Human Resources committee  No, I don't, unfortunately. I'm not in a position to say where the U.K. government is anticipating those savings. I know that in our current process it will provide us a much greater efficiency in terms of the largest programs that affect the most number of Canadians. One of the

Human Resources committee  Yes, there is. The securest way for us to receive information is through an electronic network. It has the IT protections. Also, more importantly, it's the authoritative source. That means after the death certificate goes to the vital stats agency, they validate the information s

Human Resources committee  I can't really speak for my colleagues at CRA, but I can speak from our point of view. As I said earlier, we provide the information, a copy of the social insurance register, each week to CRA so they have the information. They will have an updated version of the social insuranc

Human Resources committee  In our initial analysis, we've determined that some departments that currently do not have access to the social insurance number for this purpose would benefit greatly from it. One would be Passport. It's demonstrated in the need to be informed upon a death. Passport Canada wan

Human Resources committee  We have an agreement with the OAS program right now concerning Veterans Affairs. They get the information from the social insurance register and then they are allowed to inform Veterans Affairs Canada of deaths for those individuals who are on OAS. However, in the rare case wher

Human Resources committee  I think what this process has highlighted for Service Canada is that there are some improvements to be made in how we communicate what needs to be done and what is automatically done upon the death of an individual. Using the funeral association is a big part of that. Through ou

Human Resources committee  Treasury Board authorizes the use of the social insurance number under the directive of the use and operation of the social insurance number. Departments can obtain that authority either through the Treasury Board through regulation or they can do it through the departmental legi

Human Resources committee  As I stated in my opening remarks, we have done an initial estimate. To bring another department online to the electronic link that we have to allow us to upload that information out of the social insurance register, our estimate is about $900,000 per department and then about $5

Human Resources committee  At this point it would be difficult to say what any potential savings would be. However, there would definitely be an increase in efficiencies for the department to our current processes right now.

Human Resources committee  Mr. Chairman, I can say that with any service that Service Canada provides, there are considerations made for in-person, using the Internet, as well as telephone availability through 1-800-O-Canada, etc. With any type of service that Service Canada puts in place, that is availabl

Human Resources committee  The first consideration we have is the authority to use a social insurance number. It may be helpful to explain in layman's terms how the current process works. If an individual passes, the death certificate is filled out by the funeral director. The death certificate is sent t

Human Resources committee  It would be difficult to speculate on how long it would take. For example, for certain programs, to get authority to collect the social insurance number would require legislative change or regulatory change. That can take some time, so it would be difficult to say. It would depen

Human Resources committee  Mr. Chairman and committee members, as stated, my name is Robert Frelich, and I am the director general of identity policy and programs within Service Canada. I'm pleased to be appearing before the Standing Committee on Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Statu