Finance Committee on Feb. 18th, 2021

[Philip Lawrence, Conservative, Northumberland—Peterborough South, ON]

I'll just change subjects, but with a quick one. I do appreciate the chair's gracious time.

With respect, I actually had to deliver food personally to a family in my riding, because they were waiting.... They got caught in the vortex of applying between ESDC and CRA, and those systems not working. They had a legitimate claim to CRB—CRA said so—but because of the systems in between, they had to enter it manually.

How many more families have to go without food until we get that software corrected? How much longer...?

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

Who's the software specialist here? Who wants to take it?

Go ahead, Mr. Groen.

[Cliff C. Groen]

Thank you very much.

I certainly would not characterize myself as a software specialist, but I will be able to answer that question.

CRA and Service Canada do exchange data because we need to ensure that people are only receiving one of either the recovery benefit or the employment insurance benefit. We do exchange data between the two departments to ensure that there is not that situation.

We are aware that there are a number of clients who are experiencing some delays because of that data exchange. We are working very closely with CRA in addressing that, and for the vast majority of individuals who were affected, those issues have been addressed. Any remaining ones we are doing as quickly as we can. It is certainly a high priority of ours.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

Thank you.

Before I turn to Mr. McLeod on that very topic, I'll just put a bee in your bonnet, because this was a new one to me. It first came from an accounting firm, and then I got two more calls about it later in the day. It is the filing time for the wage subsidy, for the CEWS. The deadline is a hard deadline of January 31. In any event, this accounting firm missed the deadline of January 31, and there is no process for late filing and paying a penalty, so it seems.

I sent the information on to representatives at the CRA. They informed me that it wasn't their problem. It was the finance department's, so that question is somewhere in your system. I'll give people a heads-up that this is probably a problem area that has to be addressed. The individual in this case who has the problem figures it will cost him $97,000 if he is not able to file past the deadline even if he has to pay a penalty. It's just a bee in your bonnet to think about for the moment, because the letter is in the system somewhere.

I'm turning to you, Mr. McLeod, for five minutes.

[Michael McLeod, Liberal, Northwest Territories, NT]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

First of all, I also want to say thanks to everybody who did all the hard work or who continues to do all the hard work on the pandemic. I'm quite happy with the response from the government. I think when we compare the government's response here in Canada to the United States', we also have to look at the rate of infection, and of course we're quite a bit lower. We also have to look at the number of deaths that happened in the States and compare it with Canada.

Here in the Northwest Territories we've been very lucky. The Government of Canada and the Government of Northwest Territories have worked very well together, and they've managed to keep the number of cases low in the Northwest Territories. We've not had anyone die from the virus, and it's given us more freedom. We can travel a little more within the territories. We've been able to keep our schools open. We've allowed some businesses to stay open. I think everybody has to have a little bit of a pat on the back when it comes to this. It's because we worked so hard to support businesses and people and marginalized groups. We certainly acknowledge that the north was recognized as an area that needed attention.

Recently, the Government of Northwest Territories' finance minister announced in her chambers that the government spent $156 million trying to address COVID. Out of that, $123 million came from the Government of Canada. For us, I think we are seeing very good unemployment rates here in the north. I was really surprised when I looked at the numbers. Under the Canada emergency business account, we put out about 4,400 loans worth $24 million. Under the Canada emergency wage subsidy, there were 1,490 applications for $40 million in subsidies, paid out to protect 2,960 jobs. As for the Canada emergency response benefit, 12,000 residents claimed it. There were 2,380 people who claimed the Canada recovery benefit. For the sickness benefit, there were 760 people, so the numbers have been really good. On top of that, we received indigenous community support.

The implementation of the seven new programs I just mentioned certainly saw an increase in calls to the centres. Can the people here talk about how much of an increase they've seen and what steps they have taken to address this extraordinary situation?

[Cliff C. Groen]

Certainly. Thank you very much for the question.

I'm responsible for the employment insurance call centres. We also had a CERB call centre that we implemented. Back when the pandemic first hit, the volume of calls that came into our call centre was unprecedented. On any specific day, 10, 20 or even 30 times more calls would be received.

Since March, we've implemented a number of measures. There are two main pieces I would flag. We invested a lot in our technology to increase people's ability to access our phone lines. Prior to that, there was a significant blockage. People would just receive a busy signal. They weren't able to even get into our automated response. Through enhancements to technology, that situation no longer occurs. That has not been occurring since May of last year.

Secondly and most importantly, we've invested in a significant number of new call centre agents. Prior to the pandemic, we had about 1,100 EI call centre agents. By the end of March, we will have over 3,000 EI call centre agents, which has resulted in a dramatic increase in the number of calls we are answering. Because the demand continues to be very high, wait times are longer than we would like, but they are actually starting to go down and we anticipate that they will continue to reduce.

[Michael McLeod, Liberal, Northwest Territories, NT]

There's a question that's always being asked to me as a member of Parliament, and one of you touched a bit on how the CERB program had to kind of fill in for the EI system, which couldn't handle an emergency such as this.

Could you maybe walk us through the decision process behind the creation of the CERB? I think it's important for everybody to understand what was going on.

[Cliff C. Groen]

Thank you. I'll start that off, and maybe colleagues might want to add to it.

With regard to the EI program, when the pandemic first hit back in March, we were closely watching our overall EI claim volume intake. In the first two weeks of March, there was not much of a difference, but then that middle week of March is when claim volumes skyrocketed. We received 87,000 new EI claims in one day, which was by far the most we had ever received in one day, even going back to the global recession in the late 2000s. In subsequent days, we received over 180,000 or 190,000. When that started coming in, we knew that our standard response would not be adequate.

I would like to tie in to the question about lessons learned that was answered earlier. I want to be clear that the EI system did not fail. The measures we took in implementing CERB ensured that the EI system wouldn't fail. A key lesson learned was in partnering with CRA. CRA and Service Canada, as part of ESDC, were key partners. We jointly delivered the program to ensure that it would be adequately delivered and we dramatically simplified the EI program. Therefore, we were able to take in those millions of applications that we received in late March and April, and throughout the pandemic.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

Thank you.

We'll go to Mr. Fast next, followed by Ms. Koutrakis.

Mr. Fast.

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I want to start off by building on comments that Mr. Fraser made earlier.

This was a historic support program that was rolled out. It was done quickly. It was big. It was done in a way that also provides a cautionary tale, and that is, when you rush these kinds of programs out.... I understand that there was a clear rationale for it and millions of Canadians benefited from it, but a lot of design flaws also occurred. A lot of mistakes were made. A lot of safeguards were missing. My plea to the Liberal members of this committee is to please not reject proper parliamentary oversight.

The Deputy Prime Minister recently claimed that opposition parties, specifically our party, was delaying Bill C-14, which is the fall economic statement. We're talking about hundreds of billions of dollars of spending. We're talking about increasing the debt ceiling to $1.8 trillion. The suggestion is that the opposition members should simply step back and allow these programs and this funding to roll out without much oversight. That is wrong. I think there are some lessons to be learned from the mistakes that have been made, as we've discussed today, and as has been broadly discussed not only in Parliament but across Canada.

First of all, who will be able to respond to questions on the Canada recovery sickness benefit?

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

Raise your question, Ed, and we'll find someone to answer.

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

All right. I think Elisha Ram is going to be answering this question.

There were Canadians who travelled abroad, notwithstanding the fact that our public health authorities discouraged Canadians from travelling. When they returned, they had to quarantine.

Is it true that this benefit was applied for by returning travellers, especially those who were on leisure travel?

[Elisha Ram]

I can't speak to the specifics of whether or not people who were on leisure travel applied, because it was not information that we were collecting at the outset of the benefit.

That has been pointed out, and the government has essentially announced that it's going to take measures to prevent that from happening going forward. That legislation has still not passed.

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

Was that legislation introduced?

[Elisha Ram]

Legislation can be introduced quickly; however, I understand that there continues to be negotiations of the terms of that legislation.

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

Then you're telling me that, right now, Canadians who have travelled abroad despite health authorities asking them not to, when they return, can still apply for the Canada recovery sickness benefit?

[Elisha Ram]

The government has announced that this ability will not be respected, going back to.... I don't remember the exact date. I think it's some time in January. That means that when the legislation is in fact introduced and passed, we will have the ability to deny those claims.

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

Thank you for that information.

Regarding the Canada emergency business account, I'd like to know the total number of businesses so far that have applied for that benefit, the $40,000 plus the $20,000 that was added on.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

I believe Ms. McDermott would have this one.

[Alison McDermott]

I think my colleague Soren Halverson might be able to answer that question.

[Soren Halverson]

The numbers that I have in front of me are that there have been 831,000 loans provided. I don't have the number of applicants. I can tell you that the approval rate is very high on that program, and I'd be happy to follow up with that information and provide it to the committee.

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

Of course, a portion of that is forgivable. Is that correct?

[Soren Halverson]

That's correct.

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

How much money has actually been paid out so far under that program?

[Soren Halverson]

Approximately $43 billion has been paid out.