Finance committee  As long as they can quantify administrative burden reductions for Canadian business, yes, they can put it in their bank account, so to speak.

Finance committee  The reason for including the provinces is because the Canadian Free Trade Agreement established a regulatory reconciliation and co-operation table. There are examples on which we are actively working right now to establish our first work plan under this table. There may be exampl

Finance committee  No, we've always administered it at the Treasury Board Secretariat, yes.

Finance committee  Administrative burden—I'm sorry, I'm having such trouble with my earpiece here—"a unit of burden”—and I must apologize, I'm not an economist by any stretch. I don't necessarily understand the cost calculator that we use. We have economists who do that for us, but we have a very s

Finance committee  It's a bit of both, actually. It's dollar for dollar, which I would say is the part that is really most tied to the reduction of the actual burden on business. The second component of the rule is removing a title. Every time you introduce new admin burden, you have to remove, dol

Finance committee  The title they have to remove has to contain admin burden within it. They have been able to take credit for some that maybe have been spent, or that were no longer relevant, but from a monetary perspective it has always had to be dollar for dollar. They have always had to remove

Finance committee  It's $31.1 million net annual.

Finance committee  No. It's only in the case of a reduction. The rule would not kick in in the case of an increase of administrative burden in the U.S. I would point out that the U.S. has just instituted a two-for-one, so it's unlikely that we'll see any increases in burden that would impact Canadi

Finance committee  Yes. She would be able to put that in her bank. That's exactly a good analogy and one that we use often. She would put that credit in her bank so that if she did bring forward a regulation that increased administrative burden, she would be able to use that amount from her bank as

Finance committee  The Canadian regulators will still always have to pay very close attention to any increase in administrative burden because of the one-for-one rule in general. They can't just increase the burden without a commensurate amount being removed—

Finance committee  But it's removed on Canadian business. If it's only removed on American business, this rule will not apply. The impact has to be quantified and felt here in Canada. I would also point out, because I'm not sure that I was clear enough in my statement, that it only applies where w

Finance committee  Yes.

Finance committee  That's right.

Finance committee  I want to make sure I understand the question. You're wondering how many departments have their 24 months that still haven't run out? I actually don't have the specifics on that, on how many might be left. We publish an annual report to Parliament on the cost in and cost out und

Finance committee  I'm sorry, I'm just going to find my—