Human Resources committee  To clarify, we measure speed of pay weekly, monthly, and then on an annual basis. I do expect that what the Auditor General saw was a point in time where we were at 71%.

Human Resources committee  I'll put it on the record. The annual number is about 75%.

Human Resources committee  Yes, it is. This is something we are working to improve. But this past year, 2012-13, with the volume of claims we received and the resources we had to devote to the processing, we did not quite meet our 80% speed-of-pay indicator.

Human Resources committee  I think what we're seeing here is the tail end of the effect of the recession on the labour market, so the claim load, the number of people making claims for employment insurance, remains elevated. In terms of whether there is a result here of reducing staff, I would say that i

Human Resources committee  That is true. Yes, that speed-of-pay indicator is that 80% learn within 28 days what their benefit will be or whether they will receive a benefit.

Human Resources committee  I'll try to address that question. To begin with, very quickly, as part of our regular business we conduct about 400,000 investigations a year across the statutory programs—employment insurance as well as the pension programs. In addition to that, over the last few months we hav

Human Resources committee  Actually it's Mr. Parker.

Human Resources committee  I can explain a bit here about how this works at the beginning of someone's claim. First of all, when someone applies for EI, there's a two-week waiting period, so that gives you 14 days. Then, as part of the rules of the program, there are biweekly reports required from claima

Human Resources committee  The allowable earnings provision in the “working while on claim” situation was changed, but it's still there. What the pilot, as of October, put in place was this: from the beginning of a claim, for every dollar earned, there's 50¢ that can be kept, without having an impact on th

Human Resources committee  I would be happy to. As the minister mentioned in response to the previous question, we are back to processing times that are around the seasonal norm, so in mid-November we were at 80% of claims being processed, or notification of non-payment, within 28 days.

Human Resources committee  I'm sorry. I do not have that information with me today.

Human Resources committee  You are correct.

Human Resources committee  Well, it's just to say that the decisions were based upon the multitude of these factors coming together. So every single factor isn't considered on its own. It is bringing them all together.

Human Resources committee  When we considered the sites as hubs for the long term, we looked at a range of factors, including where our labour force was currently located and what kinds of skills we would need to be able to draw on from the local population. We considered bilingual capacity. We considered

Human Resources committee  Sure: yes, I can explain that statistic of 32%.