Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!alberta!calgary!enelk.uucp!gonnason
From: gonnason@enel.UCalgary.CA
Newsgroups: can.general
Subject: Re: SIN Number
Keywords: SIN
Message-ID: <405@cs-spool.calgary.UUCP>
Date: 23 Dec 88 22:44:58 GMT
Sender: news@calgary.UUCP
Reply-To: gonnason@enel.UCalgary.CA
Distribution: can
Organization: U. of Calgary, Calgary, Alberta, Canada
Lines: 30


	There definitely is some truth to the rumour that the first
  number of your social insurance number indicates where you first
  applied for the number.  At one time, one company I worked for
  required the SIN number of each employee working on a particular
  job on the service order (We were paid by a base salary plus a
  percentage of the total service order bill).

	From what I can recall, the SIN numbers of our employees
  all began with a six, a four, or a two.  It didn't take us long
  to compare notes, and realize that everyone that got their SIN
  number on the west side of the Ontario/Manitoba border had a
  number that began with a six.  A lot of the employees from Quebec
  seemed to have numbers that began with a two.  There was a definite
  trend, but I can't say that the system was absolute.

	The "fact" that the SIN reflected where a person "came from"
  was taken for granted.  I recall one particularly redneck manager
  I worked for in Halifax (he was originally from Alberta) insisting
  that he had to get transferred back west so his kids wouldn't be
  issued SIN numbers in the Maritimes...  (I have long since left
  this particular company, don't bother flaming them/me...)

	I don't know if the SIN still reflects a regional origin
  or not.  But, at least several years ago, the evidence was
  pretty strong that it did.


          "Cheap chips sink ships"  -  gonnason@enel.UCalgary.CA
             ( University of Calgary Electrical Engineering )