Public Accounts Committee on Nov. 23rd, 2010

[The Chair (Hon. Joseph Volpe (Eglinton—Lawrence, Lib.)), Liberal, Joe Volpe]

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. I'm delighted that we're all here. We can begin very quickly.

Today's orders of the day are chapter 3, “Service Delivery”, of the fall 2010 report of the Auditor General. We have with us several individuals from the Office of the Auditor General. We have Monsieur Sylvain Ricard, assistant auditor general; Marian McMahon, assistant auditor general, and Mr. Glenn Wheeler, principal.

I never understood that, the principal and assistant, but anyway, you can give us that lesson later.

From the Department of Citizenship and Immigration, we have Mr. Neil Yeates, deputy minister, and Madame Claudette Deschênes, assistant deputy minister, operations.

I want to thank you all for coming. We will proceed almost immediately to the business of the day, but I guess I have to go through the appropriate pro forma, and that is, pursuant to Standing Order 108(3)(g) and the motion adopted by the committee on Thursday, November 4, 2010, chapter 3, “Service Delivery”, of the fall 2010 report of the Auditor General of Canada, referred to the committee on October 26, 2010, here we are, ladies and gentlemen.

I think we're going to begin with Monsieur Ricard.

Do you want to begin? You have five to 10 minutes.

[Sylvain Ricard, Assistant Auditor General, Office of the Auditor General of Canada]

Yes, with a brief opening statement.

[The Chair, Liberal, Joe Volpe]

“Brief”--voila. That's how we translate five to 10 minutes in French. Merci.

[Sylvain Ricard, Assistant Auditor General, Office of the Auditor General of Canada]

You have the floor.

[Sylvain Richard]

Mr. Chairman, Thank you for this opportunity to discuss Chapter 3 of our 2010 fall report, Service Delivery.

Joining me at the table are Marian McMahon, Assistant Auditor General, who was responsible for the portion of the audit that examined the Canada Revenue Agency, and Glenn Wheeler, Principal, who was also responsible for the audit.

All Canadians require the services of the federal government at one time or another, and research indicates that they expect high-quality service. At the same time, the government must balance clients' needs with policy requirements and available resources.

Our audit looked at the practices used by three organizations—Citizenship and Immigration Canada, Human Resources and Skills Development Canada and the Canada Revenue Agency—to set their service standards, monitor and report on their service performance and act on this information to improve service quality.

We found that two organizations we examined, Human Resources and Skills Development Canada and the Canada Revenue Agency, have adequate practices in place to manage their service delivery, while a third, Citizenship and Immigration Canada, has yet to establish service standards for some of its major programs. We understand that the committee would like to focus today on the portion of the audit that examines Citizenship and Immigration Canada.

Citizenship and Immigration Canada has been working to develop service standards since 2007. In April 2010 the department published a preliminary set of service standards and associated targets for four business lines.

This set of standards is very limited considering that the department provides more than 35 different services. There are no standards for some major services--for example, the citizenship program. Without a complete set of standards, the department cannot comprehensively evaluate its service performance and may not be able to ensure a consistent level of service to its clients. In the absence of standards, the department was using operational data such as intake, output, processing time, and inventories to provide some indication of performance.

We recommended that Citizenship and Immigration Canada ensure that all channels of communication provide consistent information on the time it takes to process applications for citizenship and requests for citizenship certificates; that it establish and communicate a comprehensive set of service standards for all key services it delivers; that it monitor and report on its service performance against these standards; and that it collect and analyze client feedback and complaints to identify systemic service issues.

The department has developed an action plan in response to our recommendation. In particular, we note that it plans to develop a comprehensive set of service standards and to begin reporting externally on them by spring 2013.

Mr. Chairman, this concludes my opening remarks. We would be pleased to answer any questions. Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Joe Volpe]

Thank you, Mr. Ricard. The others have nothing to add? All right, thank you.

I'll now go to Mr. Yeates or Ms. Deschênes.

It will be you, Mr. Yeates? Go ahead.

[Neil Yeates, Deputy Minister, Department of Citizenship and Immigration]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen.

My name is Neil Yeates, and I am Deputy Minister of Citizenship and Immigration Canada. I am joined by Claudette Deschênes, Assistant Deputy Minister of Operations, at CIC.

I would like to thank the committee for inviting me to speak. Today I will focus my brief remarks on Chapter 3 of the Auditor General's report, and afterwards we will be happy to answer your questions.

First of all, CIC does agree with the Auditor General's recommendations related to improving service delivery in our department. To that end, our goal is efficient and effective service delivery that is integrated across our global network, is facilitated by technology and partnerships, and is guided by thoughtful risk management and quality assurance.

As the Auditor General observed in her report, the department has already taken some steps to improve our services to the public, both in Canada and overseas.

I would also like to mention our action plan for faster immigration, which is helping us improve our services for federal skilled worker applicants. As of March 31, 2010, the overall inventory of federal skilled worker applications has been reduced by 16% and processing times have dramatically improved.

Mr. Chairman, we have introduced and improved our service standards for our key business lines, but I'd like to take this opportunity to point out to the committee that it is challenging for us to introduce timely service standards for business lines when there is no control over intake. Our immigration plan sets limits on how many applications we will process in a given year. However, in many immigration streams, there is no limit on the number of people who can apply. This results in lengthy processing times and makes it challenging to set service standards.

This year we introduced a service declaration and service standards for four services. We will implement a second phase of service standards on April 1, 2011. The second phase will incorporate lessons learned and feedback from applicants during the implementation of phase 1 earlier this year.

We are also committed to establishing an online relationship between applicants and CIC through the use of electronic accounts, application forms, and status updates. This means that we would be available 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Our aim is to make it easier for people to apply online by helping applicants overcome the often confusing information overload that may lead some to seek the services of an immigration consultant.

We expanded our online services and increased the use of online applications in order to provide more accessible and efficient services. Our online services are now also available on a mobile site, which provides a more convenient service to applicants using a mobile device.

The department also publishes the most current processing times on its website for applications in all immigration categories. This enables applicants to access accurate and timely information on their application.

For over a year, international students using our e-Suite of Services have been able to apply on line for an off-campus work permit, confirm their eligibility on line and extend their study permit on line while in Canada.

Building on the success and popularity of these online services, our e-suite of services has now been expanded beyond students, allowing 98% of in-Canada temporary residents, including workers and visitors, to apply for work permits or an extension of their visit here in Canada. Also, this fall we launched a new electronic form for temporary resident visa applications, which will make the application process easier and will reduce errors, making the application process faster.

Extending our online services has significantly improved the application process by providing faster, more accessible, more efficient services, and CIC intends to make all types of applications available online in the future.

CIC is also improving our online services in other ways. For example, we are developing an interactive online tool that matches individuals with the immigration option that best suits them.

As well, we are developing video tutorials that provide step-by-step instructions on completing application forms. In developing these, it is our goal to reduce applicants' dependency on paid immigration consultants. We also expect these videos to help increase efficiency in processing applications, since they will help reduce the number of errors on application forms.

Finally, the department has also entered the array of social media to further engage applicants and the broader public through Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube. We have begun an ongoing dialogue with the public about our policies and programs.

In addition to improving our online services this year, we piloted initiatives that have shortened processing times for business visitors and many students through the business express program and the student partners program.

We also accelerated the processing of sponsorship applications from Canadian citizens and permanent residents who have close family members who were significantly affected by the earthquake in Haiti.

As well, the global case management system, GCMS, is currently being rolled out overseas. GCMS will replace two legacy systems and will improve our processing capabilities overseas, where the majority of applications are received.

In closing, I would like to highlight some of our progress to date in response to some of the Auditor General's specific recommendations.

We're ensuring that applicants for citizenship and citizenship certificates receive consistent and clear information on processing times. In May 2010, we made changes to the citizenship acknowledgment letters, which now refer applicants to our website for accurate processing times. This allows applicants to access more accurate and timely information.

CIC also began work this year to improve our collection and analysis of feedback and complaints from applicants, based on the recommendations from the audit.

We'll also launch a survey of applicants by the end of this fiscal year, and the results should be available in the 2011 fiscal year. These results will inform our future work in improving service standards and setting new ones. We plan to report on these results publicly.

These are just some of the ways we are working to improve our service and address the Auditor General's concerns in a timely way. I'd be happy to respond to any questions you may have.

[The Chair, Liberal, Joe Volpe]

Thank you very much, Mr. Yeates.

Ms. Deschênes, have you both finished?

I'm going to go immediately to Mr. Navdeep Bains so he can ask the first questions.

[Navdeep Bains, Liberal, Mississauga—Brampton South, ON]

Thank you very much, Chair.

Good morning to everyone.

The overall focus for me today is going to be on service delivery and customer service, and particularly on issues in my constituency office with with respect to out-of-date and misguided information provided by CIC. That was further highlighted in the report by the AG.

My staff documents numerous examples--as you've probably come across through many MPs' office--of challenges and issues they face in simply getting responses to routine updates. In fact, many of the clients you refer to cannot get simple, routine updates and they come to us. This is a common problem that we face.

In light of all these concerns we raise with you from the constituency level--many of my colleagues from all political parties have raised this with me and it is a problem across the country--why is CIC's customer service being outsourced to MPs' offices? That's the feeling we get.

There's a great sense of frustration here. Why can't the system respond to simple, routine cases and let us focus on some of the more complex cases, where we can deal with the constituent in a more effective manner and allocate resources accordingly? Could you respond to that, please?

[Neil Yeates]

Yes. I can start. First of all, it's certainly not our intent to outsource services to MPs' offices. We know you get a lot of inquiries on citizenship and immigration matters.

Depending on what line of business you are dealing with, with respect to what we deliver, there are different avenues that can be accessed. We have a call centre. To provide more immediate access, we have a special number for MPs. We continue to update the quality of the information available on the website.

We realize we have further to go. We are working on the introduction of a “My CIC” account, so that clients can check the status of their applications directly. That's where we're working to get ourselves to. We expect--we hope--that will take a lot of the business out of your offices if people can check directly.

[Navdeep Bains, Liberal, Mississauga—Brampton South, ON]

Yes.

Go ahead.

[Claudette Deschênes, Assistant Deputy Minister, Operations, Department of Citizenship and Immigration]

I would add that with the rollout of the global case management, the next thing we want to be able to do is push information consistently out to the clients so they will actually know where their files are in the process. We're looking a system of e-mails. We could tell the clients that every six months they're going to receive an e-mail from us, and even though the file may not have moved, they'll at least know we're still working on it.

One of the other challenges we had is that because of the volume of applications, some offices, for example, have a harder time creating files in a timely fashion. So in the last year, we've spent a lot of time making sure files are created. We've been putting our efforts there so that we can then, when the system is rolled out, be able to acknowledge that the application is in and then give periodics, so that you wouldn't have to deal with routine inquiries. Because we know that is a problem.

[Navdeep Bains, Liberal, Mississauga—Brampton South, ON]

Yes, that's right. It is a problem. You described what you're doing, but the reality is very different, and the problem is getting worse, actually, from what I experience and what I hear. I wanted to share that with you so that you're fully up to speed on the reality on the ground versus what you've described.

The second point I wanted to make has to do with the accuracy of the information. Again, this is a challenge I often encounter in my office when I deal with constituents directly. The AG says, for example, that you have a problem with consistency, and your response is to remove the dates from the letters. Now you say you're going to be referring them to the website. But shouldn't CIC be focusing on the accuracy of the information as opposed to where they get the information from? That's the core issue.

I'm not sure that your action plan, which I've looked at, addresses this. It's not where they get the information; it's the accuracy of it. That's the frustrating part, because that's what people are looking for, and they're unable to get that information.

[Neil Yeates]

We certainly agree that the accuracy of the information is important. We made the change with the letters because those are computer generated and we had trouble with having to update those continuously. We thought it was better to send people to one more authoritative source.

Yes, we do believe it's very important to make sure that information is as accurate as possible. The situation can change and fluctuate quite often, which is one of our challenges.

If you're dealing with overseas applications in terms of different missions around the world, the situation can be quite different. In terms of what's available on the website, we've dealt with mission-specific information and then overall for that class of applications, depending on the particular program. Those could be two quite different things.

[Navdeep Bains, Liberal, Mississauga—Brampton South, ON]

I'll come back to the mission-specific and resource management issue, but I have one more quick question and I'm not sure how I'm doing for time.

The question is with regard to people receiving their citizenship and the time it takes. Again, my experience in dealing with this in my office is that it takes over two years for people to receive their citizenship. These people are here and they've met all the requirements. Two years seems to be very excessive. They have fundamental rights that they want to exercise as citizens, but they have to wait two years.

How do you justify this? How does one justify having them waiting two years to get their citizenship? What's the issue there?

[Neil Yeates]

Yes. I think the issue fundamentally is.... I guess the good news story is that we've seen an increase in immigration over the past 10 years. Canada, as members will know, Mr. Chair, has a very high rate of naturalization, so the number of people applying to us has gone up fairly significantly. Fundamentally, we've not been able to keep up with the volume of cases that has come in to us. We've had temporary funding at one time or another over the past few years that has allowed us to catch up somewhat, but that funding has been temporary.

So we're doing two things at the moment. One, we're working on a permanent funding fix to the shortfall we've had in our capacity. Secondly, we're focusing on the process re-engineering in terms of what it is that we do and what we're asking people for, and also on the coordination and connection to our regional offices, because of course they go to the CPC in Sydney for the initial processing and then go out to our regional offices. We're working on those two pieces.

We would agree. We would like to be making significant improvements in the processing times.

[Navdeep Bains, Liberal, Mississauga—Brampton South, ON]

Absolutely. I think it's unacceptable for people to wait two years, so I'm glad you're working on it.

[The Chair, Liberal, Joe Volpe]

Thank you, Mr. Bains.

I would like to introduce some political science students—future politicians—from the Université du Québec à Montréal. Today they are watching Ms. Faille work.

Ms. Faille, you have the floor.

[Meili Faille, Bloc, Vaudreuil—Soulanges, QC]

In fact, perhaps it's time for my friend Mr. Kramp to say how good a member I am and how good my research is. It's time, today. Thank you. Oh, oh!

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

[Meili Faille, Bloc, Vaudreuil—Soulanges, QC]

I could use my English words: I'm astonished.

In fact, it's a pleasure to have the students from UQAM here today. Among other things, this morning, we talked about the various programs and the exercise being carried out by the Standing Committee on Public Accounts.

Earlier I promised not to be too hard on Deputy Minister Deschênes. I know she has held various positions, in case management, among others, where she did a tremendous job, especially resolving the most complex cases.

Now you're facing a very complex challenge, Ms. Deschênes. The Auditor General didn't go easy on the Department of Citizenship and Immigration. You offer more than 35 services at the department. Only four services have service standards.

Can you tell us what measures you intend to take to ensure the other departmental services have standards? I believe you're aware of the problems that causes for the management of provincial programs as well.

Earlier my colleague talked about problems related to obtaining citizenship and passport services, but the question of the right to vote is just as important.

Often, particularly in reunification cases involving people in the refugee class, family reunification, there is already a long waiting period before the family is reunified with the person who has been accepted as a refugee. Until a family has been recognized or has its citizenship card, it cannot take advantage of government services. The problem remains intact.

Perhaps you can first give me an answer regarding service standards. What actual measures have been taken, apart from those related to the computer system? In concrete terms, with regard to the CIC registry, what measures are being taken to expedite services?

[Neil Yeates]

Thank you.

I can start and then Ms. Deschênes can add something.

I can tell students that

I as well studied political science, a very good thing to study. It's nice to see you here.

First of all, we started with four areas in our initial service standards: labour market opinions, family class cases, permanent resident cards, and grants and contributions.

We realize our services are very important for clients, of course. We accept that.

We're proceeding now to look at the rest of our business lines and basically phasing this in over the next two to three years. What it will mean initially is starting with our processing times, which we've been publishing for years, and basically converting them to service standards of one kind or another.

One of the challenges we've had as a department is that we have struggled with the issue of service standards versus processing times. We're not happy with the processing times, either. We face various challenges, whether it's our immigration levels—we only take in so many cases every year, so in some of our business lines, that is a boundary for us that affects processing times and will affect service standards—or others, such as citizenship, which we were just discussing. We've had other challenges in our capacity and the processes that we've had in place.

Our basic plan is to go through all of them systematically and establish service standards for each line of business.

[Meili Faille, Bloc, Vaudreuil—Soulanges, QC]

Mr. Yeates, your predecessor previously told us those same things when he came to the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration.

In concrete terms, have you put in place a working committee by service or by line of business? That's what we're interested in hearing.

Since 1996, the department has come in for a number of criticisms in this regard, and has been the subject of recommendations by the committee. I also really want you to tell me about concrete action.

[Neil Yeates]

Very basically, we've tabled an action plan with the committee chair. What we've laid out there is basically a three-phase approach to doing this. Phase 1 has included the service standards I referred to. The other two phases, which will incorporate the balance, will be done over the next three years.

We have a very concrete plan to roll all of those out in three phases. Phase 1 is in place now. The other two phases will come in spring 2012 and spring 2013.

[Meili Faille, Bloc, Vaudreuil—Soulanges, QC]

Internally, are you facing other challenges in establishing service standards? Among other things, I'm thinking of the fees you charge clients. When a person files an application, there are administrative fees related to that. You're supposed to have a financial model supporting the cost evaluation and to charge people who request a service an amount to process their request.

As citizens, if we consider the fact that you haven't established service standards, we sometimes get the impression, at MPs offices, that people are dragging their heels in certain sectors. I could give you an example. In the parent and grandparent classes, people wait eight to nine years. You cash the cheques quickly, but processing then takes an enormous amount of time.

Are you facing any challenges of that kind? Have people challenged you in those areas?