Evidence of meeting #50 for Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities in the 40th Parliament, 3rd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was commission.
A recording is available from Parliament.
12:10 p.m.
Assistant Deputy Minister, Processing and Payment Services Branch, Service Canada
On the board of referees there are three members. There's a neutral chair--
12:10 p.m.
Assistant Deputy Minister, Processing and Payment Services Branch, Service Canada
--and there are two appointees. There's a list of board of referees developed by the commissioner for workers and one developed by the commissioner for employers. There are always the three: workers, employers, and a neutral chair.
12:10 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Candice Bergen
So the workers appoint someone, as do the employers, and there's a neutral chair. Thank you very much for that clarification.
Go ahead, Mr. Komarnicki, for five minutes, please.
12:10 p.m.
Conservative
Ed Komarnicki Conservative Souris—Moose Mountain, SK
Thank you.
Part of the issue here is that the motion requests us to study the practice and procedures for appealing a decision from the board of referees to the umpire, and we've strayed in many various different directions. Most of the evidence related to presentations to the board of referees in some of the issues they had with that aspect of it; I'm not sure that's actually within the purview of our study, but quite a bit of evidence was heard on that, so I'd like to pose a few questions on that to you.
One of the issues they were concerned about is that in the assignment of the cases, you might have a person coming before the board of referees who would have an obvious conflict with either the employer representative or the employee representative, which meant that they would have to disqualify themselves and the thing would then have to be reset. They'd have to find a new person because of this issue of conflict.
Now, it would seem to me it would be a relatively simple matter to resolve that issue by making the cases and the people who are sitting on the cases known much earlier. Whose purview would that be under? Is that under the department's purview, or would that be something that the commission would need to deal with to improve that area? Do you know?
12:10 p.m.
Assistant Deputy Minister, Processing and Payment Services Branch, Service Canada
The department supports the chair of the board of referees in undertaking the scheduling. They endeavour to do it in as timely a fashion as possible. In the majority of cases I think we would be able to identify such a conflict in advance and simply revamp the schedule to ensure that we have board members who are indeed impartial and have no conflict of interest in it. It's part of their obligation to declare such a conflict themselves.
12:10 p.m.
Conservative
Ed Komarnicki Conservative Souris—Moose Mountain, SK
There was some issue about that, and if there's any way of resolving that better than it is now, I think it would certainly assist them.
12:10 p.m.
Assistant Deputy Minister, Processing and Payment Services Branch, Service Canada
Do you want to add anything, Éric?
12:10 p.m.
Director, Employment Insurance Appeal Division, Service Canada
I'd like to add that we try to get out the appeal dockets to the various board members who are going to hear the case about 10 days before the actual hearing, so in theory they would be seeing the names of the people.
12:10 p.m.
Conservative
Ed Komarnicki Conservative Souris—Moose Mountain, SK
Ten days before the hearing some of us are well prepared and ready to roll.
12:10 p.m.
Director, Employment Insurance Appeal Division, Service Canada
Some others are not.
12:10 p.m.
Conservative
Ed Komarnicki Conservative Souris—Moose Mountain, SK
Is there a possibility of identifying those conflicts earlier, so that parties could be notified sooner in the process? I know it was an issue they raised, and you might take that under consideration.
Another area that was raised was the fact that when people were getting ready for trials, for one reason or another it couldn't go ahead because something was lacking and it fell apart. I know that in the legal process, at least in the judicial system, they have pretrial management conferences at which all of the parties are called together before the actual hearing to resolve any difficulties that there might be. They streamline the process and condense the actual hearing many times to much fewer days.
Is there anything like a pre-hearing management process that could try to eliminate many of the difficulties that the parties might face if you otherwise hadn't had it?
12:15 p.m.
Assistant Deputy Minister, Processing and Payment Services Branch, Service Canada
I would mention two things. As I mentioned in my remarks, when we first receive the appeal, the first step is to review the issue at hand. In many cases we will immediately conclude that there was an erroneous decision made and solve the matter right then. There's this first review step, which we find quite helpful.
12:15 p.m.
Conservative
Ed Komarnicki Conservative Souris—Moose Mountain, SK
Are you talking about the board of referees or the umpire?
12:15 p.m.
Assistant Deputy Minister, Processing and Payment Services Branch, Service Canada
This is before it even gets to the board of referees. We can review and take a second look at the actual decision that was made. That is the first step.
The board of referees itself is generally a fairly informal hearing process compared to the more formal umpire hearing. There's a flavour of that informal approach that you're speaking of.
12:15 p.m.
Conservative
Ed Komarnicki Conservative Souris—Moose Mountain, SK
What I'm getting at is a management hearing at which the board of referees or somebody on their behalf talks to the appellant and the employee and so on to resolve lack of documentation, difficulties with timing, all those kinds of things that might arise. Is there any process in advance of the hearing to make sure it gets expedited when the actual hearing date arrives?
12:15 p.m.
Assistant Deputy Minister, Processing and Payment Services Branch, Service Canada
Our focus has been on trying to have a timely hearing. Our worry would be that if further steps were put in, it might slow down the ultimate hearing. It's not something we've actively considered.
12:15 p.m.
Conservative
12:15 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Candice Bergen
Yes, but you'll probably have time to go again.
I have a quick follow-up question.
In regard to the docket that the board of referees receives about 10 days prior, is that the same information the claimant would receive?
12:15 p.m.
Conservative
12:15 p.m.
Director, Employment Insurance Appeal Division, Service Canada
Everybody gets the same.
12:15 p.m.
Conservative