Human Resources committee  With respect to Canada pension plan, there are forms that are online which we print up on behalf of the family. Some families will ask us to help and sometimes we will offer that help initially to help them fill those forms out and submit them. Some families prefer to do it themselves because there are certain affairs of the deceased that they don't feel we should be privy to, which is fine, but there are families that want us to help them fill this paperwork out because for a lot of people this is the first time they've had to deal with this.

Human Resources committee  It's slightly different from province to province, but in most cases there's a wallet size and a certificate size, and they're issued the same way that birth certificates and marriage certificates are issued. Of course they're all done in the same departments in most provinces. The funeral director's statement of death has the same information on it that the provincial death certificate has.

Human Resources committee  As I mentioned earlier, one of the key delays is the time the doctor takes to fill out the cause of death, sign off on the death certificate, and then forward it to vital statistics. It doesn't come back to the funeral home for us to forward. The doctor does it. Once we've filled out the civil portion that we're required to do and we forward it to the doctor, the onus is on him to get it to vital stats.

Human Resources committee  No. It has our incorporated seal on it, but banks, insurance companies, Canada pension plan, all the agencies that people deal with accept it. We qualify who the legitimate person making the affairs is. We'll ask for the first page of the will to see who the named executor is so that we know.

Human Resources committee  Ultimately the goal would be to have an online system set up that way down the road. I'm not sure about the logistics of the implementation of that. I do see our role in this increasing.

Human Resources committee  In reference to what I was saying, what I was referring to is the time gap between vital statistics and when we have finished meeting with the families to make our arrangements. We fill out the civil portion of the registration of death with the family. That in turn is turned over to vital statistics.

Human Resources committee  Good afternoon, and thank you all for welcoming me. My name is Jim Bishop and as was just stated, I am the government relations chair for the Funeral Service Association of Canada, or FSAC, as it's commonly known. I'm also the owner and operator of Bishop's Funeral Home, which is a family run, independently owned funeral home in Fredericton, New Brunswick.