Government Operations Committee on May 11th, 2020

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Before you jump in, Graham, would you please let us know what the current call centre standards are for the general Service Canada phone line?

[Cliff C. Groen, Acting Chief Operating Officer, Service Canada, Department of Employment and Social Development]

This is Cliff Groen from Service Canada. There are a number of points I would raise. Certainly we do know there have been challenges in accessing our EI call centre. There have been a number of measures we have put into place, one of which has been significantly automating our technology.

We had been having issues back in April in which a number of callers were being blocked at the automated level. In our EI call centre, lots of clients can actually self-serve and report on a biweekly basis using that automated system, but because of the number of calls we were receiving, we had lots of callers who were being blocked. We've actually adjusted that technology, and since last week we're now in a situation in which no callers are being blocked at the automated response level, which has actually dramatically improved service for those Canadians.

Second, we are in the process of continuing to hire lots of different call centre agents. We stood up a new 1,500-agent call centre for the CERB, and that's in addition to our existing 1,000-member—

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Respectfully, what is the actual service standard for the phone line versus the online portal? I can tell you that our constituency offices are an extension of the public service. When the phone gets dropped at your line, they're calling our offices, and I can share with you that even when we try to get through, we're having significant problems.

[Cliff C. Groen]

Yes, and we are—

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

We want to make sure we're working together here and that we have service standards that are clear and predictable, particularly in responding to MP offices.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

Sir, I'll have to get you to provide that answer in writing to our clerk, because we're completely out of time. If you could do that, I would appreciate it greatly.

We'll now go to our four-minute round of questions, starting with Mrs. Block.

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

I have a quick point of order, as it relates to the writing, and I do apologize, Mr. Chair. Do we give the witnesses a time frame in which they're to reply? It's a good thing to say, but I wonder what the actual requirement is for them to reply in writing.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

I have never given a definitive timeline to reply. We're just saying as soon as possible.

Mrs. Block, you have four minutes, please.

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek, SK]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Minister and departmental staff, for joining us today.

So far, we have 7.59 million CERB applicants and 11 million applications. I'm wondering if you could tell us what percentage of applicants from the first month have reapplied for each of the next two periods. What percentage of applicants have not reapplied for any subsequent period?

[Carla Qualtrough, Liberal, Delta, BC]

In fact, I've been asking those exact same questions.

Graham, can you give us any preliminary answers?

[Graham Flack]

We're running those specific numbers, Minister, but the evidence is that virtually all the individuals applying in the initial period have applied in the second period.

I guess the key interaction that we can't give you right now is the interaction with the wage subsidy. As you know, when that came in, it was retroactive and there was an expectation that people would leave the CERB as their companies brought them back on the wage subsidy. We cannot do that matching up front because employers have not been asked to provide the SINs for the people getting the wage subsidy up front. We can't make that matching with the wage subsidy on an individual client-by-client basis until employers eventually provide those numbers.

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek, SK]

Okay, so maybe I'll ask a broader question. Is the individual utilization of CERB increasing or decreasing since it first opened in early April?

[Carla Qualtrough, Liberal, Delta, BC]

Graham?

[Cliff C. Groen]

Hi, sorry about that.... We have seen a slight downward trend in terms of the number of new applicants coming in over the last few weeks, although it is very difficult to have definitive trends because things are moving very quickly.

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek, SK]

Thank you for that.

This will be my last question.

Minister, in your response to my colleague's questions earlier, you acknowledged or referenced the added layer of the provinces in some of the decision-making and some of the policies that you've contemplated. As the provinces begin to safely open up their economies and get them back up and running, have you had any discussions with your colleagues, or within your department, about any changes to the programs that you are overseeing?

[Carla Qualtrough, Liberal, Delta, BC]

Thank you. That's a really important question, and I am working very closely with my provincial and territorial colleagues, ministers of employment and on the disability side as well, because it's very important for us to understand where the puck is going, for lack of a better analogy.

What I can tell you is that our focus is on supporting workers, and, quite frankly, as the emphasis shifts to primarily supporting businesses—because, of course, more people in their jobs is better than people being sidelined by the pandemic—we have to ensure that we complement what the provinces are doing and that we don't put in any roadblocks or disincentives to get back to work.

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek, SK]

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

Mr. Drouin, you have four minutes, please.

[Francis Drouin, Liberal, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair

Thank you, Minister, for taking the time to provide your voice to this committee.

On Friday, I heard a lot from expectant mothers with regard to those who would qualify for EI. Some were put on EI early, and some were put on the CERB, and they were afraid they would be impacted by this because they wouldn't be accumulating insurable hours.

Can you explain to this committee what changes have been made to maternity and parental benefits?

[Carla Qualtrough, Liberal, Delta, BC]

What happened through our system, as we just discussed in the EI stream, is that expectant mothers who were answering “yes” to the question “Are you pregnant?” despite having applied for the CERB and more appropriately getting the CERB, were getting the regular EI benefits.

I had committed to addressing this, and I had also committed that no woman who was on the CERB would in any way have her entitlement to EI maternity or parental benefits impacted. As of last Friday, expectant mothers who should have been receiving the CERB will have their claims converted retroactively.

Just for precision, this means that, if a woman was receiving less than $500, she would get a top-up to $500. If she had been receiving more than $500, she will not have that money clawed back. In addition, the weeks during which she had been collecting the CERB will not impact the number of weeks. If weeks need to be put back into her personal entitlement, that will happen as well.

We wanted to make sure that nobody was in any way detrimentally or adversely impacted by this system challenge we were facing, so it has been solved.

[Francis Drouin, Liberal, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

I know this is something that was important. I didn't receive thousands of emails, but I certainly received emails from those who, unfortunately, had lost their jobs and were put on employment insurance. They were wondering whether or not this would impact their overall parental leave, so I think that's great news. Thank you for listening to those expectant mothers.

The other issue I'm hearing locally is with regard to how disabilities and those who are impacted by disabilities are getting treated with regard to the pandemic. I know that a disability advisory group was put together. Can you explain to this committee what this disability advisory group is discussing? One of the issues was greater access to health care. Can you explain to this committee what the disability advisory group is doing with regard to that?

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

You have slightly less than a minute, Minister.

[Carla Qualtrough, Liberal, Delta, BC]

My goodness, I could talk about this one forever. Thank you for your really important question.

People with disabilities in our country have faced significant barriers to accessing the health care system over the course of the pandemic, whether being impacted by visitor policies that don't let them have a communications support person with them, or by triage practices that basically discriminate on the ground of disability.

The Minister of Health and I are both working with our P/T colleagues, because, as you know, health is a provincial jurisdiction, to make sure that this isn't happening and that people's right to health care and medical treatment is upheld. That's one of the main priorities of our disability advisory group, which is a diverse group of disability experts, people with lived experience and parents from across the country, who have said that the number one thing they are worried about is health.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

Thank you very much, Minister.

We will now go to Mr. Aboultaif for four minutes, please.

[Ziad Aboultaif, Conservative, Edmonton Manning, AB]

Thank you.

Minister, you said that you have received a legal opinion on the CERB legislation that gave you broad powers to interpret the law. Will you be able to table that legal opinion so we may properly scrutinize these expanded legislative powers that you have given yourself?