Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I refer the committee to an audit we did on the old age security program, which was tabled in November 2006. In fact, we looked at the whole question of how proactive the government had been in informing senior citizens and citizens in general about the benefits they could receive. We noted in that audit that in the last two or three years the government had put much more attention into that and been much more proactive. We noted that there had been quite a bit of improvement.
I think one recommendation we made was that they still weren't tracking very well the potential numbers of people who could be receiving the benefits and looking at how well their outreach activities were working. But there had been improvement in the last few years.
We also noticed that they used the Canada Revenue Agency database, for example, for the guaranteed income supplement, which is an error. I think there were a lot of questions raised about people who needed it not applying for it and receiving it. But I don't believe that would necessarily resolve the issues with the social insurance number and the register.
Before 1976 the process around applications and receiving a number were not as rigorous, and certainly not as rigorous as they are today. In fact, many people have told me they received a new social insurance number every time they had a summer job. So people could have more than one social insurance number--duplicates--that they received over time. It's a question of cleaning up the register.
The links to vital statistics in the provinces will also give better information to be able to take out numbers for people who are deceased. Then there's the whole question of people who have emigrated from the country whose numbers may still be in the register.
So it's a question of actually improving the quality of the information in there and maintaining it over time. I don't think it would really resolve the issue. Obviously some files might become active if people haven't applied for benefits to which they are entitled. They would have to reactivate their numbers.