HUMA Committee Meeting

STANDING COMMITTEE ON HUMAN RESOURCES DEVELOPMENT AND THE STATUS OF PERSONS WITH DISABILITIES

COMITÉ PERMANENT DU DÉVELOPPEMENT DES RESSOURCES HUMAINES ET DE LA CONDITION DES PERSONNES HANDICAPÉES

EVIDENCE

[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]

Thursday, November 18, 1999

• 1136

[English]

The Chair (Mr. Peter Adams (Peterborough, Lib.)): Colleagues, I think we'll begin. You know what our main item of business is, and I'll introduce the witnesses in a moment. There are just a couple of things.

I'd like to remind you, as I've done before—and we have some new colleagues here—of our agenda for the next several weeks. Today we will be considering the report on the social insurance number, Beyond the Numbers: The Future of the Social Insurance Number System in Canada, and the government response, which I think we've all received.

On November 23 we will be considering the report of the subcommittee on children and youth at risk and on November 25 the report on post-secondary education. In each case we will be considering the government response, or lack of response. On November 30 we will be considering a report on older workers and on December 2 the report of the subcommittee on persons with disabilities, and the government response, which we hope we'll have.

The idea is that we will be addressing the main themes the committee has considered—the reports and the interim reports the committee produced—to see where we stand and design what we will do in the future. So that's what the agenda is.

If I can also go back, we now have two subcommittees. One is on children at risk and the other is on persons with disabilities. It's my understanding that for the one on persons with disabilities, we have all or virtually all of the members. We will confirm that we have a member from every party, and when we do we will issue the news release the committee authorized with respect to the establishment of that committee. I don't think that is new. That is what we're going to do.

With respect to the second subcommittee, on children at risk, I would say to the chair, who is here, that we apparently lack two Liberal members. I think the problem is a technical one, in that they're not yet associate members of the committee. I would urge you to do that as soon as possible.

Mr. John Godfrey (Don Valley West, Lib.): How do we make them associate members?

The Chair: They write to our whip—

Mr. John Godfrey: —to say they wish to be associates.

The Chair: Yes, that's right.

Mr. John Godfrey: Okay.

The Chair: I'm not introducing new business. We'll circulate a draft news release, so at our next meeting we can approve it, with respect to the second subcommittee, in the same way we did for the first subcommittee.

Very briefly, John Godfrey.

Mr. John Godfrey: If we manage to pull all this off, our first meeting will be next Wednesday at 3.30 p.m., to mark the tenth anniversary of the all-party declaration on child poverty. We are assembling a list of witnesses.

The Chair: That's a notice, and notice will go to the members of the committee. I'm very pleased to hear that.

The Clerk of the Committee: It will be an organizational meeting—

The Chair: That's up to the committee.

The Clerk: —without witnesses.

The Chair: I don't want to discuss new business now because our witnesses have been waiting a long time.

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We have with us John Knubley, who'll introduce himself and his title in a moment, and Doug Matheson and Johanne Bélisle. I welcome you to our committee. I apologize. I think you understand that there were votes in the House of Commons and we're starting late.

I think you know why we're here. John has a presentation, so proceed, and then his colleagues may have something to say.

A point of order, Judi Longfield.

Ms. Judi Longfield (Whitby—Ajax, Lib.): Mr. Chairman, given Senator Finestone's history with this committee and her intense interest in the subject, and because she is a member of Parliament, I wonder if we might have consent so that she could join us at the table and be able to pose questions to the witnesses, within our own time allotment. I'm not saying we would get extra time on this; I would give up my appropriation to her.

The Chair: Okay, I will have to seek consent on that.

Senator Finestone was previously a member of this committee. The question is that she sit at the table and join us.

Ms. Judi Longfield: I would step back.

[Translation]

The Chair: Paul Crête.

Mr. Paul Crête (Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup—Témiscouata—Les Basques, BQ): If I understand correctly, Ms. Longfield would like to give her time to the senator. Is that right?

The Chair: Yes, that's right.

Mr. Paul Crête: And that will be counted as part of the Liberals' time.

The Chair: Yes.

Mr. Paul Crête: I don't have a problem with this as such; I am just afraid of creating a precedent.

The Chair: Agreed.

Mr. Paul Crête: I would like to be sure that, if we agree to this now, it will not set a precedent.

[English]

The Chair: Without spending a long time on this, could I ask then, as a compromise, that given her history with the committee, the senator be asked to sit with us, but not participate in the questioning?

[Translation]

Mr. Paul Crête: I have no objection.

The Chair: Does everyone else agree?

Some hon. members: Yes.

[English]

The Chair: Senator Finestone, we welcome you to our committee. We're very pleased to see you here again. You've heard the discussion. Thank you very much.

John Knubley, please proceed.

Mr. John Knubley (Assistant Deputy Minister, Insurance, Department of Human Resources Development): Thank you very much for inviting us today.

I'm here as ADM of insurance from HRDC. With me are Doug Matheson, director general, insurance services, and Johanne Bélisle, director general, investigation and control.

As ADM of insurance, we work together on the administration of EI, part one. You might ask what this has to do with the social insurance number. The Employment Insurance Act, from section 139 to section 141, I believe—I'm working from memory—addresses the issue of the social insurance number. So I'm the person responsible for administration of the SIN within HRDC.

I want to talk about three things. I recognize we've lost a good deal of time here, but I think it is important that I spend some time, because I understand you just received our response on November 16. I want to talk about the government's response and cover some of the issues there, review what progress has been made in meeting the Auditor General's recommendations, and talk about some of the next steps I think you'll be interested in, particularly the outstanding commitments to this committee.

I also want to apologize for the fact that you haven't had more time to review our response. But let me move quickly to what I think are the key elements.

Our response begins by agreeing that there is a need to make progress on two tracks: administrative and policy. We try to be positive to all of the recommendations, although, as I think you know, there are two or three areas where we have proposed some alternate actions.

On the administrative side, the response lays out the steps that have already been implemented, consistent with the recommendations of the Auditor General and the parliamentary committee. I will detail those a little later. The bottom line is I think we're on track, and we are making progress in terms of addressing the issues the Auditor General raised.

[Translation]

Now we come to issues where our opinions diverge. In your report, you asked HRDC to establish a new performance measure. That is in recommendation 12. Since we have been unable to obtain the data required to create such a measure from other governments and their organizations, we have begun talks with Treasury Board in order to suggest other indicators for prevention, early intervention and savings, among other things.

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[English]

Your report also recommended that new legislation be developed that would set out legal uses for the SIN and impose penalties for abuse. That is recommendation two. Our response indicates that the intent of this recommendation is addressed effectively through what was called Bill C-54—now Bill C-6, the personal information protection and electronic documents act. It also says that amendments to the EI Act are being considered to impose administrative penalties for SIN abuse.

I should note as well that the response to recommendation 17, which seeks to clarify the privacy dimensions at play, was drafted by the Department of Justice in consultation with Industry and Treasury Board.

The basic issue here, as I understand it, is the role Bill C-6 can play in regard to the use of personal information, such as the SIN, in the private sector. The government believes the body of case law that has emerged, based on the charter, the Criminal Code, the Privacy Act, and the forthcoming Bill C-6, would respond to the committee's concerns in terms of privacy in the federally regulated sector.

Ultimately, Bill C-6 would also apply to the provincially regulated sector, in the absence of similar provincial legislation, three years after coming into effect. I must stress that these are issues my colleagues in Treasury Board and Industry are responsible for addressing.

With the above exceptions, we agreed in full with the remaining recommendations. For example, the response indicated that HRDC would provide ongoing summaries of activities in support of improved SIN administration through the department's annual performance report. That process has already begun with the DPR for this fiscal year.

On one point of clarification, we will also, in cooperation with Industry, implement a communications strategy to inform Canadians of the proper use of the SIN and take steps to ensure only information that is clearly relevant to verifying the applicant's identity will be requested. We will want to do this in coordination with our colleagues responsible for Bill C-6.

I think we have made a lot of progress on the administrative side.

[Translation]

To follow up on the Auditor General's report and the reports of your own committee and the Public Accounts Committee, HRDC and other departments immediately took measures to purge the register. Thus, all social insurance numbers that remained unused over the past five years and were held by people over 23 were declared dormant. That represents about 2.27 million numbers.

[English]

We've declared a number of files dormant, to address the issue of deaths related to the SIN file. The dormant flag approach has also lowered the 900 series SINs by some 320,000. These SINs are normally assigned to people who are not permanent residents of Canada under the Immigration Act, such as those working temporarily in Canada, international students, and refugee claimants.

In July 1999, old age security death data for the eight years prior to May 1999 was added to the SIR. This was possible because of amendments to the Old Age Security Act. Until that time, data matching was not allowed under the terms of the act. So we are now using OAS data to provide a monthly update of newly reported deaths.

Some 250,000 dates of birth have been corrected on the SIR, through file comparisons with CPP and OAS programs.

On the fraud side, HRDC has also taken steps. We've established a separate SIN investigations unit, which has led to a doubling of SIN investigations to 7,000 per year.

On the federal-provincial front, we're making progress. We're negotiating with vital statistics agencies and social services agencies and we're involved with the privacy commissioners of the provinces to facilitate the exchange of data. That will allow us to confirm deaths and births in relation to the SIN registry and SIN files.

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The challenge on the federal-provincial front is that we really want to establish arrangements that recognize the benefits of the two-way flow of information between all levels of government, and that may be something we'll want to come back to discuss.

Bottom line, net impact: the number of certified SINS has been increased by 5.4 million, and some 2.6 million SIN numbers have been flagged as dormant on the SIR.

For example, where the Auditor General indicated we had 311,000 SIN cards for people greater than the age of 100 and yet the census showed only 3,000 people over the age of 100, we have now closed the gap by 300,000. The gap remains between 11,000 and 3,000. I give that as a concrete example of the extent to which we have made progress in this area.

Let me last turn to talk of a few next steps. In terms of next steps, our main focus is responding to your request for two papers. The first paper will examine the possible options for future uses of the SIN, and the second paper relates to the SIN investigation plan. You had asked for both of these by December 31. We're on track to meet that deadline, and we're working on these papers as we meet with you.

I think the policy paper will weigh the merits of the current SIN system, including Bill C-6, against a legislatively restricted SIN system, something you focused on as a committee, and also compared to an expanded SIN system, akin to a national personal identity number, that might be used by all sectors of Canadian society and economy. So there are those three basic options that we're looking at.

[Translation]

We are now drafting the policy paper with assistance from Industry Canada, Justice Canada and Treasury Board officials. We are trying to determine whether we need to go beyond the current system, and are also seeking to achieve a balance between the interests of privacy advocates and the interests of those who believe an expanded identity card system would be more efficient.

[English]

In addition, the action plan on SIN investigations will consider a number of challenges for your consideration, in particular how to promote deterrents outside federal jurisdiction. Bottom line: we're on track to deliver both reports by year end.

In summary, I believe the response we've made to you lays out the efforts HRDC has taken to date. We've made a good deal of progress. The introduction of Bill C-6 will provide a useful framework for the protection of personal information. The administrative changes we are making have improved and will continue to improve the integrity and efficiency of the SIN system, and I'm confident that Canadians will be reassured by the actions we're taking.

I look forward to your questions. Thank you.

[Translation]

The Chair: Thank you, John. Do your colleagues have anything to add?

Mr. John Knubley: No.

[English]

The Chair: Maurice Vellacott, then Paul Crête.

Mr. Maurice Vellacott (Wanuskewin, Ref.): Mr. Knubley, the government rejected recommendation two of the committee here and has instead referred to Bill C-54, or Bill C-6, which has passed the House of Commons and is in debate now in the Senate, in terms of providing a “general term privacy framework”. How do you see that “policy framework” in Bill C-6?

There's also some mention of as yet undrafted amendments to the EI act. How do you think that will deter and firmly prevent illegal acts that are now taking place? Will there be enough teeth in it, I guess is my question.

Mr. John Knubley: I think my answer is that the combination of the administrative cleanup, plus the initiatives undertaken in relation to Bill C-6, will do the trick. As you know, although I am not an expert in relation to Bill C-6, it does provide for a privacy framework, first in regard to the federal sector and after three years subsequently with the provincial regimes.

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In addition, it gives further powers to the privacy commissioner to play a role, particularly from a moral suasion perspective, in relation to problems that arise from a citizen's perspective in relation to privacy issues. I think those steps, combined with the administrative initiatives we've taken and are taking, strongly shore up the SIN system along the lines your report was seeking.

Doug, did you want to add anything particular on the issue of C-6?

The Chair: Doug Matheson.

Mr. Doug Matheson (Director General, Insurance Service, Department of Human Resources Development): Bill C-6, through a number of clauses, lays out a framework for dealing with the private sector, something the current bill, the EI Act, does not do.

Now, in Bill C-6 it talks about personal information in its totality, not simply the social insurance number, although the social insurance number is an important part of the personal information and is recognized as a key to data matching, and therefore is at the centre of some of the discussion.

That particular bill, when in comes into force—as John mentioned, it will take three years to take effect in the private sector, in provincial jurisdictions other than Quebec, where Quebec already has a set of privacy laws. I think when that's combined with the investigatory activity in our own department, that would provide a strong detection and deterrence regime to protect personal privacy around the use of the social insurance number.

Mr. Maurice Vellacott: I have a follow-up question then. If the government continues to reject a specific law that punishes SIN abuse, do you think there'd be a possibility of undertaking to amend the EI Act, so you come up with something very specific in terms of prohibition and punishment? Can that be done—amending the EI Act—in the current session of Parliament?

Mr. John Knubley: Well, one thing we are looking at, and I omitted to include that as part of the answer to your previous question, is penalties with respect to SIN fraud. One of the things we are specifically looking at are possible draft amendments to the EI Act in relation to such penalties.

Mr. Maurice Vellacott: No time periods as to when you might have those or when the government would bring those forward?

Mr. John Knubley: We are working as quickly as possible to do the draft amendments. On the issue of when you would have a series of EI amendments, that's a much broader question. I'm not in a position to know at this point in time when that would be.

Johanne, did you want to add anything?

Ms. Johanne Bélisle (Director General, Investigation and Control, Insurance, Department of Human Resources Development): I would just remind the committee that there are sanctions in the EI Act for SIN fraud, but the current penalties involve prosecution only as the only mechanism. We all know how that can be time consuming and costly.

The current act does provide for severe penalties—a fine of $1,000 or up to a year in jail—but the only mechanism we have is court and criminal prosecution. So the introduction of administrative penalties would increase the deterrence because it would allow us to pursue more cases and impose penalties much more efficiently. That's the same way we run our investigate and control program for the employment insurance program.

The Chair: Maurice, is that okay? Can we move on?

Mr. Maurice Vellacott: For now, yes.

The Chair: Colleagues, I would remind you this is not for the witnesses that the chair is here. As I said before, we want as good an exchange as we can, but I think it is often better if the chair is involved in it.

[Translation]

Paul Crête.

Mr. Paul Crête: Let's remember that, after the Auditor General raised the alarm, we worked hard to come up with a unanimous report. I am therefore very disappointed with the department's response. I will ask a number of questions on the recommendations. I will put all my questions together.

Our first recommendation raised the issues of privacy and data-matching. The data-matching issue was dealt with by referring us back to Bill C-54. You have said nothing about data-matching in your response.

In recommendation 3, we asked that a study on the impact and use of the SIN be carried out and completed by December 31, 1999. We set that deadline because the matter was urgent. Thousands of people who were over 100 years old, and who had been dead for years, were still in the system. Now, we get referred to the October 2000 performance report. We examined the 1999 performance report last week, and saw that when it came to an urgent problem we were referred to the 2000 report. I would like to know why your department decided not to accept a unanimous request by the committee, which represents all parties.

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In recommendation 4, we suggested that all 900-series SIN cards have an expiry date on them, because we felt this would dissuade people from abusing them. The 900 series are SIN numbers issued on temporary cards, for example to non-permanent residents, seasonal workers and foreign students. We recommended that those cards have an expiry date on them. Your department decided not to put an expiry date on the cards, but to enter the expiry date in the register. So someone could be walking around with an expired card for four or five years, and still think it's valid.

In response to recommendation 5—and this one really takes the cake—the government states that the public education campaign will be linked to Bill C-54, rather than to the SIN. But the problem we were targeting was improper management of the SIN. People simply don't know that the SIN is supposed to be used only for employment insurance and a number of other federal programs. It is asked for everywhere, when you rent movies, rent a car, or ask for a loan. Though this is not really illegal, people are not required to give their SIN numbers to car rental companies or banks. But instead of a public education campaign to explain this to Canadians, we will be getting a communications strategy linked to Bill C-54. I have nothing against Bill C-54, but that is not the issue we were examining here. We were examining the issue of social insurance numbers.

In response to recommendation 10, the government states that it will continue to take measures to ensure the protection of privacy. That doesn't mean very much, given the current crisis.

As for the response to recommendation 12, does the government intend to come back to some sort of EI quota? That's one question we should ask.

In conclusion, I have specific questions for the departmental officials. Both the Auditor General's report and this committee's unanimous report raised the alarm: does this not impose some obligation on the government to comply with deadlines and take into account the suggestions put forward so that we can turn the system around? That is what we have to do. Tweaking the system won't do any good at all. To work properly, it has to be revamped almost completely.

The Chair: Please address your remarks to the chairman.

Mr. Paul Crête: Yes, Mr. Chairman. My remarks are addressed to you. I would like answers to my questions so that we can see where we are going. I am considering a motion to censure the government for its response to this unanimous report tabled by members of Parliament. There was another report incorporated into this one—the Finestone report, in which we examined a number of things in depth. In its response, the government seems to be putting recommendations in the Finestone report aside, yet these were recommendations this committee had incorporated into its own report. They had been unanimously adopted by the committee. Why was it decided not to implement any of these recommendations?

The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Crête. I will ask Johanne Bélisle to answer all your questions. Generally, I do not share the member's view. I hope that Bill C-6 and an administrative clean-up of our files will persuade Canadians that we have a sound and well- managed social insurance number system. I am convinced we are well on the way to making it so.

Mr. Paul Crête: So I am to understand that past performance is no indication of future performance.

The Chair: You have asked too many questions. As I explained, we are currently preparing a report on policy options for data-matching. In the report, we indicate that we would be ready to prepare that by a given date.

Obviously, there will be questions on data-matching. At our last meeting, I believe me mentioned the Belgian Crossroads model. That's where we're at on data-matching.

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Mr. Paul Crête: On the issue of data-matching, Mr. Knubley, the government is bogged down in its attempts to deal with travelling unemployed persons. The government had decided to recover its money, but now the issue is before the courts, and we are awaiting a decision. When we end up before the courts, it is often because we did not do our work properly. I don't mean individuals, I mean the department.

The Chair: Johanne.

Ms. Johanne Bélisle: On the administrative front, we have put in a great deal of effort to clean up the register and ensure its integrity. Those measures have reduced fraud, because the system is now more secure. We have not yet published our action plan for fraud investigations, but you will see that our measures target the problem at a number of levels.

First, we need to establish new programs to identify fraud. Second, we need to deal with prevention: we need to ensure that fraudulent cards are not issued in the first place. This is very important. Third, we need to establish sanctions: the penalties to be imposed in case of fraud. Fourth, we need to ensure co-operation with the provinces and other stakeholders: how do we establish the best links? The issue of fraud...

[English]

Ms. Karen Redman (Kitchener Centre, Lib.): Mr. Chair, I have a point of information.

The Chair: It's to the same point, is it?

Ms. Karen Redman: Yes, it is. I'm wondering if we could have the report being referenced tabled for the information of the committee.

Ms. Johanne Bélisle: That's the one due out to the committee on December 31. We're working on it currently.

The Chair: Please continue with Monsieur Crête's question.

[Translation]

Ms. Johanne Bélisle: One part of the problem with SIN card fraud is communication with other stakeholders. For example, there is now more communication with police forces, so that we can keep them informed. We are also working to establish ties with the provinces to keep the system secure. We are tackling the problem at a number of levels.

You also mentioned the public education campaign. Perhaps the report was misleading. We have every intention of embarking on a public education campaign to inform Canadians, in co-operation with Industry Canada. Though this is linked to C-54, the campaign will have two specific goals. First, we want to inform people how they should be protecting their card, what the card is supposed to be used for, and when they should be and should not be giving out a SIN number. Second, we want to raise awareness in the private sector so that businesses and other organizations know when they can ask for a SIN number and when they cannot. We also want to inform them about sanctions provided for in C-54, as well as by our department.

Though this may not have been stated clearly in our report, we have every intention of instituting a public education campaign on the social insurance number itself.

The Chair: I believe Mr. Crête also asked about 900-series cards. Would Mr. Matheson like to answer that?

[English]

Mr. Doug Matheson: In fact, Mr. Crête raised three specific questions about recommendations 3, 4, and 5.

On the question of the 900 series SIN cards, the committee recommended putting the expiry date on the card. The expiry date would relate to the end date of the person's legal time in Canada as deemed by Citizenship and Immigration. There are two sets of difficulties with putting the date on the card, which led us to recommend an action to put the date on the registry itself.

The first has to do with the fact that the reason for the social insurance number in the first place is as a file identifier. People have dealings with the government after their death—not them, of course, but their estate—and as individuals they have many dealings with the government even after they're no longer able to be in the country as citizens. They are allowed to receive, under certain circumstances, pension payments, and they must pay income taxes in certain cases and so on. Their account is still valid even though they may not be allowed to work in the country, for example.

The other source of concern with putting the date on the card is that it reveals personal information about the individual that we may not be able to reveal; that is to say, the extent of their stay in Canada as deemed by Citizenship and Immigration is not a piece of information that we're allowed to divulge ourselves. I think this point was made clear by the Privacy Commissioner in his recent report, where he looked at the dormant accounts and raised the same concerns over the flag we put there, even though that information was only available to a very select audience of public servants.

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In terms of the other two questions that—

[Translation]

That's right.

Mr. Paul Crête: I would have a very brief question on this, Mr. Chairman.

The Chair: Go ahead.

[English]

Paul, could you be fairly quick, because we're up over 10 minutes now? It's a very good line of questioning—I'm delighted—but it's a bit long.

[Translation]

Mr. Paul Crête: Don't we run into a potential legal problem when the SIN card itself does not bear an expiry date, yet there is an expiry date in the register? When you pull in at a gas station, you'll read a notice stating that if there is a difference between the price shown at the pump after your fill-up and the price on the meter inside the store, you pay the price on the pump. So doesn't this pose a legal problem? Some people might use the card improperly because of this, or commit outright fraud. Yet they will have a foolproof argument: when they're told their card has expired, they will just hold it up and say there is no expiry date on it.

I would like your views on this.

[English]

The Chair: Could you, gentlemen and lady, keep it fairly short? There's a bit of a rotation here.

Mr. Doug Matheson: The short answer to Mr. Crête's comment is that the social insurance number card, in and of itself, is not a document that proves to an employer that the person who holds the card is eligible to work, for example, and the employer should actually see the immigration document itself. The card itself should not lead the employer to believe he could hire the person; he has to actually see that document. Employers know by virtue of the fact that it's a 900 series card that the holder of the card is not a citizen like you or I, that the person is in fact somebody who's here on a temporary basis.

The Chair: Thank you very much.

John Godfrey.

Mr. John Godfrey: Had Senator Finestone not ceased to be amongst us, I think she might have liked to put a question that went something like this—I'm just trying to read her mind here—

Senator Sheila Finestone (Montarville, Lib.): That's tough. I can't read it myself.

Mr. John Godfrey: It would be interesting to know whether those remarks delivered by somebody who isn't really here can be registered on the tape.

Anyway, the question would go something like this. In the balance between the need for efficiency and the public good, from that point of view, and the need to protect the privacy rights of individuals, how do we philosophically balance these off? Are they hierarchical? Which comes first? How do we square that circle?

How am I doing? Good.

The Chair: John, or your colleagues?

Mr. Doug Matheson: The balance, obviously, is a very difficult one, and this is at the centre of the full discussion. I think to see this at work in its simplest fashion, we can look at it in a microcosm. The Auditor General says we have too many social insurance numbers compared to the number of actual living Canadians. Our solution? On the efficiency side, that leads to questions of potential fraud or potential abuse, and so we take some steps to flag accounts that appear to be held by deceased Canadians. We're not certain of all these because we don't have access to the actual data from vital statistics. So we put a flag there for people who haven't had any contact with the government for a long period of time and say this is probably a dormant record, a deceased Canadian.

In the interests of efficiency, we've taken certain steps to improve the holding and the register. The Privacy Commissioner comes along and says potentially you're divulging third-party information now by putting that flag there, because the method by which you determine that the person hadn't had any contact, and therefore may have been deceased, that very act in and of itself may divulge information that is personal. So you see it at play in microcosm.

I think the approach we're recommending in the response is a balanced approach, an approach that suggests that rather than control the social insurance number directly, the abuse be controlled, that we put in place a mechanism for dealing with the abuse or the divulgence of personal information and that this be backed up with penalties, while at the same time permitting the uses of the social insurance number for valid purposes and for the efficiency of the economy, for the efficiency of government operations.

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The Chair: John Knubley.

Mr. John Knubley: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I think I want to add that Doug and I regularly have debates about this issue as administrators. I think the issue you're raising of the balance between efficiency and the privacy issues is essential to the debate.

I think as a committee you will have ample opportunity to discuss this further when we table with you our response on the policy options paper. Whether you look at the current system, where you see the SIN as a file identifier supplemented by Bill C-6, as one option, whether you see another option being a more restricted use of the SIN, as you discussed in your report, or whether you see it as something more of a personal identifier, this is precisely what you're trying to figure out as committee members: what is the appropriate balance between efficiency issues and the issues of privacy.

My own view is that there are no simple answers.

The Chair: John, are you satisfied so far?

Mr. John Godfrey: You talked about the flagging issue. How does that currently work? Is this a proposed thing you're going to do?

A voice: How did they find all these dead people?

Mr. Doug Matheson: What we actually did in response to the Auditor General's question was.... Because we don't actually have access to the provincial vital statistics information—they don't routinely share that information with us at this stage, although we're negotiating with them to get that data—we had to look at where we did have access to data that might assist us. So we looked, for example, at data from the pension files where they are aware of people who are deceased. We worked with Revenue Canada to look at data they might have from tax filers. Where we were able to determine that an individual was deceased because they had informed another agency that they were deceased, we flagged the record as deceased and put an annotation. Where the person had not had contact—for example, had not filed a tax return for five years or more—we flagged the record that the file was dormant. We didn't necessarily say deceased, but we flagged it as dormant—probably deceased, but not known for sure.

In that way we now have on the registry, for those people who have authority to actually use it, notations whereby it's noted that if somebody comes along and presents a social insurance number and claims they're a person we flagged as either deceased, or probably deceased, or dormant, additional questioning should be undertaken to determine the identity of the individual.

Mr. John Godfrey: I'm assuming the Privacy Commissioner does not take the view that being dead is none of your business.

Mr. Doug Matheson: No, he takes the view that revealing data on the file from a third party is not necessarily consistent with the Privacy Act.

The Chair: Jean Dubé.

Mr. Jean Dubé (Madawaska—Restigouche, PC): Thanks, Peter.

I do understand that you've worked hard on this, and I do congratulate you for meeting with us. This committee has met many times on this issue—and I have also read Mrs. Finestone's paper on this—and many recommendations were brought forward. I am concerned about the government's response. I can understand that you're comfortable with the current recommendations, the current government response; you're confident that it should do the trick, as you said.

• 1220

Looking back at the history of this, as a newcomer here since 1997, and seeing the abuse that was made with the system of the social insurance number, without the Auditor General's report and without the report of this committee, I question where we would be today. Would we be looking at this issue? I'm not as confident as you are, unfortunately, and I certainly have the record to prove that.

As far as education on the utilization of the social insurance number goes, where are we going with that? It is still going on today. When and how quickly does the department intend to go ahead with educating the Canadian public on this?

Last week I was in my home riding, and I went into a new store that had opened in Campbellton, New Brunswick. When I walked in, these people were asking me if I wanted to have credit at the store—it was Trans Canada Credit that was taking it, to be honest with you. They didn't know who I was; they should have, but they weren't from Campbellton or they would have known who I was. They asked me for my social insurance number. Being a member of Parliament and a member of this committee, having gone through this, I refused to give my social insurance number. They refused to give me credit.

So that is going on today. And you're saying we're going to get the report in 2000. I'm not satisfied with that at all, because this committee has flagged that it was an urgent matter. I'm very disappointed.

The other issue is the abuse. I was very surprised when it was flagged—and I think the problem here is flags; there are so many flags. I was very disappointed to hear that people were utilizing social insurance numbers of people who were deceased. This is Canada. I could not believe that. It's an embarrassment, and it should be an embarrassment to the department as well, that people were utilizing dead social insurance numbers.

But something came to my attention again last week. There are people who are studying in Canada from other countries, and parents are actually getting a social insurance number for medical reasons. This is happening in Canada. This is another type of abuse.

My big question is, when do we intend to educate the public on the use of the social insurance number?

The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Dubé.

Mr. John Knubley: Thank you, Mr. Chair and Mr. Dubé.

I want to start by saying that I think, as officials, we were all struck by the fact that the report was unanimous, and we recognize that this was a signal from all of you that you took the issue very seriously and it's an urgent matter. While we may have differences on this, I do want to tell you that I believe it's an urgent matter.

On the specific issue of communications, our plan is, as Johanne Bélisle was indicating earlier, to undertake a public awareness campaign and to do that in conjunction with Bill C-6. Again, in the context of urgency, I think it would be remiss of me if I didn't say that I think from our perspective the passage of Bill C-6 is an urgent matter and one that would be supportive of strengthening the social insurance number regime.

On the public awareness side, one thing I want to do, Mr. Chairman, if that is agreeable to you and the committee, is actually to table two documents that we already use with clients in relation to the social insurance number. One is called Is someone else using your social insurance number? This was actually written in 1998 and is used in our offices at the front line when people are registering with social insurance numbers. I think you'll find it's a useful public awareness document.

In addition, since the Auditor General's report, we've already taken the step of preparing a special document for use with police forces. It's called Employment insurance: Detecting social insurance number fraud. With your agreement, I'd like to table that with the committee.

• 1225

The Chair: By all means, and we'll see that it's circulated to all members whether they're present or not.

Mr. John Knubley: I think I'll stop there in terms of responding to your question.

Mr. Jean Dubé: Have I some time left?

The Chair: Yes.

Mr. Jean Dubé: These documents are now being circulated at HRDC offices throughout Canada for people who are applying for new social insurance numbers. What about current holders of social insurance numbers? I have a social insurance number. I'm not going to apply for a new one. I don't have access to that if I'm just a regular Canadian.

I've mentioned this before to the committee, and it's getting close to tax time: Have you thought of mailing it out with the tax envelopes to every citizen in Canada? We're talking about major investments here as far as public awareness, but this certainly would be a tool available to you.

Mr. John Knubley: This is something we'll want to look into, and I'll let Johanne Bélisle speak a little more specifically about our current plans.

Nevertheless I think it would be fair to note that as a result of the Canada education savings grant, which requires social insurance numbers for all your children, what we see happening is that many people are coming into our offices in order to register their children for social insurance number purposes for the Canada education savings grant. I think these documents are getting quite wide circulation, particularly in that context.

Mr. Jean Dubé: I myself can afford to pay for one of these scholarships for my children, but there are others who can't.

[Translation]

The Chair: Paul Crête.

Mr. Paul Crête: In recommendation 3, we asked for a report by December 31, 1999, but you are asking us to wait for the HRDC departmental performance report. Wouldn't there be some way to implement the recommendation, given the importance of the issue? You can see how concerned all parliamentarians are. Mr. Dubé's comments are extremely important. I could be asked to give my social insurance number out electronically, but your own experts recommend not to do this. This is just one example among many.

Why is the department unable to prepare a report for the date we indicated, or perhaps a month later? Next year's HRDC departmental performance report will devote all of two out of 250 pages to the issue. Isn't this a way of denying the seriousness of the problem? You may consider that the situation is not serious, and that there is no rush. That is your position and we can understand it. However, if the matter is urgent, why can we not get a report more quickly? You talked about having to liaise with other departments, but the report would focus only on HRDC?

Mr. John Knubley: I'm very glad...

[English]

The Chair: Let me interrupt and say I think that's a very good question.

Mr. John Knubley: That's exactly what I was going to say.

[Translation]

Mr. Paul Crête: Thank you. You have excellent taste.

[English]

Mr. John Knubley: Mr. Chairman, if it's all right with you, I'm going to let Mr. Matheson address the issues that have come up in our work on this issue. I think you will see there are reasons why it will take some time to develop this further.

Mr. Doug Matheson: We have in fact opened a dialogue on this subject, and we have tried to follow the committee's request here. The difficulty surrounds the fact that in our discussions with Statistics Canada, it's very difficult to design a survey, because in essence what we're doing is asking citizens, and businesses as well—primarily businesses in this case—to indicate their usage of the number. Although it's not very explicit, implicitly it would be perceived as us seeking wrongdoing. So Statistics Canada has indicated that the likelihood of a valid response is very low and that it's very difficult to design a survey that would detect or identify the kind of usage in a meaningful way that would give us additional information beyond what we already know, which is that the usage of the social insurance number is widespread, particularly in the credit industry, as Mr. Dubé pointed out. It's widespread in some other parts of the economy as well.

• 1230

That doesn't mean we aren't going to do any work on it. It's just that we're finding that work very difficult to do in a meaningful way, and we continue our discussion with Statistics Canada, but more particularly with Industry. Industry has thought about this problem a good bit, and although they don't have the kind of information the committee requested either, for the same reasons, Bill C-6 would in fact deal with this problem. Bill C-6 would provide sanctions applicable to the private sector in the situation Mr. Dubé described and in some of the situations Mr. Crête alluded to that would not allow a company to request the number or to deny service if the number was not provided.

The Chair: I was not on the committee at the time, but I'm advised that when the committee was looking into this, one of the ways they examined it was to go to the Internet and there they discovered universities and businesses—in both cases reputable organizations—who were simply asking for this information. So it's out there.

Mr. Doug Matheson: There's no question that there's widespread usage, and in fact as officials we identified that to the committee when we met and provided examples of our own where we've received specific inquiries from citizens around the legality of certain activities. The Privacy Commissioner made this well known as well. He receives quite a number of complaints from citizens about it.

The issue here is that the EI Act gives authorized uses of the social insurance number—in other words, those people who can use the social insurance number legally, can validate the identity of somebody on the registry. But it doesn't declare other uses illegal, even though they're not authorized.

A company may ask Mr. Dubé for his social insurance number, and even if he provides it, they have no way of validating that it is in fact the right number. At the same time, if Mr. Dubé presents it fraudulently, they have no way of knowing that either. What we have is a situation—the number was not intended for that purpose and the law doesn't actually cover it.

The Chair: But we're doing nothing about that? I'm sorry, I shouldn't intervene. Paul Crête, go ahead. I interrupted you, but you heard what I said.

[Translation]

Mr. Paul Crête: Fine.

In my view, your response to recommendation 3 does not truly address the recommendation. We recommended that the government conduct and complete by a specific date an assessment of the impact and extent of use of the SIN in the public and private sectors. Had you said that though you could not complete the study for December 31, you could have it for March 31, I would have had no complaint. But you are telling us, though there is a national SIN management crisis, you cannot report on it until next year's departmental performance report. It's as if you are denying the problem exists. The response is not commensurate with the question, and I wonder whether the department would not consider reviewing its position.

[English]

Mr. John Knubley: I do believe the intent of the response was that we are continuing to work with Statistics Canada. We take very seriously the problem of the use of the SIN in the private sector and beyond federal jurisdiction. In fact, the document we are preparing in relation to SIN fraud is precisely trying to tackle this issue. It may be we need more help from you as a committee to help us really tackle this issue because the way the administration has been set up is to focus, as you know, primarily in relation to fraud, in relation to EI fraud or CPP fraud.

Perhaps, Mr. Chairman, if it's all right with you, I'll ask Johanne Bélisle to talk a little bit about what the SIN fraud report that we will be tabling with you will address.

The Chair: Yes, please.

[Translation]

Johanne, please.

Ms. Johanne Bélisle: You do not have a copy of our investigation action plan, and you may therefore not have a full picture of the situation.

• 1235

The investigation plan sets out a series of measures in the four areas I mentioned before: first, the establishment of new fraud and identification programs; second, prevention activities and register clean-up; third, a public education and awareness campaign; and fourth, improved communication with police forces and other agencies and stakeholders. That plan would complement the measures before you today, for a comprehensive approach.

[English]

The Chair: Paul Crête, and then Andy Scott.

[Translation]

Mr. Paul Crête: Mr. Chairman, in view of the information we have received, I would like to move a motion to condemn the government for the inadequacy of its response to the unanimous recommendations of the human resources development committee, to settle the crisis caused by inefficient management of the SIN, which was referred to this committee by the Auditor General. In the same motion, I also request that we invite the Auditor General so that we can ask him whether he considers the government's response satisfactory.

[English]

Mr. John Godfrey: A point of order.

[Translation]

Mr. Paul Crête: We have a quorum. Including yourself, there are 10 of us here.

[English]

The Chair: We have nine.

Mr. Paul Crête: With you, 10.

The Chair: John Godfrey.

[Translation]

Mr. Paul Crête: There is a motion on the table.

[English]

The Chair: The motion.

Mr. John Godfrey: But you need a quorum of how many? Now you don't.

Mr. Jean Dubé: No, but we proposed when there was quorum.

Mr. John Godfrey: Someone asked for quorum.

Mr. Jean Dubé: There was quorum when it was proposed.

The Chair: I'm quite willing to entertain this motion and I'm quite willing to entertain discussion of this motion, but until there's a quorum we cannot vote on it.

[Translation]

Mr. Paul Crête: Mr. Chairman, I'm not familiar with every detail of the procedure and I don't want to debate it, but when the motion was moved, there were 10 of us here. It seems there are no longer 10 of us here. Can the motion be voted on since there were 10 of us here when it was moved?

Some members: Yes.

Mr. Paul Crête: If the motion cannot be put to a vote, it has still been moved, and the committee should vote on it at some point during the day.

[English]

The Chair: Okay. If I can discuss it, and I'm not being particular—I could have said we need 48 hours' notice. We discussed the question of a motion, so we could invoke that rule. There's the question that at the moment we do not have a quorum. I understand the point that they were here before. There's still the 48-hour rule, and by the way, this is a new motion. It certainly isn't simply an item of new business. It is a new motion, okay, and I think the 48-hour rule applies to that.

Paul Crête.

[Translation]

Mr. Paul Crête: Mr. Chairman, I do not think that the 48-hour notice applies here, since the motion was on a topic we were discussing today. The 48-hour or 24-hour notice applies to topics not on the agenda. We will never attend committees if we cannot move motions pertaining to the ongoing debate.

[English]

The Chair: I am accepting the motion. My concern is...and I'm reading from subsection 808(3) in Beauchesne's for the record:

No motions may be put by the Chairman (although notice may be given of proposed motions) nor divisions taken during committee sittings held under a reduced quorum.

I would argue that's where we are now. By the way, we began with a reduced quorum, because we were able to receive witnesses under reduced quorum.

[Translation]

Mr. Paul Crête: I don't have the Beauchesne with me, but I know that you can't pass a motion with a reduced quorum. I'm talking about a situation...

[English]

The Chair: Absolutely.

[Translation]

Mr. Paul Crête: ...where you have a quorum.

[English]

The Chair: I know. I accept that.

[Translation]

Mr. Paul Crête: In that case, the motion would at least have to be receivable.

[English]

The Chair: I agree with you completely.

[Translation]

Mr. Paul Crête: Agreed.

[English]

The Chair: I have received the motion. We are discussing it; we're not voting on it.

Mr. Paul Crête: We are not voting?

The Chair: Not now.

[Translation]

Mr. Paul Crête: We're going to vote.

The Chair: We'll vote at our next meeting.

Mr. Paul Crête: At our next meeting?

The Chair: Yes.

Mr. Paul Crête: Could I make a comment? I'm very happy the members on the government side stayed at the table to allow debate on the motion.

[English]

The Chair: Yes.

[Translation]

Mr. Paul Crête: They have the right to vote as they wish, but at least they were there to debate the matter.

[English]

The Chair: Okay. We have the motion before us.

Would you care, Paul, to read the motion again, so we know what it is? Thank you.

• 1240

[Translation]

Mr. Paul Crête: I move the committee condemn the government for the inadequacy of its response to the unanimous recommendations of the Human Resources Development Committee to settle the crisis caused by inefficient management of the social insurance number which was referred to this committee by the Auditor General. I also request that we invite the Auditor General to ask for his comments on the government's response.

[English]

The Chair: Thank you. We'll have discussion of that, if there is discussion of it.

[Translation]

Mr. Paul Crête: We've lost our quorum.

[English]

The Chair: Andy Scott, do you want to be in on that? You're on the list already. The motion is there. We're going to go back. I've accepted that it's here. We will discuss it and vote on it at the next meeting. Is that okay with you?

[Translation]

Mr. Paul Crête: Unless the quorum comes back in a couple of minutes.

[English]

The Chair: Absolutely. I think that is unlikely. Unofficially, I'm being thanked by the senator. Thank you.

Andy Scott.

[Translation]

Mr. Paul Crête: That could be an interesting subject for the senators too.

Ms. Raymonde Folco (Laval West, Lib.): That's what she just said.

Mr. Paul Crête: I'm sorry. I hadn't understood. Thank you.

[English]

The Chair: Okay, Andy Scott.

Hon. Andy Scott (Fredericton, Lib.): Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. My capacity to read Madam Finestone's brain is better than Mr. Godfrey's, because even in her leaving, I think I have some sense of what she would want put.

I'd like to speak to recommendation 17, the recommendation around the earlier report—1997, I believe—in terms of the privacy work. I accept the fact that you were primarily seized with the SIN numbers and that aspect of this committee's work. But we also unanimously sent forward the earlier report as well, which has some very broad recommendations having to do with privacy generally.

As a result of hearings across the country, notwithstanding your level of comfort, which I don't challenge, the reality is that Canadians don't share your confidence at all, and that's not about the department. More generally, that's about questions of privacy, and I think that probably requires a more comprehensive response than what we have.

The very specific question would be, given the general nature of that report, the general nature of its recommendations, where do you find the confidence on the privacy questions contained in that report? I understand your confidence, whether we agree or not, in terms of the SIN numbers. Where do you find the confidence in terms of the recommendations in the privacy report, and what's the legislative framework you see that would give that confidence presently?

I would also comment in terms of the irony. I think the person who told Mr. Dubé they wanted his SIN number for credit was acting not illegally but without authority. I think that is the distinction you made.

However, in response to the fact that they had asked Mr. Dubé to provide that information, which as a country we would not want them to be able to ask him to have to provide, had he responded to that unauthorized, if not illegal, request and he'd given the wrong number as a way of countering that unauthorized request, he would in fact be breaking the law by virtue of offering a fraudulent number.

Somehow, we need to be able to deal with this, because clearly he's defending his own privacy and in doing so he's breaking the law. They're the ones who are offending his privacy, and they're not.... So where's the legal framework that's going to deal with these things?

Mr. John Knubley: I think I will let Doug Matheson address these issues.

The Chair: Doug Matheson.

Mr. Doug Matheson: Mr. Scott has raised the serious question of why we have confidence in the approach that has been put forward in the government response. I guess if we take the example Mr. Scott used, the same one Mr. Dubé raised a few moments ago, how will that change under the response that is shown here? The answer is that Bill C-6 presents a legislative framework that would prevent that activity from taking place.

• 1245

Admittedly it will take three years for that to take force because it deals with a provincially regulated sector of the economy. The reason for that is that the private sector needs some time to adjust, and it will adjust under the terms of Bill C-6. The private sector has already adjusted in Quebec to similar legislation, and we have every reason to believe, as our colleagues in industry do as well, that the private sector can adjust to these kinds of situations.

With that in mind, the balance we saw between efficiency and privacy was to look at the legislation that's put forward in Bill C-6 and say, yes, the private sector will adjust. They need a bit of time, but three years from now this practice would cease. That's the legislative framework in which we have some confidence in seeing this go forward.

The Finestone report, which we did consider seriously in our response, advocated a different legislative framework and a different administrative framework for achieving the same goals. We felt the approach taken in Bill C-6 would achieve substantially the same goals in a different way.

The Chair: Andy, I want to wind it up if I can, so can you be fairly brief?

Mr. Andy Scott: Yes.

Mr. John Knubley: I was just going to add two points, one of them quite obvious.

The first I think is an important element that we need to consider from an HRDC perspective as to how this SIN fraud plan fits into the context of the framework for Bill C-6. This is something we're doing a great deal of thinking about. That's the first point.

The second point is just to say what I already said at the outset. As you know, Justice officials are the ones that drafted a particular response to recommendation 17, and my colleagues are in the best position to really respond to these particular questions.

The Chair: Can I ask who drafted the response to recommendation 17? Was it the Department of Industry, the Department of Justice, Treasury Board? Who did it?

Mr. John Knubley: The simple answer is the Department of Justice drafted the response to recommendation 17.

The Chair: Is there anybody in the room from that department or from the departments I mentioned?

Mr. John Knubley: There is a representative from Industry who's here ready to speak about Bill C-6.

The Chair: But not about recommendation 17, which we're discussing at the moment?

Mr. John Knubley: That's correct.

The Chair: Colleagues, I would suggest if you're interested I would be glad to write a letter to whichever of those departments was involved. I'll get the information and I'll request some response on this matter. Is that okay, colleagues? I'm looking around the table.

Some hon. members: Yes.

The Chair: Okay.

Mr. Andy Scott: Perhaps I can dictate a couple of questions.

The Chair: By all means. I'd be glad to incorporate that, whatever it is.

Mr. Andy Scott: Feel free to venture a guess. I'm betting here.

Why wasn't Bill C-6 merged with the Privacy Act to give holistic coverage? Secondly, in the event they're inconsistent, and I think you'll find they are, how is it that we can have two levels of privacy, the federal level of privacy less in fact than the other?

Mr. John Knubley: Mr. Chairman and Mr. Scott, I think the simple answer is these are questions you pose to my Justice colleagues.

Just one thing, Mr. Chairman, I might clarify for you in particular is in relation to the SIN. One of our challenges is that HRDC is responsible for the administration of the SIN. Treasury Board is responsible for the policy related to the federal government and Justice is responsible for a policy related to issues particularly linked to privacy.

The Chair: Okay.

Mr. John Knubley: So one of the challenges in dealing with the SIN regime is that there are these responsibilities across the government.

The Chair: By the way, you should know, though, if you read the reports of this committee, they virtually all address that matter. It doesn't mean that HRDC has to become the—for example, our report on children at risk. Somebody has to take responsibility. The question is often where and why.

I'm going to wind this up. First of all, I want to thank you as individuals for being here. We will forward this letter that I have mentioned in the way I've described. As individuals I do sincerely thank you for coming here.

But I want to say a few things on the record. I am new. You can tell there are cross-party interests in these matters. We had a senator who returned out of personal interest in order to be here. There was a great deal of interest in that report, and the same applies to our others.

• 1250

In my previous existence I was the chair of the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs, which is the core, the mother, of all committees. That made me very conscious of the importance of our system of committees. Now, we don't have the resources that committees have in some other jurisdictions. None of our committees do.

But I'm saying this to you, and through you to HRDC: I have been made very conscious of how big HRDC is—20,000-plus employees—and of how diverse its mandate is. Even cross-management within HRDC is not easy, and we understand that. But I want to say, through you to HRDC, that this committee wants action. It wants a response. I was very concerned not so much by the fact that your response was late, but by the fact that it was ready for several weeks before this committee received it. To me, coming here from Procedure and House Affairs, that is a very serious matter.

The matter of deadlines has been produced. There are several deadlines in here. I'm not going to re-argue those cases, but this committee did not casually put in those deadlines. By the way, I know that doesn't mean you have to follow them—and I don't mean “you” as individuals now, but HRDC—but they put them in there for a serious reason. So when some of your colleagues appear before us in future and the committee has done similar things, I for one expect there to be a real explanation as to why the department did not meet deadlines set by the committee.

I have been told by colleagues on all sides of the House that HRDC is among the worst departments with regard to its response to Parliament and to its committees. I know one of the reasons for that is what I explained: because it's so large and so diverse. I do understand that. But I want it to be clear that the committee intends to get responses from the department.

I hope you understand that I'm not talking to you now as individuals, but I see this as a serious matter. I don't always agree with the opposition—in fact, I generally do not agree with the opposition—

Mr. Maurice Vellacott: Too bad.

The Chair: —yes, I know—but I hope you will convey this message. It's our reports that you are in and that are very carefully done. I assume you have people in this huge department who follow the transcripts of our meetings. Somebody in there must be doing that, so the message is this: get it through quickly to the department, not just through our reports but through the transcripts, that we're responsible for your legislation in a sense, and in a sense you're answerable to us.

Again, as individuals, I sincerely thank you.

If Paul Crête is very brief, he can say something. He talks quickly and he gets a lot in.

[Translation]

Mr. Paul Crête: I'll be brief. I hope the members on the government side, at our next meeting, will find enough time to discuss a matter of this importance as you have just said yourself, in any case.

[English]

The Chair: Okay, thank you very much.

Colleagues, I'm going to close the meeting on that note. We are adjourned.