Finance committee We have not done that calculation. We look at cases one at a time, but we have not added up the dollar value of the cases we have dealt with over a particular year.
May 15th, 2006Committee meeting
Pierre Gosselin
Finance committee We could say that under certain conditions, all imports could be subject to the tribunal.
May 15th, 2006Committee meeting
Pierre Gosselin
Finance committee No. It doesn't reach back.
May 15th, 2006Committee meeting
Pierre Gosselin
Finance committee Could you give me the--
May 15th, 2006Committee meeting
Pierre Gosselin
Finance committee This is a dilemma, sir, because--
May 15th, 2006Committee meeting
Pierre Gosselin
Finance committee For us, because we never know if.... We know, for instance, that if a case on corn is going to be filed, there will be a great deal of interest; a lot of people have already made their presence known at Canada Customs, because they do the first part of the case. So we can have an idea that this is going to be a big case, but we don't know with any degree of precision until they file a notice of appearance.
May 15th, 2006Committee meeting
Pierre Gosselin
Finance committee We don't cost individual cases, sir.
May 15th, 2006Committee meeting
Pierre Gosselin
Finance committee We've been set up to receive every case that is filed. Whether this year we have 100 cases and next year we have 200 cases, we have to deal with all of those cases within the time limits provided. If that requires that people work overtime, that's what we do. The legislation doesn't allow us to be late.
May 15th, 2006Committee meeting
Pierre Gosselin
Finance committee Sometimes, yes. In those kinds of instances, if we have an unexpectedly large draw and we are doing a case for a particular department, we can ask for additional resources in those cases.
May 15th, 2006Committee meeting
Pierre Gosselin
Finance committee We didn't ask for any, this year or last.
May 15th, 2006Committee meeting
Pierre Gosselin
Finance committee We know exactly what we spent it on last year; you have the list of the cases we dealt with. We cannot adjust the number of employees we have by the number of cases we get--
May 15th, 2006Committee meeting
Pierre Gosselin
Finance committee That's correct. That's in the legislation. We have 120 days plus 15 days.
May 15th, 2006Committee meeting
Pierre Gosselin
Finance committee That's correct.
May 15th, 2006Committee meeting
Pierre Gosselin
Finance committee One of the determinants we've had in the past and that has driven costs has been the size of the file. The file has to be provided to all the parties in a particular case, so a lot of reproduction costs are involved. In the corn case, as an example, we had to use both of our hearing rooms.
May 15th, 2006Committee meeting
Pierre Gosselin
Finance committee I'm sorry, on a yearly basis?
May 15th, 2006Committee meeting
Pierre Gosselin