Government Operations Committee on Nov. 29th, 2011

[Paul Thompson]

Thank you for that question.

This was indeed a huge challenge. Normally, to make a change of this magnitude and complexity affecting this many people would take quite a number of months to do, to reprogram the systems. We came up with some innovative ways. I don't want to get into all the details of the technology, but we brought together our technology specialists and our program designers. We came up with a strategy to implement this and test it in a rigorous fashion so that we were able to implement it without taking any undue risks.

A big part of the strategy in implementing this is to make sure you do it accurately so that you're not mispaying people. We think we got the right balance between an expeditious implementation and doing it without putting the program at risk.

[Peter Braid, Conservative, Kitchener—Waterloo, ON]

Great.

Perhaps this is a segue to my next question. As members of Parliament we often hear from constituents in our riding, often to help with issues or concerns relating to the federal government. Last week I received a compliment from a constituent about the service they received from the Service Canada office on Weber Street in Waterloo. A constituent went in to apply for a social insurance number, a card for his 16-year-old daughter, and he was very impressed with the service he received. It was fast, friendly, quick. I wanted to pass that along to you, first.

Second, this is customer service, and improving customer service is a process of continuous improvement. How is HRSDC working to enhance customer service at Service Canada offices across the country?

[Paul Thompson]

Thank you for that question.

We have made service excellence the cornerstone of the strategy for Service Canada for the last several years. It's been a bit of a transformation for the organization to go from being specialists in a given program to being more generalists in the delivery of service to Canadians. The model is that a citizen should be able to come into one of our Service Canada centres and be served in the best possible way on a broad range of initiatives, not simply be told to go to a different door or to phone a different office. It's to provide a whole-of-government service, service that cuts across, definitely, the range of HRSDC programs in particular—our major statutory programs—as well as a range of other programs. This has been underpinned by a very extensive training regime for our staff, and we have other measures in place to monitor client satisfaction and the extent of the progress we're making on this service excellence journey as well.

[Peter Braid, Conservative, Kitchener—Waterloo, ON]

How much time is left?

[The Chair, NDP, Pat Martin]

About five seconds, Peter.

[Peter Braid, Conservative, Kitchener—Waterloo, ON]

Okay, we'll end on that high note.

Thank you.

[The Chair, NDP, Pat Martin]

Very good. Thank you.

If I might, I'll just ask a point of clarification again.

Do you have to make application for the guaranteed income supplement system, or do you automatically get it based on your income tax return being at a low threshold?

[Paul Thompson]

There is a requirement for initial application for the guaranteed income supplement, but for the last number of years, I believe the last two or three years, we've had an automatic renewal. So once you've entered the GIS system, there is a process through which, based on CRA tax data, we automatically renew the GIS. It's just that initial application that is required to get you into the GIS program.

[The Chair, NDP, Pat Martin]

Is there any kind of actuarial projection that anticipates that there are people out there who qualify or are eligible for the supplement but who have not yet applied for it? And is there an effort to reach out to them to invite them to apply?

[Paul Thompson]

We have a very active program. In fact, in advance of people's 65th birthday we have a major outreach campaign to send out presumptive applications to people who we know might be eligible. So to the extent that we have data that there are individuals approaching their 65th birthday, we do mail out a package and encourage them to apply.

As well, there are various other outreach activities through stakeholder organizations and other groups to build awareness of the importance of applying and getting the benefits to which you're entitled.

[The Chair, NDP, Pat Martin]

Thank you very much.

I'm sorry, I interrupted John McCallum.

It's your turn, John.

[John McCallum, Liberal, Markham—Unionville, ON]

Thank you.

And thank you to our witnesses.

I would like to return to the subject of the $60 million in savings in the strategic review.

If you look at the budget, you'll see that the categories are very broad and virtually the same thing for every department, things like increasing efficiency and effectiveness, focusing on core role, etc., which basically doesn't tell you anything.

My question is this. Whether you could do it now or whether you perhaps send written information, can you give us a breakdown of the $60 million in terms of which programs or activities were cut and what the implications were in terms of full-time equivalent jobs?

[Alfred Tsang]

Mr. Chair, earlier in the session I gave some examples. Probably the largest of the $60 million is the merging of the AIG—that's the apprenticeship incentive grant and the apprenticeship completion grant—which is $30 million right there.

It is very difficult to read the table, so we would be happy to provide the committee with a table.

[John McCallum, Liberal, Markham—Unionville, ON]

Thank you. That would be very helpful.

The second question is on the same subject. The budget says that your department is responsible for $80.5 million, not $60 million. Does that mean there is $20 million more coming?

[Alfred Tsang]

The answer to that question, Mr. Chairman, is that the $60 million shows up in voted money. The other $20 million is chargeable to things like, for example, our CPP account. Those are other savings, which count for the purpose of the budget document on page 223, but they do not come under the supplementary estimates because they are not appropriated.

[John McCallum, Liberal, Markham—Unionville, ON]

Thank you. That's very clear.

This is my last question on this general subject. I'm not sure whether this is related to the strategic review or not. A couple of months ago I was in Montague in Prince Edward Island. There is a Service Canada centre there, which I think processes EI claims. It was in the process of moving from 60 permanent staff to zero over a number of years.

My question is this. Is that a part of the strategic review process, and whether it is or not, what is the rationale for closing that place?

[Paul Thompson]

Part of our strategic review, as I noted earlier, our plan, is to achieve savings equivalent to 600 full-time equivalent jobs over the course of three years. Those are through automation and efficiencies. Those aren't simply cuts. There's actually a strategy with various releases of automation to achieve those savings.

As part of this agenda, we're at the same time consolidating our processing capacity. Rather than having processing staff spread across a multitude of small offices across the country, there's a strong business rationale to consolidate into larger, more efficient centres. That is why there have been a number of smaller sites that are slated to wind down over the course of the next two or three years.

[John McCallum, Liberal, Markham—Unionville, ON]

You said earlier that service to the customer is your top priority. In Montague, I learned it was absolutely the opposite, because rather than getting service from individual people in their own community, who are now getting laid off, customers were required to phone 1-800 numbers, and in a large number of cases they either had to wait for many hours or not get contact at all, as compared with a local person living in their own community who understood the conditions.

So those people—and I know it's quite common across the country—have received a very sharp reduction in the quality of the service, rather than an increase.

[Paul Thompson]

It's important to distinguish between the front-counter Service Canada Centre presence and the back-office processing capacity. When you were referring to the job reductions over the next two or three years in Montague, that is back-office claims processing, which works on a national inventory of claims, so they're not working on claims from people in Montague. That's a distributed processing capacity.

[John McCallum, Liberal, Markham—Unionville, ON]

No, but the member of Parliament was on a regular phone-in basis with the people in this office. The people are now being transferred out of it so that local contact is lost. I've heard from many individuals that the service is much diminished from what it was a year or so ago.

I'd also like to ask a question about advertising. There is $9.5 million in advertising. Advertising for what, and how is that broken down?

[The Chair, NDP, Pat Martin]

A brief answer, please, Mr. Tsang. We're well over time.

[Alfred Tsang]

I believe I referred to that in my opening remarks, Mr. Chair. They are for three campaigns: skilled trades, elder abuse, and financial elder abuse.

[John McCallum, Liberal, Markham—Unionville, ON]

How much?

[Alfred Tsang]

I'll be happy to ask my colleague, Renée Couturier, who has that information.

[The Chair, NDP, Pat Martin]

I wonder if we could get that information to you, John, and we can move on to the next round of questioners. It will be our last...unless you have the information available now. Do you?