Government Operations Committee on Feb. 26th, 2024

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to our witnesses for joining us today.

It's been some time since we held our first meeting on this issue, but I'm happy to return to it and ask some questions of you.

We learned at the very first meeting that it is not the industry standard to conduct manual enrolment when transitioning plans, but that this was actually a requirement put in place by the federal government. The purpose was to use the transition to refresh data and use Canada Life to remove those who should no longer be eligible for benefits.

Were you aware of that requirement that was put on this transition by the federal government?

[Seth Sazant]

Thank you very much for the question.

I think there had been some discussion about positive enrolment to ensure that those who are in the plan are correctly in the plan. In a general sense, I will say that, as the union, we don't object to that. We think that's fair.

That being said, clearly the process that was used was absolutely atrocious. Loading in all of these things at the same time led to a huge bottleneck. I think we also saw significant problems where a number of our members and retirees all had a lot of difficulty navigating this process.

While there was awareness, this isn't something that we asked for. Obviously, this created significant problems along the way.

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

Thank you.

You also spoke about a six-month grace period where there were very few safeguards. Really quickly, what would you have expected to see during that six-month grace period?

I know you provided examples of individuals who discontinued their medications because they couldn't get through to Canada Life on the phone. In a short answer, what kinds of safeguards would you have wanted to see?

[Seth Sazant]

Absolutely.

I'm referring to the service standards that exist in the contract around how quickly they must respond to calls and how quickly the administrator must reimburse the benefits, and the fact that there was essentially that six-month grace period before any of those standards were enforced.

Certainly it would be our position that this is just unacceptable. It seems like maximum advantage was taken of the fact that there were no safeguards there. We would certainly question the wisdom of providing essentially completely open-ended service standards in those first six months.

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

I appreciate that.

I know a number of my colleagues have raised the issue of the breach, whether there was one or more. I want to follow up on those questions because I think breaches of information, security and data are very concerning.

Had you or your members been notified about the possible data breaches after the changeover was made to Canada Life?

[Seth Sazant]

Thank you very much.

I just want to be clear. The recent breach dates back about two weeks ago and is specific to MSH, which is the international provider under the plan. As representatives, we have been notified that there was a breach. I'm not aware that general notification has gone to members about the breach. We're not aware any more than other people in terms of.... What we've read in the media is really the extent of our knowledge of what's happening with the breach right now.

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

Is this not deeply concerning to you, as representatives of the public service and members in this plan, that you have not been given any details about the breach and you've only had to read about this in the news?

It raises very serious concerns for some of us at the committee—I'm going to speak to what we've recently been dealing with—given that the Auditor General and procurement ombudsman both reported that security requirements for contractors and subcontractors were not met and sometimes were reduced, as identified in the procurement process for ArriveCAN. This could be being replicated in other departments.

I hear what you're saying. If this led to data breaches in the process of smaller groups of Canadians, though it's still a significant size, it does raise serious concerns about the safety of the data collected. That's not only through ArriveCAN particularly because of the sensitive nature of the information, but given your members and any kind of data that may have been breached and the fact that you've not been told exactly what's happened.

Would you agree with that?

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Give a quick yes or no, please.

[Seth Sazant]

Absolutely, we have concerns.

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

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Thanks very much.

Mr. Jowhari, go ahead, please.

[Majid Jowhari, Liberal, Richmond Hill, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Welcome to both of you.

Mr. Sazant, you opened your remarks by talking about the impacts this transfer has had on PSAC members. You shared some of those in detail. I want to acknowledge the fact that this was not an easy period. Our side is very much committed—as I'm sure every member of this committee and the House is—to ensuring those issues are addressed very quickly. We acknowledge there were challenges and some of these challenges had potential life-changing implications. It needs to be mentioned, acknowledged and communicated through you, the counsel, back to the members that we acknowledge that, we hear that and we are here to work collaboratively to ensure that it goes....

It was also good that Ms. Hart talked about how the process for making the members whole is going. You highlighted the number of factors you're working on around general damages, financial compensation and reviewing the declaration.

Mr. Sazant, you mentioned the fact that this plan had not been updated since 2006. In your opening remarks, you talked about how close to 70 new benefits and updates were given.

Can you give me a sense, in general, of how many benefits PSAC members are receiving? Is it 100, 500 or 1,000? Where does this 70 line up? Is it 10% of the benefits? How significant are those benefits?

[Seth Sazant]

Thank you for the question.

I think these things are tough to quantify. When I referred to the benefit improvements, it was.... For example, we talk about the different paramedical maximum for psychological services. The maximum that somebody can be reimbursed for psychological services has increased. That would be one of the increases I'm counting.

[Majid Jowhari, Liberal, Richmond Hill, ON]

What was the number it went to?

[Seth Sazant]

There was a substantial increase for psychological services: from $3,000 to $5,000.

In terms of benefits, it's tough to quantify. There are a lot of benefits in there that relate to drugs or different medical supplies people may need. We wouldn't really go through and count them.

At the end of the day, there was a negotiation process that happened. There was an update to quite a number of benefits that have a maximum eligible amount. Having not been updated for 15 years, you can imagine that same dollar amount is worth significantly less 15 years later. That was part of the process.

[Majid Jowhari, Liberal, Richmond Hill, ON]

As an advocate for mental health, I want to thank you for doing that negotiation. That is one of the areas I looked at, because—just for transparency—I wanted to avail myself of it. I realized that it has substantially increased. Thank you for that.

I would like to understand what the impact of these 70 new benefits is from a process point of view. Naturally, whether it's Sun Life or Canada Life, there are new benefits coming in. What's the impact on the process? Is it a new process that has to be defined or an existing process? Does claim processing have to be put in place? How significant is this?

If we had Sun Life, would it be as easy, or would it still have had a huge impact?

[Seth Sazant]

Thank you very much for the question.

The vast majority of those benefit increases were of the variety I just spoke about. It's a simple change in the maximum eligible amount. As I mentioned, for psychological services and many of the other benefits, it was simply an increase to how much members are able to take out.

[Majid Jowhari, Liberal, Richmond Hill, ON]

I only have 30 seconds left.

I want to go back to that. Basically, what I'm hearing you say is, “We just increased the amount.” For example, was cognitive therapy covered under the plan? Was it only psychotherapy? Was it psychology or any of those?

I believe there is also an expansion of the types of services, especially as they relate to mental health. That also expanded, whereas before it was not there.

[Seth Sazant]

That's correct. There was some complexity, but my point was simply that most of the benefits were a matter of just a number change.

[Majid Jowhari, Liberal, Richmond Hill, ON]

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Thank you, sir.

Mrs. Vignola.

[Julie Vignola, Bloc, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

The agreement between Canada Life and the Government of Canada didn't require that all members be enrolled in the public service health care plan as of July 1; only 85% had to be enrolled. The agreement didn't require any oversight by the Treasury Board Secretariat until January 1, 2024, or any acceptance testing for users or the contractor in terms of communications and information services to plan members.

Do you believe that Canada made the wrong decision when it didn't require testing or ensure that all members were enrolled in the plan as of July 1?

[Seth Sazant]

I'm sorry, but I'm struggling to understand the question with respect to trials before 2023. I apologize. I was listening to the translation. I'm still not sure that I understand the premise of the question.

[Julie Vignola, Bloc, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

There was no test bed, no acceptance testing was done with the contractor or users to make sure everything was working. Did Canada make a mistake when it decided not to have a test bed and not to require that all members be covered immediately?

[Seth Sazant]

I want to ensure that I'm correctly understanding. You're talking about, with the conversion, moving from one contractor to the other to make sure that everything was smooth and in place.

The public service health care plan has an administration authority that is responsible for oversight of this contract. They worked very diligently for 18 months before the move from Sun Life to Canada Life. They spent 18 months working to ensure that things would go smoothly. Now, obviously, that was not the case, but there was substantial work that was done beforehand. I want to be clear that this was not just a “let's flip the switch and see what happens”. There was significant work that did go on behind the scenes.