Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and committee members.

It's an honour to be here today to represent the National Pensioners Federation, of which I am past president. For those of you not familiar with the federation, it's in its 70th year now after being founded on the Prairies. It's a national organization with large groups as diverse as the British Columbia Retired Teachers' Association to East Margaree Seniors' Club, close to Roger Cuzner's home riding. You can check that out with the folks when you're there next.

We have 250 organizations across the country, representing about a million members. We're the only organization representing seniors that has an annual open democratic convention where we elect our officers and debate our policies in open and public debate, and by democratic vote. I'm here representing the executive board and President Herb John, who can't be with us today.

Simply put, we're pleased to see the progress of this bill and we're here to voice our support. I'm not going to repeat all the same specific reasons why one point of contact is such a strangely revolutionary development in this day and age, but somehow it still is upon the challenge of parliamentarians to enact.

We encourage you pass the legislation for all the reasons that have already been mentioned by my colleague opposite. I had a few points to single out, but they touch on the same specifics. I'm sure this committee has been canvassing those very same points time and time again since the introduction of the bill by the honourable member from Guelph.

I did have a few points of concern, however. One of the questions I have—and I'm sure you've got a good answer for this—is why can't we just do this simply, administratively within the minister's purview now in human resources? It's an administrative feature really that connects all the dots online, with today's technology, within the Government of Canada. One would think it would be an administrative change that doesn't require parliamentary action. However, not being as experienced as the committee members present on what's necessary legally, I'm sure you know what you're doing with having a bill to enact the necessary changes.

Given that a bill is necessary, then trying to think it through, we're also wondering if it needs an amendment for any potential legal challenges down the road after the bill is presumably passed by Parliament. For instance, a very resourceful and energetic lawyer in the legal community might be keen on privacy issues and might say you didn't put anything explicitly in the bill to override any privacy concerns.

It shouldn't be a concern, these are all federal government departments, but you don't want to see any delays in the implementation of the bill due to any potential legal challenges down the road. Whether an amendment is in order or not, I'll leave that in the hands of much more experienced and wise parliamentarians than I could possibly imagine.

Although CPP has been mentioned as one of the many points that would be affected by this, we're also wondering about the automatic triggering of the death benefit under the Canada Pension Plan. We are wondering whether or not that can be quickly dispatched with by that particular pension plan oversight to the executor of the estate after the point of contact has been made, or whether there still has to be a separate application. We're not sure that the legislation provides for that, but you may want to specifically look at that.

We're hopeful, with the British experience already well known and some of the material that's known to this committee on at least one G-8 country that's already had experience with this, that it can be quickly implemented in the days ahead.

Lastly, a note of fondness for the all-party support that this bill has received to date. I hope it remains that way. It's certainly refreshing to see, considering the last time I was here on Bill C-23 on the alleged Fair Elections Act.

I'll leave it at that. Thank you for the time. If you have any questions, please submit them.

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