Finance committee  Mr. Chair, unfortunately, we are not in the best position to answer that question. We both focus heavily on the financial aspect. As you know, we are here to talk about the supplementary estimates (C). It would be better to ask someone who deals with policy.

Finance committee  Mr. Chair, we are currently studying the amounts of investment needed to implement the budget measures that have been announced. As a result, we do not really have any figures, but we are going to continue working on this question and come back to you with the figures.

Finance committee  Once again, unfortunately, we do not have that data with us today. We can certainly request the information from our program experts and send it to the committee.

Finance committee  Mr. Chair, the only thing I would add to what Mr. O'Connor has just said is that we obviously operate from April 1 to March 31, so it's from now until March 31. As Mr. O'Connor has mentioned, some of this amount of money has been spent, but the plan is to fully spend this amount

Finance committee  I'm not aware of our involvement. We may indeed be involved, but it would be our IT folks who would be able to respond to that. I'd have to say I'd like to come back to you on that one. I can't respond either way.

Finance committee  Mr. Chair, if I may, let me add as well that we are part of a large community in terms of moving towards the upgrade of our administrative system. Some departments and agencies have gone ahead of us, but we're on the front line of moving forward. As part of that greater community

Finance committee  Mr. Chair, as requested, I'll give you a few specific examples of what this money is being invested in for improving our financial stewardship. One of the items that Mr. O'Connor mentioned was the multiple spending authorities. More particularly, what that initiative does is all

Finance committee  That item was indeed raised at our last appearance here. We, at the time, did not have the information. We committed to getting it back to the committee, and we did so. Regarding the amounts in question for the tax-free savings account, I will quote the numbers for 2008-09 that

Finance committee  They are not. They were approved previously.

Finance committee  That's right.

Finance committee  Mr. Chair, as it relates to the softwood lumber amount, the amount in question that's reflected, the $429 million, is indeed a forecast of the expected payments to the provinces. However, that said, the actual payment for 2009-10 is expected to be in and around $188 million. The

Finance committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. Good afternoon, and thank you for the opportunity to appear before the committee to present the Canada Revenue Agency's 2010-11 main estimates and to answer any questions you may have. Before I begin, I would just like to take a moment to introduce the oth

Finance committee  Mr. Chair, back in 2008-09 the agency discontinued the use of private collection agencies. At that point in time it was part of our strategic review exercise. The agency took over those activities, and we were successful in generating ongoing savings for the government to the tun

Finance committee  There was some funding that was provided at that point in time. However, the majority of those savings we were able to achieve through leveraging the existing staff and the existing systems we have vis-à-vis our collections activities.

Finance committee  In developing the proposal, the agency actually did an apples-to-apples comparison. In other words, the previous approach that we had—i.e., using the private collection agency...which, by the way, was something that came over to the agency at the time when the government consolid