Human Resources Committee on May 6th, 2024

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

Do you want to make a short comment, Minister?

[Terry Beech, Liberal, Burnaby North—Seymour, BC]

Sure. I think there are, in Phoenix and otherwise across government, significant opportunities for a technologically advanced public service to use AI, machine learning or process automation to solve problems with a lot of traditionally manual processes that could help make our government more efficient and provide better services.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

Thank you.

We'll now go to Madame Zarrillo for six minutes.

[Bonita Zarrillo, NDP, Port Moody—Coquitlam, BC]

Thank you so much.

Thank you so much for being here again, Minister.

I'm seized with this disability benefit and how it's going to get to Canadians.

I want to share with you a letter I received from a family physician in Toronto around the disability tax credit. The letter says, “The disability tax credit is an underused, difficult-to-access program that will increase barriers to access for those most in need of a Canada disability benefit. Very few people living at low income with disabilities currently access the DTC because it is a non-refundable credit. It also requires a complex form to be filled by a physician, and many physicians will demand payment for this work. The largest group of people who receive the DTC are higher-income seniors, definitely not the demographic targeted by the CDB.”

As an aside here, I'll say that, of the 900,000 DTC claimants, only 75,000 of them record income under $25,000. There is no way to do a one-to-one comparison between a person with a disability and the claimant.

The physician goes on to say, “The disability tax credit also rests on a definition of disability that is highly medicalized, has an exceedingly high threshold for approval, and is out of touch with current understanding of disability. Living with a disability results in exclusion from workplace and society due to structural social barriers, not due to individual medical diagnoses, or issues with the function of body parts. Programs like ODSP focus on deficits and ability to function in society rather than specific medical diagnosis. The DTC does the opposite. I have never heard a disability rights-oriented advocate or health professional support the use of the DTC as a gateway to disability supports. To allow the DTC to be used as the gateway to the CDB will build a massive structural impediment to this program, and it will not allow to ever achieve its goal of raising people living with a disability out of poverty.”

I'll ask you again, Minister, how is the government going to deliver the Canada disability benefit?

[Terry Beech, Liberal, Burnaby North—Seymour, BC]

First of all, I greatly enjoyed our conversation the last time that I was here, and I understand your passion—and mine—for lifting Canadians out of poverty.

As we're both B.C. MPs, there was some good work and a study done in British Columbia about the fact that, although a lot of our measures had lifted children and seniors out of poverty, more work was to be done in the disability community.

I would also thank you for forwarding me recommendation 5 of the disability advisory council, which speaks to exactly what you're speaking to. I just became aware as I was sitting down that you have a motion at this committee, and I think it was adopted, so I look forward to reading the report on that.

I took the opportunity not to just skim recommendation 5 but to read the entirety of the fourth report of the disability advisory committee, which was quite compelling in some of the issues that were raised in the letter that you just read. I heard that for the first time.

With regard to the payment for work, I think there was an item in this year's budget—I want to say $224 million, maybe $234 million, I'm not sure, $200-and-something million—to help fund that cost for individuals so that they can get access.

I believe my colleague Minister Khera presented earlier that we are expecting for this benefit, which is the largest single line item of the 2024 budget, $6.1 billion to roll out. Dental care took two years, and we're going to roll out this benefit in just over one year. The first payment is scheduled for July 2025.

[Bonita Zarrillo, NDP, Port Moody—Coquitlam, BC]

Minister, what I'm trying to get to is how you are going to administer the benefits. I can understand the legacy software. I'm a professional business analyst by trade, and I understand that there haven't been investments. Conservatives didn't invest, and Liberal governments before didn't invest, so you have a big challenge on your hands with old, dated infrastructure. At the end of the day, how are you going to implement it? You mentioned the last time you came that you're going to de-silo departments so that you can have them share information with each other in a secure way.

Minister, how are you going to get delivery of the Canada disability benefit?

[Terry Beech, Liberal, Burnaby North—Seymour, BC]

Even though a year is a short period of time, I have full confidence that we'll be able to utilize both the criteria of the tax credit and the information that is made available to us from the CRA in order to identify those individuals and make sure that they get the entitlements that they're due.

[Bonita Zarrillo, NDP, Port Moody—Coquitlam, BC]

Just to reiterate, there is no way for the CRA to identify an individual against a DTC claim. I know that you sent me some information on that and thought that there was, but Minister, there is not. The CRA has no way to compare a claimant to the actual person with the disability and then do an income test. It's not possible right now, so I'm asking you to take that away and really look into it.

[Terry Beech, Liberal, Burnaby North—Seymour, BC]

I have been assured that this is a solved problem, but I will find a way to make sure that we both believe that is true.

[Bonita Zarrillo, NDP, Port Moody—Coquitlam, BC]

That would be great, Minister, because there are only about 900,000 DTC claimants, and you're looking at 600,000 folks who you want to be able to administer this benefit to, and only 75,000 of those claimants have incomes under $25,000.

[Terry Beech, Liberal, Burnaby North—Seymour, BC]

I understand.

[Bonita Zarrillo, NDP, Port Moody—Coquitlam, BC]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

We'll go to the second round, beginning with Madame Ferreri for five minutes.

[Michelle Ferreri, Conservative, Peterborough—Kawartha, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Minister, for being here.

What are you the minister of, Minister?

[Terry Beech, Liberal, Burnaby North—Seymour, BC]

I'm the Minister of Citizens' Services. I was trying to angle for “Minister of Citizens' Services and Technology”, but we already had a citizens' services minister in B.C. and it sounded like a good idea.

[Michelle Ferreri, Conservative, Peterborough—Kawartha, ON]

Thank you.

As Minister of Citizens' Services, you said in your opening remarks that your focus is on dental, digital and customer service.

We know that we are paying 50% more for bureaucracy than in 2015 and that they only want to show up 60% of the time. This article came out just the other day: “Federal public servants to return to the office 3 days a week this fall”.

We also know that in the 2015 Liberal election platform Justin Trudeau promised to save billions by reducing the use of external consultants, but in reality, spending on outsourcing has increased nearly 60% from the $10.4 billion spent when the Liberals took office. This is really an option of never seeing so much spent but so little achieved.

I want to share this story, because this is from Ron, who's a constituent in my riding. This email was sent just a month ago, and you had told everybody here that passports have gotten completely corrected. I just want to say for the record that you promised that digital online renewals would be in place by the fall of 2024, which still has not happened.

This is from Ron:

Words cannot express the frustration my wife has just experienced with the Canadian passport office. We both sent our passports in for renewal at the same time, with new photos taken and signed by a professional photographer. The government has processed our payment. Of course, we are without passports until they send us the updated version. They do not expire until October 2024.

My wife received a phone message (she is a transit bus driver...and cannot take calls while working) saying that her photograph was not acceptable because her grey hair was not discernible enough from the background. We both have almost white hair as we are seniors. They asked us to call back, and left the common phone contact number. Her first attempt said she was 75th in line, then slowly worked her way down to 30 [and] then the line went dead. Trying again, she waited for 3 hours on the phone before it was finally answered. She gave the reference number, but the representative said she would have to check with another representative, and said she would need to [be] put...on hold for possibly 20 minutes. We sat on hold with the music playing for over 20 minutes with no response. We called in with another phone and the automated message said they were closed, yet the hold music continued on her phone. We finally had to give up. My wife was in tears.

Minister, this is not what Canadians expect, nor is it what they pay for, so for you to come in today to tell us that you are delivering customer service and meeting and exceeding standards when you still haven't even delivered on the digital passport renewal is upsetting to folks at home.

I want to turn my time over to Ms. Gray, who also has a question for you.

Thank you.

[Tracy Gray, Conservative, Kelowna—Lake Country, BC]

Thank you.

Minister, you talked about customer service and what your role is. I'd like to outline some service standards as reported by Service Canada for the last fiscal year, 2022-23.

For access to an employment insurance call centre agent, “ESDC met [the] standard 40% of the time”. For access to a Canada pension plan and old age security call centre agent, “ESDC met [the] standard 6% of the time”.

These are failing grades, especially the 6%. No wonder people aren't getting through.

What directives have you given on this blatant lack of basic government service that taxpayers pay for and expect, Minister?

[Terry Beech, Liberal, Burnaby North—Seymour, BC]

Okay. Those were a lot of questions all packaged into one.

I would start by disputing that we have delivered less service. I think that dental care, pharmacare, child care and new investments in passports are significant improvements.

[Tracy Gray, Conservative, Kelowna—Lake Country, BC]

Minister, my questions were about service standards.

[Terry Beech, Liberal, Burnaby North—Seymour, BC]

I'm sorry. There were a lot of questions. I'm going to try to answer them, if that's okay.

[Tracy Gray, Conservative, Kelowna—Lake Country, BC]

They were on service standards, so answer the question on service standards, please.

Thank you, Minister.

[Terry Beech, Liberal, Burnaby North—Seymour, BC]

I'm going to address all the questions.

Mr. Chair, am I allowed to address the questions?

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

Yes. You have 30 seconds. Then we'll move on.

[Terry Beech, Liberal, Burnaby North—Seymour, BC]

I have 30 seconds. Okay.

You're right that I did state that we were targeting the fall of 2024 for digital renewals, and you're right that it is not the fall of 2024.

That is an unfortunate situation about the photos. If you want to pass them on to me, I'm happy to be helpful.

With regard to customer service standards, you said we were dealing with last year, but 2022-23 was not last year; 2023-24 was last year.

With regard to the pension call centre, we've actually reduced—

[Tracy Gray, Conservative, Kelowna—Lake Country, BC]

Minister, I have to correct you. I said it was the last fiscal year.