Finance committee  For the information contained in the crown corporation annual report, the idea is to have it made available through the course of your report. It's just a switching of vehicle. It's breaking down the information and consolidating the information four times a year, rather than presenting one part of the information annually.

Finance committee  That's correct, yes. The general review that I referred to at the beginning is part of an effort that recognizes that ultimately, in this instance, when the laws were put in place and the requirement for an annual report was included, it was at a time when it was quite difficult to obtain that information.

Finance committee  Again, our view is that the information provided is ultimately to help decision-makers make decisions, and in many cases we've found that because the annual reports contain old information, they're not that useful for decision-making purposes. One other element I would suggest, and I'll use these three as examples, is that in general the annual reports provide information in segments.

Finance committee  I honestly couldn't say.

Finance committee  We are looking into whether the act itself will be updated to reflect that alternative. As I say, in this instance it's really just focusing on this annual report, which doesn't present new or interesting information on an annual basis and does represent a bit of a misuse of resources, in the sense that there are efforts and resources deployed to put that annual report together but it doesn't bring any new information to Parliament or to Canadians.

Finance committee  Yes.

Finance committee  You're right that it is a very difficult thing to quantify. It would be hundreds of thousands of dollars, once you add up the people hours required to gather and analyze the data and put it together in a report. It's not a huge amount, but given the utility of the report, it was seen to be not a necessarily cost-effective way of presenting that information.

Finance committee  Again, I couldn't really speculate, but it is significant.

Finance committee  The source is the management accountability framework. It contains the information, which all departments make available on their respective websites. The Clerk of the Privy Council's report to the Prime Minister, which is released every year, contains that information as well.

Finance committee  That's correct: information is available in one place. The annual report was designed at a time when it was quite difficult to gather that information in an easy manner. Much of the information—in fact, all of it—now is available in a variety of online sources and can be made available, as I say, more immediately.

Finance committee  No, it's not a goal that has been achieved, and the growing sense that it's not a cost-effective alternative means that it's going to be a very difficult goal to achieve over time, particularly given other alternatives. Hybrid cars, for example, are not included in that definition of alternative fuels.

Finance committee  I will. Good morning. I do have a statement to read, just to indicate in more detail what we're proposing. Before doing that, I'd like to provide some context. These proposals are part of a generalized review we've been undertaking within the Treasury Board Secretariat, looking at reporting requirements and trying to find ways to reassess them in terms of the resources that are put into creating them and to try to eliminate where it seems appropriate to do so.