Mr. Speaker, the government has acted in a number of significant ways to protect the integrity of the social insurance number. This has been recognized in the auditor general's report of December 2000. In the last two years we have conducted approximately 7,000 investigations per year, up from earlier levels of 2,500 investigations per year.
We have resources within the government and within the department that are specifically dedicated to protecting the SIN from abuse and we have specialized equipment to detect false identification documents.