Mr. Chair, let me begin by saying that the passport is not currently one of the documents we use for the purposes of issuing SINs. What we decided several years ago is to go back to foundation documents. You'll recall that in 2002, when the Auditor General looked at the SIN program, she found that there were several dozen different kinds of documents that could be used in the SIN issuance process as proof of identity, including photocopies of those documents that were notarized. The department decided to consolidate, go to the basic documents like the birth certificate and a handful of other documents, and build up from there.
The passport, as we all know, requires a proof of citizenship to be obtained and also includes a picture, which could be useful, and I wouldn't discount our allowing some of our clients in the future to use it if they happen not to have the birth certificate for some reason. But I'd like to point out that an awful lot of the SIN recipients are under 16 years old. So while a SIN could be used, it would almost never be used, given the way we've seen our clientele for SINs develop over time. I'm sure you know why that would be, with registered education saving plans and so on or new immigrants to Canada. Then the Canadian passport isn't the first document they would get. The SIN would probably be first.
But it's something we're always looking at. Part of what we want to do is maintain integrity at the same time as we provide good service to Canadians, and it is true that if you've invested in a passport and lined up to get one, then you ought to be able to use it for perhaps other government services. So it's something we'll take away and we'll look at again.