Impact of Adding Revenue Canada Databases Under FOAEA—Part 1 Tracing For Locating Persons
Final Report

2004-FCY-10E

12.0   RESPONSES TO STUDY FROM FLAS AND BC FAMILY JUSTICE PROGRAMS

12.1   Response to Study Recommendations (p. 41) from Family Law Assistance Section, Department of Justice Canada.

  1. We don't agree that search requests criteria be established and used. The FOAEA tracing service is a fishing expedition and it should remain so. There is no reason why the Maintenance Enforcement Programs (MEPs) could not decide what information is useful for them and disregard the remainder. It should also be mentioned that it would involve major system changes to establish tracing criteria both for FOAEA and CCRA-HRDC.

  2. We agree that all duplicate information should be eliminated before it is sent to MEPs. With respect to incomplete information, a decision will need to be made as to exactly what incomplete means. A postal code alone could be considered as an address. We do not agree that only the most current address information should be included. It is not FOAEA that should be making these decisions. We do agree that where possible we should be including the date on which the data bank was updated and let the MEPs decide if they wish to ignore everything before, remembering that we will not provide duplicate information.

  3. We agree that FOAEA should be filtering duplicate information. It should be noted that this is only if it is a true duplication. As an example, if one address is P.O. Box 35 and the other is Postal Box 35, we cannot determine if this is a duplicate. It would require major system changes to be able to detect these types of duplications.

  4. No comment on this recommendation.

  5. FOAEA agrees that subject to the availability of resources, it will review its tracing process in light of the recommendations of this report and determine how it can be made more useful to MEPs. It should also be noted that the current FOAEA tracing service has its limitations due to the nature of the data banks that are searched. For this reason we must be cautious in determining the level of resources we use to improve a process that has inherent limitations. Resources may be applied more beneficially for other tracing initiatives such as New Employee tracing.

  6. No comment on this recommendation.

12.2   Response from the Director of Family Justice Programs, Ministry of the Attorney General, British Columbia