Thank you for that question. It's a very practical question.
I practised a lot of estate work and I'll put myself back into that role for a moment and give you a picture of what can happen as a lawyer. I certainly know what funeral directors go through as well.
Somebody would come into my office after one of their family members had died. Some of them were well aware of what the affairs were of the deceased. Some were completely unaware of what the affairs of the deceased were. Some had been given documents from the funeral director, thankfully, who told them to fill the documents out and apply for a death benefit or any other benefits that may be available. Some funeral directors help them with the completion of that documentation. Some don't have the resources to do that.
Some who hadn't filled them out would come to my office. I naturally would encourage them to do it themselves, because you don't want to pay a lawyer to do these things. Some of them don't have access to a computer, or if there is a computer, they don't know how to use it. If they do know how to use it, they're confused and confounded by what might appear on the Service Canada website. Even the Auditor General and the minister said it can be confusing. There are those who still go to the blue pages in the telephone book; I know I've used those recently. Some of them will try to make the phone call. Some of them will leave the work with the lawyer.
We're at that stage of already a daunting task and confusion. They may have to apply for Canada pension plan or OAS either for payments that are owing to them or in another situation returning the payments because no notification was given. You'll hear later of circumstances and I've seen it week after week after week where months of payments are made because nobody advised the government that the person was deceased. You have to apply separately for the HST or GST credit to stop, depending on the province you're in. You have to apply separately with the CRA to notify them of a death. Each department might require different documents. Some want just the death certificate. Some want the will and the death certificate.
That in general is the confusion, the matrix that someone, the representative of the deceased, faces when someone dies. That's the practical perspective. It's our obligation I think, and I think you agree with me, to help them through that by having one single point of contact, one single amount of information that has to be given, and given once.