Public Accounts committee  There is a backlog of amendments, and we are in a position to put forward certain packages, but regarding a question that was asked earlier, it will take some time to clean up the entire backlog, and we'll proceed from there. Basically the information--

Public Accounts committee  We would be in a position by the end of 2011 to do it.

Public Accounts committee  It's a stage-by-stage process. There are 400 or so technical amendments. Some could be brought forward. If we put all 400 forward, it would be a bill of 1,000 pages. I'm not sure that would be readily accepted in Parliament either, so we will be bringing forward pieces of this in

Public Accounts committee  No, the department recommends to the Minister of Finance. The Minister of Finance is the one who would put out the press release.

Public Accounts committee  I can answer that. The first thing we've done is consolidate all our lists. Something Brian, my colleague here, just said is that all the information to move forward with this legislation is there and has been there all along. The auditors themselves noted that what we've had in

Public Accounts committee  I don't feel qualified to answer whether Parliament--

Public Accounts committee  In terms of specifically what the Auditor General recommended in having a database and ensuring that we have systems that track the technical amendments, we can do that on our own. But I think what the Auditor General is also alluding to—and I won't speak for the Auditor General

Public Accounts committee  It's the same inventory. Right now, we have all the information consolidated into one database. They're all technical changes. In essence, they're from things that are brought to us by taxpayers and we write comfort letters. They're brought to us by the CRA or they're brought by

Public Accounts committee  I think what you're trying to get at is there are situations that occur on a regular basis where people try to avoid paying tax. In those circumstances, the Department of Finance or the Canada Revenue Agency become aware of that, not through the technical process, but through oth

Public Accounts committee  I think that's part of what the Auditor General recommended we do. We accepted those recommendations and we are putting the systems in place to be able to address that, but I think there is only so much the department can do in proposing legislation to be moved forward.

Public Accounts committee  Let me try to answer that. During these interviews that take place between the Auditor General and ourselves, we talk about many things. What the auditor decided to put in the report is, at the end of the day, the auditor's call. I think sometimes these things are taken out of c

Public Accounts committee  Let me try to answer that in support of my colleague. I'd like to draw your attention to the Auditor General's report on page 10. There's a chronology of events that took place with respect to what we call the old Bill C-10, which was Bill C-33. It just goes through the steps o

Public Accounts committee  The changes made to Bill C-10 do not yet have force of law. We are in the process of preparing a series of changes. We have also done the complete inventory of the remaining technical amendments. We are preparing a smaller group of changes as well. We wish to try and make this p

Public Accounts committee  Concerning the way in which the CRA and the Department of Finance work together, I would tell you that when there are technical amendments, the CRA notifies us of them, and these are then integrated into our database.

Public Accounts committee  I might try to answer the question. Normally, when a bill is put before Parliament, the CRA administers it as long as that has not become law. For the time being, what was contained in Bill C-10 continues to apply.