Evidence of meeting #125 for Health in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was cra.
A recording is available from Parliament.
9:35 a.m.
Assistant Commissioner, Assessment, Benefit and Service Branch, Canada Revenue Agency
You'd certainly want to have it passed by the spring of 2019 in order to implement it for February 2020.
9:35 a.m.
Calgary Rocky Ridge, CPC
That's this Parliament. All right. That's very encouraging. I'm glad to hear that there's all this.
Len, I have about a minute and a half left. Do you want to get in on that?
9:35 a.m.
Conservative
Len Webber Conservative Calgary Confederation, AB
Yes. Frank made a comment about the front of the T1 being quite crowded. You can clearly see in the documents that I have not augmented anything else on that form. I brought the Elections Canada box down a bit in order to fit in the question of organ donation.
9:35 a.m.
Conservative
Len Webber Conservative Calgary Confederation, AB
There should not even be a concern about its being crowded. Even after I look at it, I don't see it being crowded. That would be my comment.
9:35 a.m.
Calgary Rocky Ridge, CPC
I think it looks okay, too. This is all very encouraging, and I think it sounds as though, for the agency—correct me if I'm wrong here—from an administrative point of view, this can all be done.
Are there any obstacles or any reasons why, should this bill pass in this Parliament, we couldn't have this implemented and have Canadians able to consent to the use of their information for the purpose of organ donation by provincial registries?
9:40 a.m.
Assistant Commissioner, Assessment, Benefit and Service Branch, Canada Revenue Agency
For our part, we're very comfortable with the amount of work involved. We have funding, and we'll do our part to get it done. Of course, we need to have the provinces and territories participate in getting the MOU in place, and the security with respect to making sure the information is properly protected. That's going to be up to the provinces and territories. Certainly the CRA will be ready, and we'll get it done if we have willing partners.
9:40 a.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Bill Casey
Thank you very much.
Now we go to Ms. Sidhu.
I understand you're going to split your time with Mr. Ayoub. You have two and a half minutes each.
9:40 a.m.
Liberal
Sonia Sidhu Liberal Brampton South, ON
Thank you, Chair.
Thank you, Mr. Webber. I commend your efforts. Thank you very much for saving Canadians' lives. People are waiting for the organs.
One of my questions has already been answered. You said it's possible that, on the T1 layout, we can have the tick box on the front page so it can't be missed. Mr. Webber has an example: “Do you want your Provincial/Territorial government to send you a consent package so that you can register to be an organ and tissue donor at your time of death?” I think that's possible. I think most of the members are recommending that layout. It can be possible.
Number two, Mr. Hewlett said the funds are there to manage that bill. We are talking about the province. If proper training is required for families when a person is deceased, and if the approach is good, then we can get more donations. A study shows that. Sometimes an opportunity for donation is missed, as we heard from the witnesses. Are we investing those funds in the proper training as well?
9:40 a.m.
Director General, Legislative Policy Directorate, Legislative Policy and Regulatory Affairs Branch, Canada Revenue Agency
The funds that have been allocated in the fall economic statement are for the CRA's administration of this bill, which would include changes to our systems and forms, the appropriate IT work, and negotiating MOUs with the provinces and the territories. My understanding is that no funds have been allocated for any training or awareness campaigns that would incite individuals to register to donate their organs.
9:40 a.m.
Liberal
Ramez Ayoub Liberal Thérèse-De Blainville, QC
Thank you.
I have a technical question. Have you already had discussions with the provinces, or do you plan to have any discussions with them?
9:40 a.m.
Assistant Commissioner, Assessment, Benefit and Service Branch, Canada Revenue Agency
Thank you for your question.
At this point in time, we haven't had any discussions with provinces and territories.
9:40 a.m.
Liberal
Ramez Ayoub Liberal Thérèse-De Blainville, QC
Do you plan to have any discussions with them just to coordinate everything, to be ready?
9:40 a.m.
Assistant Commissioner, Assessment, Benefit and Service Branch, Canada Revenue Agency
We absolutely would be required to have those discussions to put in place the MOU. As soon as the bill passes, we would enter into those discussions. Mr. Webber has also indicated that he will be reaching out to provinces and territories to encourage them.
9:40 a.m.
Liberal
Ramez Ayoub Liberal Thérèse-De Blainville, QC
That leads to my other question. Who is going to be responsible for that to happen? Will it be federal or provincial?
9:40 a.m.
Director General, Legislative Policy Directorate, Legislative Policy and Regulatory Affairs Branch, Canada Revenue Agency
It will actually be the agency that will reach out to the provinces and territories to negotiate the memoranda of understanding.
9:40 a.m.
Liberal
Ramez Ayoub Liberal Thérèse-De Blainville, QC
I don't want to talk about the purpose of the registration. I gather that the information is sent to each province or to an agency responsible for registering people. I want to know who's responsible for the project and for making the information available.
Earlier, I asked Mr. Webber about the potential success. How many income tax returns does the Canada Revenue Agency receive each year, 25 million or 28 million? If 10% of the people who complete an income tax return tick the box, that amounts to 250,000 people in the first year. In the second year, there may be 500,000 people. However, all these people must be contacted. I'm talking about the anticipated success, but this involves having people in each province who are prepared to contact these individuals. It's important to prevent backlogs resulting from the fact that, for structural reasons, hundreds of thousands of people couldn't be contacted.
I want to know who's responsible for the success of this process. The goal is for people to register. It's not a matter of including one line in the tax return forms, then saying that people will handle the rest. That's why I want to know to what extent the addition of this line can increase the number of people in the registry.
9:45 a.m.
Assistant Commissioner, Assessment, Benefit and Service Branch, Canada Revenue Agency
There would be a very clear division of responsibility for this. For our part, the CRA would be responsible for ensuring that we communicate to Canadians very clearly in terms of the question that's laid out, to make sure the question is one that people understand. We would work on that. We would also make sure that the systems are properly in place and that the transmission of that information is done securely.
It would then be up to the provinces and territories to make sure that they have the mechanism in place to deal with capacity issues, for example, to make sure that they have the capacity to respond to however many people are asking for this information. Of course, there would be a dialogue in that, and we would share whatever information we have and indicate to them where we think potential problems are, but ultimately it would be up to the provinces and territories to do their part, because our job in this case is to transmit that information to them.
9:45 a.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Bill Casey
Okay. Thank you very much.
Mr. Hewlett, you said that someone would reach out to the provinces. I didn't hear if you said who.
9:45 a.m.
Director General, Legislative Policy Directorate, Legislative Policy and Regulatory Affairs Branch, Canada Revenue Agency
It will actually be the agency. We have an area in the agency responsible for negotiating memoranda of understanding with the provinces and territories.
9:45 a.m.
Edmonton Manning, CPC
Before I say anything, thank you, Chair. You supported my bill, among very few on the government side. Thank you again. I note that you were very supportive of the bill, from the beginning to the time the vote came in 2016.
I'm very pleased to hear that the CRA is on full readiness for that and has a full understanding of what needs to be done. That's going to leave the bill in good hands to make sure that it gets implemented.
Chair, I would suggest that we move to clause-by-clause consideration and get into it, since we may have limited time before voting.
9:45 a.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Bill Casey
In the interest of time, I'm going to go to Mr. Davies, unless anybody here has a question.
Mr. Davies, go ahead.