Finance committee  I'm more focused on the costs and benefits of the bill, so I would say no, but I think it's not the most important issue.

Finance committee  I think it would require substantial revision and not just—

Finance committee  I think it needs to be exempted, because you're asking labour officials to report on something that they don't even control. On the face of it, it makes no sense.

Finance committee  I do.

Finance committee  Well, yes, and in addition to that, in Canada you have the costs of establishing this division in the first place. It will be an entirely new and complex layer of government bureaucracy. You have the costs of training union officers, who are completely unfamiliar with these forms

Finance committee  What normally happens, and what happened during the Bush administration to bring in new regulations that the Canadian bill is largely based on—

Finance committee  There have not been significant changes to the legislation that affect union reporting, but the process can be changed—

Finance committee  —significantly through changes to the regulations.

Finance committee  It doesn't require legislation; it requires action by the Department of Labor.

Finance committee  It is misleading to say there are no changes to the legislation.

Finance committee  I will comment very briefly. You are absolutely right. It was passed at a time when union corruption and union racketeering were of much greater concern in the U.S. than they are today, but even at that time, one of the chief architects of the law, a professor of law at Harvard

Finance committee  —was never to impose this degree of reporting and burdensome administrative practices simply as—

Finance committee  —a way of hobbling unions' effectiveness.

Finance committee  The study was a very large-scale study of union administrative practices in general. As I said, one of the main findings with regard to reporting and disclosure was overwhelmingly that unions were spending more time on compliance and less time on other duties. Of them 38%, for

Finance committee  I have one final thing: it is that 83% of unions reported that staff members were required to spend more time on compliance and less time on other duties. In sum, I would say, when you ask who has benefited, more burdensome reporting requirements have not benefited the public i