Human Resources committee  As Alexis mentioned before, a number of the department's programs, including EI, received very similar authorities in 2012. The initiative being proposed here extends the same authorities to the Canada student loans program and the temporary foreign worker program. We do not have

Human Resources committee  Yes, we have been following that story down there. I can speak to the Canada student loans program and how this will work. We do have a significant number of clients. Close to a million students are in our portfolio, and more than 400,000 students apply every year. As for wha

Human Resources committee  We are looking at the solutions that our department actually has in place, but we have not come to any conclusion. We are looking at what kinds of solutions are available in the marketplace. Right now we don't really have any particular solution in mind. I should add that our pr

Human Resources committee  These are our preliminary estimates, based on tasks that we will no longer have to do. For example, when students go to Canada Post and it verifies their identity, we have a contract with Canada Post for doing that, under which we pay them, I think, between $2 million to $3 mil

Human Resources committee  It's only with regard to the student loans program.

Human Resources committee  Thank you for your question. If that's okay with you, I will answer it in English. We have been looking at different solutions that are available in the marketplace for identity verification. Many of the financial institutions have been moving in that direction. The way they hav

Human Resources committee  This is based on our consultations with our legal services. For a student loan agreement, for example, if it is contested in a court of law, their advice to us—to ensure that the loan agreement is considered a valid loan agreement—was that it might not only be useful but also per

Human Resources committee  Exactly. So now it will take much less time to correct any error in documentation. Absolutely.

Human Resources committee  Yes, we estimate that the Government of Canada will be saving about $9 million to $10 million per year from these initiatives.

Human Resources committee  First of all, this will not be a mandatory system. So anyone who wants to use a paperless system can. We consulted student groups before we proposed this.

Human Resources committee  No.

Human Resources committee  Right now actually, the majority of the Canada student loan clients receive their money electronically anyway. It's deposited into their account, and we'll continue to do that. More than 90% of our clients receive their money electronically deposited into their bank account now.

Human Resources committee  Thank you very much for pointing that out. Our clients are actually very tech savvy. Most of our clients are young, and it is also very true that in certain areas, in remote areas in particular, students often have difficulty finding a Canada Post outlet, to go there and verify

Human Resources committee  Exactly. That will be a very good situation for us. We would not actually incur any cost to implement these initiatives, because we will be going out for a tender for a new contract, and the request for proposals will be going out sometime next year. So if this legislation is pas

Human Resources committee  That is very true. The timing has been very good for us. Yes.