Thank you, Mr. Chair.
This particular division of the bill runs from clause 304 to clause 314.
In the context of the presentation you just heard from my colleagues about moving various pieces of the EI Act into the departmental act, the text you see in these clauses reflects that move because it is happening at the same time; it makes some additional changes to some of that text to deal with the social insurance number card. It's been proposed to eliminate the production and issuance of the social insurance number card as of March 2014, so we would stop printing the card at that point. This would yield savings in the range of $1.5 million.
Fundamentally, we don't require the card for service delivery. It's the number that is the key piece within our service delivery framework. The card is merely a reminder of that number, so as of March 2014 we'll be replacing the card with a letter, which is more efficient and easier for us to print.
That's the main piece within this section. There are also some consequential changes to some other pieces of legislation relating to the Wheat Board, the Farm Income Protection Act, the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, and the Wage Earner Protection Program Act because they all make mention of the card. So those changes are strictly to reflect that.
Clause 307 talks about money, and it merely maintains the source of funding for the social insurance register and card, the program around the social insurance number. It maintains the status quo from what was before, recognizing the change in the act.
There's also a consequential change in the Canada Pension Plan Act, as it also makes reference to the card and actually requires the card to be presented to an employer within 60 days. So that has been changed to say that the number must be given to the employer within 60 days for the employer to then report it on the various documents on which they are required to do it.
At high level, that is what this section is proposing.