Human Resources Committee on Oct. 28th, 2014

[Jim Bishop]

Of our membership and the people in our industry whom we've talked to about this bill, there are of course no negatives. It's a no-brainer. It seems to be a very great streamlining process for people who look after the executorship of an estate.

With the public, they are always looking for direction from us because a lot of these people have never had to be executors before. When they walk in, they're coming to see us because they need direction, guidance, and help. That paperwork process is just as much a part of that as how many days of visitation they should have, or whether they should cremate their mom or have her in a traditional casket. The paperwork is just as daunting as all the other decisions they have to make for that funeral.

They haven't been spoken to specifically about this bill, but the problem that this bill is trying to alleviate, that problem has been talked about on numerous occasions just through the course of a normal funeral arrangement.

[The Chair, Conservative, Phil McColeman]

Thank you very much.

That's over time, so we will move to Madam Groguhé.

[Sadia Groguhé, NDP, Saint-Lambert, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

In his opening remarks, the administration official said that we must keep in mind that the representative of the estate would be the one communicating information on deaths to Service Canada. I think this consideration is important in terms of the bill. He pointed out that, by prescribing this specific mechanism, implementing the bill would require the introduction of new measures to ensure that the representative is actually who they say they are.

Mr. Bishop, what recommendation could you make to our committee to make this process much simpler than it is right now?

[Jim Bishop]

Policy-wise, I couldn't speak to that because I'm not sure what logistics would be involved on their side. On our side, my take on it is that whatever they decide, if it's going to expedite things and make it easier for families, that would meet my main concern. As for how it goes about arriving at that point, I couldn't really speak to that as far as the logistics go. I wouldn't know.

[Sadia Groguhé, NDP, Saint-Lambert, QC]

I am asking you this question because you mentioned the possibility of funeral services becoming a link in the chain of information. That is why I asked you that question. We are trying to see whether the bill can be passed in its current form or whether we need to amend it.

You talked about the possibility of you becoming a link in this chain. In reality, you already are a link. Should we expect to see funeral services play a different role?

[Jim Bishop]

No, I don't believe we need a different role. It's just that we are the people on the ground who are dealing with these families on a day-to-day basis, and we are the first point of contact for these families.

As far as streamlining is concerned, as I said, we would like to partner with you folks with respect to giving our input from our industry side, our experience. As far as the policy-makers go, they would be better suited to do the streamlining, but we certainly want to be a consulted in that process. We may have some information that may be beneficial as you investigate this and move forward. In the future, as you try and logistically plan this out on how it's going to be implemented, we certainly want to partner with you on that. We'll give you all the information and experience that we have as an association through all of our funeral home members, if it helps accommodate routes that you plan to go in for the implementation of the bill.

[Sadia Groguhé, NDP, Saint-Lambert, QC]

You also talked about the fact that the Canada Revenue Agency centralizes information and can communicate it to other departments as long as they have access to the social insurance number. Of course, with that configuration, there seem to be breakdowns in communicating information.

Mr. McCuaig, do you think that these breakdowns are the result of a shortage in staff or something else? How do you see the current breakdown at the Canada Revenue Agency?

[Steve McCuaig]

I personally don't represent the employees of the Canada Revenue Agency. That being said, we are talking about the possibility of bringing together about 10 or even 20 departments within the same process. However, each department has its own automated system, and they do not necessarily communicate with each other. That is often where our initiatives break down.

People in the technology sector should really be the ones involved in this. We need studies to determine whether communication is working between various departments. That is being done automatically, so not necessarily person to person. That is an important aspect. If we cannot actually manage to merge the systems, we will not be able to merge the departments and the work cannot get done.

I hope I have answered your question properly. I am not sure I completely understood it. I am not in the technical field, but I know enough about it to say that each department has its own automated system and that those systems do not always communicate with each other.

[Sadia Groguhé, NDP, Saint-Lambert, QC]

Okay, thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Phil McColeman]

We will go to Mrs. McLeod.

[Cathy McLeod, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

I too would like to thank the witnesses for their comments today. Perhaps I'm going to head into the weeds more than necessary, but I think sometimes it's helpful for parliamentarians to understand some of those weedy issues. Certainly at the 100,000-foot level I think we're all right here with Mr. Valeriote and this bill. Is it practicable, feasible, doable? Is the money spent worth the money to be spent?

First of all, I have a quick question out of curiosity. I believe the officials talked about 99% of people who go through a funeral home. You had an 85% number. Is that for the same thing or is that something different?

[Jim Bishop]

We represent 85% of the deaths in Canada.

[Cathy McLeod, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

The association...?

[Jim Bishop]

The association does, yes.

[Cathy McLeod, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

How does that 1%, I guess it's people who are never recovered, or where does that 1% come from?

[Jim Bishop]

There is that factor and then there are people who choose through religious practice in certain cases not to deal with a funeral home and they handle things internally.

[Cathy McLeod, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

As I understand it right now, we have information that's anywhere from 7 to 48 days, that goes from vital statistics to the federal government and then it has varying degrees of spread within the federal government. Vital statistics gives the alert and maybe the legal pieces to the public. What does the family actually have to do right now?

[Jim Bishop]

During that period where the—

[Cathy McLeod, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

Vital statistics is doing its piece and the family is...?

[Jim Bishop]

What we're doing during that time is we've provided the family initially at the service with those statements of death that the funeral home issues. They have the documentation they need to go ahead and settle the person's affairs. As I said, the funeral directors' statements of death are accepted by all the major agencies: banks, insurance companies, Canada pension. They can go ahead and start tackling all these affairs before that death registration gets filed with vital statistics and then is accessible to Service Canada. It's through our documents that they're able to begin in a timely fashion, within days of the funeral happening. I know in our practice and in a lot of funeral homes, we provide families with that documentation on the day of the funeral. When they leave the cemetery, the church, or the reception, they have a package with all of their documentation to do with that funeral in their hand as well as those proofs of death.

[Cathy McLeod, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

If a family member never does anything, is the vital statistic process going to put all those pieces into progress?

[Jim Bishop]

Yes, but what will happen is, until the death is registered with vital statistics, if that paper is still at the doctor's office or it has reached vital statistics and they've come in droves and it's taking them a few days to enter that information into their system, you will have the odd case for a family where they'll be dealing with an insurance company or somebody that doesn't recognize...99% of them recognize the funeral director's statement of death but you do run into that odd situation where they want a provincial death certificate which has the same information that the one the funeral home provides has. As I say, the difference is that one is issued by the province and one by a funeral home. Some of these more obscure insurance companies that some people deal with may say they want the provincial or government death certificate, not the funeral home's. There will be a delay in that happening because they're waiting for that to be filed so it can exist in the system and be generated for them to go and obtain.

[Cathy McLeod, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

You talked about looking at the will. Is there proof it's the latest will? Do you ever run into those kinds of issues, in terms of vital statistics having the ability to recoup more recent information, as an example? Are there any sorts of challenges with the information you get, which is voluntarily given, versus what might pass through the system?

[Jim Bishop]

The onus is on the family, obviously, to disclose the proper information to a funeral home concerning who the person is who is legally responsible for the arrangements. We make that a policy within our funeral home. It's not a mandated nationwide application, but a lot of funeral homes subscribe to that. We ask for that first page of the will so we can see the executor's name.

If that will is superseded by a newer will, how would we really know? We have to go with what they're bringing in to us. If there has been one since the one that the person is producing, until we see a newer one we have to assume that this is the correct information.

As far as funeral homes go, I would say we try to validate the person we are dealing with as best we can, so when we issue our statements and we show the person who is in charge of our documents, to our minds and to the best of our knowledge, the information is correct.

[The Chair, Conservative, Phil McColeman]

Thank you very much. That wraps up our questioning. We are now at the end of our meeting. We want to thank both of the witnesses for taking the time to be here with us today to share their views and to answer the questions of committee members.

The meeting is adjourned.