly what we will do.
I appreciate the question from my hon. colleague.