Thank you.
Division 6 amends the Human Resources and Skills Development Act as well as the Canada Pension Plan, the Old Age Security Act, and the Employment Insurance Act to create a social security tribunal, which will replace four existing tribunals that hear appeals related to the three programs I mentioned.
Division 6 also introduces a new part to the Human Resources and Skills Development Act related to the provision of electronic services. This is not related to the social security tribunal changes; they are separate provisions. The electronic services provision is intended to provide the department with the authority to expand the provision of our services to an electronic environment, and to do so in a way that is consistent across the three programs, those being the employment insurance program, the Canada Pension Plan, and the old age security program, in addition to grants and contributions that are provided under the same department.
This means that although with the employment insurance program we are well advanced in the provision of our services to an electronic environment, we are moving toward this transformation in the pension world, specifically related to the old age security program right now. Our service improvement strategy is focused largely on moving these programs away from the paper-based environment that we currently work in to an automated world where we can use electronic signatures and electronic identity verification. So the intention is to ensure that as we expand the transformation of our electronic service provision, we do so in a very integrated and interoperable way.
For example, when we do identity verification in the Canada Pension Plan, we would take the same approach we do with employment insurance or the old age security system. That's the electronic services provision, which is created through the addition of a new part 6 to the Human Resources and Skills Development Act.
Back to the tribunal, which is the more significant change in division 6. Division 6 introduces a new part 5 to the Human Resources and Skills Development Act, as I said. The first two clauses have various sections in them that create the social security tribunal, outline its structure, how its membership will be organized, how members will be appointed to the social security tribunal, the administration of the tribunal, the function of the SST, and a number of regulatory authorities associated with the tribunal.
When you look at this section in the legislation, it's interrupted by the electronic services piece. First we have the amendments to the Human Resources and Skills Development Act for the social security tribunal, which is part 5 of our HRSD act, and then it introduces part 6 for the electronic services I just explained. Then it introduces a number of amendments to the Canada Pension Plan, the Old Age Security Act, and the Employment Insurance Act, which are related to the social security tribunal amendments, which are introduced in the new part 5. So it is a little difficult to navigate through this piece and see how they all link together.
Clauses 225 through 250 are the amendments related to the social security tribunal for the three programs I mentioned. Then we have transitional provisions, which outline how we will move from the existing program under the existing four tribunals that hear appeals to the one tribunal, which will start hearing appeals on April 1, 2013.
After that you have a number of clauses that introduce consequential amendments flowing from the social security tribunal to other pieces of legislation that currently mention one of the four other existing tribunals. So it is just moving the mention of the particular...for example, changing the Pension Appeals Board to make reference to the social security tribunal.
That is the overview of the changes contained in division 6.