Finance committee  That's always a very difficult thing to do, as you can appreciate. One of the things we're going to be doing this year is that we have developed and we're in the processing of finalizing a very large baseline survey of financial capability in the country. We want to use that as

Finance committee  Well, as I say, one of the main tools we have is our website. On the one hand, we have our publications. As I said in my opening remarks, we put out about 750,000 pieces of information in the last fiscal year. We continue to do that. Through the financial literacy money that we g

Finance committee  I can't speak to the specifics of the complaint, but—

Finance committee  No, we have not carried out any specific study on that. Obviously, we have figures which have been collected by others on this, and that is one of the reasons why we are increasing our efforts regarding clearer communication, to make sure that our information is clear and availab

Finance committee  No, but it may be because I have not been there for very long. Many of the regulatory bodies at the federal level are indeed funded by the institutions they regulate.

Finance committee  That is correct.

Finance committee  I think one hears a variety of concerns around that, and we certainly do take them very seriously. With respect to the part of our mandate that deals with consumer education, we do quite a bit on that. We provide a variety of information--tip sheets, that sort of thing--and we ar

Finance committee  We have a variety of complaints. Interestingly enough, I would say the majority of our complaints are in areas that don't really directly relate to our mandate; in other words, to compliance with legislation. The smaller number of complaints, well less than half—I don't have the

Finance committee  You are raising a question which in all honesty I am unable to answer. Generally speaking, I would say that one cannot lose sight of our twofold mandate. We not only ensure compliance with the law, which is very important: our institutions are very large and must comply with legi

Finance committee  Our complaints have actually been going down quite significantly.

Finance committee  That would be in my annual report.

Finance committee  To the extent that they actually do consumer lending, I have. Fundamentally, I don't deal with products; I deal with the disclosure requirements. They normally don't have accounts, so to the extent that they make loans to consumers, either as direct loans—which usually doesn't ha

Finance committee  To the extent that it does retail, yes, it is. They open accounts to retail customers, so yes, for example.

Finance committee  There are a couple of issues around there that you've identified. As I tried to make clear in my opening remarks, unfortunately what the mandate of the agency is is to apply the disclosure provisions, the provisions that relate to consumers and the consumer protection provisions.

Finance committee  I have nothing to say with respect to that either.