Evidence of meeting #11 for Government Operations and Estimates in the 43rd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was cerb.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Julie Vignola Bloc Beauport—Limoilou, QC
I'll put things in context. In my riding, people have received double CERB payments. In addition, they have received employment insurance.
How are the Canada Revenue Agency and Service Canada working together to ensure that this type of error does not happen again? Could you give me a short answer, please?
Liberal
Carla Qualtrough Liberal Delta, BC
At the beginning, this was happening. Despite our best efforts, people were being double-paid. We now have a much more streamlined process where this is not happening. People are not receiving any double payments. We are not penalizing anybody if they did. We are working with them to remedy the situation, and CRA and Service Canada are working in lockstep to ensure this isn't happening anymore.
Bloc
Julie Vignola Bloc Beauport—Limoilou, QC
Thank you very much.
How many public servants are currently working on delivering emergency benefits?
Deputy Minister, Department of Employment and Social Development
For us, it's 5,000 employees.
Bloc
Julie Vignola Bloc Beauport—Limoilou, QC
All right. You have 5,000 employees assigned to this, but in total, how many are there?
Liberal
Carla Qualtrough Liberal Delta, BC
We can get you the CRA numbers. We just have ESDC's.
Graham, do you have the CRA numbers as well?
Deputy Minister, Department of Employment and Social Development
I think there are an additional 4,000 people. We can check that out and send the data to the committee.
Bloc
Julie Vignola Bloc Beauport—Limoilou, QC
Fine.
Has the advice to use the network outside of peak hours caused people to work outside of normal working hours? Did it involve overtime, even though you increased the number of people working on the benefits?
Liberal
Carla Qualtrough Liberal Delta, BC
I understand there are some people choosing.... We're not making people work overtime, obviously, but there are people working overtime.
Graham, do you have further information?
Deputy Minister, Department of Employment and Social Development
Many of our employees chose to work overtime, but we didn't force people to do so. Many of them work in the call centres, but it also affects the employees who process requests, and the computer technicians. Many employees work all the time, but it's all on a voluntary basis.
Bloc
Julie Vignola Bloc Beauport—Limoilou, QC
Currently, is it possible to estimate the cost of overtime that goes into ensuring that Quebeckers and Canadians receive their benefits quickly?
Deputy Minister, Department of Employment and Social Development
We can try to calculate it, but we don't have that data right now. Our first goal was to get as many people as possible to handle this mind-boggling volume of calls. We put all kinds of people on it. We earmarked the money to do it, but we're going to do the math at the end of the month.
Bloc
Julie Vignola Bloc Beauport—Limoilou, QC
Thank you.
The Service Canada offices were closed fairly quickly, in late March or early April, if my memory serves me correctly. This created a lot of concern, particularly for people who have physical, visual or hearing difficulties and who were worried they would not be able to manage on the telephone, or did not have an Internet connection.
How did you respond to these people?
Liberal
Carla Qualtrough Liberal Delta, BC
Thank you for the question. It's very important.
We have been working with national disability organizations and other service providers to make sure that everybody, regardless of any barrier they face, has the information they need to both apply for and understand the different benefits that are available to them. In addition, of course, at Service Canada we have an online presence. We have augmented our call service capacity, but we have been working through our disability advisory committee and other means to make sure that the information is widely disseminated across the country.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Tom Lukiwski
Thank you very much.
We'll now go to Mr. Green for five minutes, please.
NDP
Matthew Green NDP Hamilton Centre, ON
Thank you very much.
In picking up on that, if a person were to apply for CERB through Service Canada, are they required to undertake more reporting requirements than if they had applied through the CRA? If so, why? Has this slowed down the delivery of the benefits?
Liberal
Carla Qualtrough Liberal Delta, BC
The very quick answer is no. It is one portal at the beginning, and it does not in any way slow down the benefits. Just confirm that, please, Graham. My understanding is that the back-end processing, how it's directed, does not impact that at all.
Deputy Minister, Department of Employment and Social Development
The speed of benefits isn't affected, but we do ask additional questions for people coming in on the EI side. The reason is that those people will ultimately transition back to employment insurance. We don't want to create a gap or require those people to come back in and reapply for employment insurance. On the EI side, that's the reason we triage them at the front end. If they come in on the EI side, we collect that additional information, which doesn't slow down the processing, so that, when they eventually move back to EI, we won't be required to go back to them.
NDP
Matthew Green NDP Hamilton Centre, ON
It just seems that in my constituency we're receiving calls and talking about service standards between departments. Once the word gets out that it's easier just to apply through CRA, what would stop the public from doing that and avoiding Service Canada altogether?
Liberal
Carla Qualtrough Liberal Delta, BC
Well, because it's a portal, the first page that you go to basically triages and sends people to a different set of questions depending on whether they are eligible for EI or not.
I suppose what you're saying is that somebody who might be eligible would choose to say they were not so they could just apply for the CERB without any other questions asked of them. Is that what you're asking, sir?
Liberal
Carla Qualtrough Liberal Delta, BC
I think that is happening, but then we know, based on SINs, who is EI-eligible. When we port them back into the system at the back end, it will be along the same vein as if they had attested that they were EI-eligible. It just won't be as streamlined at the end.
NDP
Matthew Green NDP Hamilton Centre, ON
Sure, and I can certainly appreciate the need for having these portholes that triage. Certainly, the front lines in both departments are doing whatever they possibly can, but we're also hearing many stories about CERB applicants who have had to try for days to speak to a real person at Service Canada. Even if they get through, the phone system hangs up on them when they're supposed to be transferred to a person. Do we have enough staff to manage the call volume?
Liberal
Carla Qualtrough Liberal Delta, BC
From the beginning, the message we've been reluctantly conveying is one of patience. It has been very difficult for people to get a hold of someone, despite the fact that we have thousands of people. We have rallied volunteers. We've rallied retired public servants to come and be part of our call centres to answer Canadians' questions. With millions and millions of applicants—as somebody said earlier, almost eight million—the reality is that it has proven to be quite difficult. Despite our best effort, it still takes a long time to get through to Service Canada.
Graham, would you have anything to add?