Government Operations Committee on Dec. 7th, 2023

[Gord Johns, NDP, Courtenay—Alberni, BC]

That is great to hear.

Here's something else that I want to know about.

There are people who were covered for certain drugs or benefits, prior to Canada Life, by Sun Life. Some left their other plan. Maybe their partner had a plan, and they decided to go with this plan based on Sun Life's options. Now they're no longer fully covered for the same prescriptions. What are you going to do for those public servants, those people on the plan who are now not getting full access to the benefits they had before?

[Marie-Chantal Girard]

Actually, we enhanced the plan by 50 measures. No one—

[Gord Johns, NDP, Courtenay—Alberni, BC]

No. Specifically maybe you have—maybe you're offering more—but there are circumstances right now. We're hearing from people that they are paying above what they did before.

Will you make sure that in any situation like that, you're going to top it up and make sure that isn't happening? Can you give certainty to that?

[Marie-Chantal Girard]

I cannot make this commitment, because those are individual cases, medical situations, and it's not for the employer to make that determination. However, everything that was covered before remains covered.

David, do you want to—

[Gord Johns, NDP, Courtenay—Alberni, BC]

Then you can give certainty—I need to hear that today—that anything that was covered under Sun Life before, under the previous plan, will be covered under this plan. I want confirmation of that.

[Marie-Chantal Girard]

I explained that there are adjustments that have been made in the administration of the plan. It was outdated. It was not imposing the most rigorous stewardship on the public purse that it needed to, but in terms of benefits, there have been 50 enhancements.

[Gord Johns, NDP, Courtenay—Alberni, BC]

An updated plan can't be one that is going to cause harm or provide fewer benefits to those people who are working in the public service.

I'm going to come back to you and hope that this gets fixed, and maybe we can deal with you individually on those issues.

Can you maybe talk about what happened in the year and a half of transition preparations? Were there not requirements? Did they meet them? Why not have more oversight or penalties?

I'm sorry about having so many questions. I think you're going to wrap it into one because you're going to see the theme.

What are the compliance standards in the contract, and why did you give Canada Life a six-month grace period to meet them? At this point, is Canada Life even closely meeting those standards, and what can we expect to be the consequences for Canada Life if it doesn't meet them?

[Marie-Chantal Girard]

I think my colleague can wrap that thematic up with a few answers.

[Mollie Royds]

In terms of the start-up phase, as was previously indicated, there was an integrated schedule and plan associated with that, and there were milestones.

There were a number of items that were focused on from an essential perspective. I don't have the full assessment yet of the start-up in terms of exactly how many of the milestones were met exactly, but that's work that we are doing with our colleagues at the Treasury Board in terms of ensuring the appropriate due diligence. That's part of our role in terms of ensuring the proper stewardship of taxpayers' money.

I'll address the transition phase first. You asked why there is a transition period. A transition period is required, given the fact that we were undertaking a transition of this magnitude. There would have been no ability for a vendor to sign on to a forecast that was not one of its making. We anticipated this transition period to make necessary adjustments, as I indicated before.

When the standards come into place, that will be in January, and there are a number of specific measures associated with individual types of claims processing. There are different ones depending on the activities that are required by Canada Life. I cannot comment on how close Canada Life is to each of them because there are a number of them, and there are a range of different requirements that are made.

Certainly, as has been indicated, we do have improvements in the performance and in the service being delivered, and we are trending in the right direction at this stage.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Thanks, Ms. Royds.

Mrs. Block, go ahead, please.

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

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I join my colleagues in welcoming our witnesses here today.

Ms. Royds, in your opening comments, you described the bidding process. Can you tell the committee Sun Life—the provider for the public service health care plan since 1996, the largest plan in Canada, as noted—did not bid on this new contract?

[Mollie Royds]

As I indicated in my opening remarks, we had three compliant bidders associated with this competitive procurement. I'm afraid I'm not able to comment on the other bidders that participated. That's part of the confidentiality requirements of the RFP, and it's an obligation as well under our trade agreement.

Canada Life was determined to have met, in the total overall score, the financial and technical requirements and criteria in the RFP, as evaluated by the teams from PSPC and the Treasury Board Secretariat.

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

Can you tell the committee who made the decision to go with Canada Life? Who was ultimately responsible for that final decision?

[Mollie Royds]

Again, it was a competitive process, and Canada Life was evaluated as being the top-ranked bidder within that process.

Due to the value of this particular contract, we did require the authority of the Treasury Board in order to award the contract, so we did go through that process. Then, ultimately, PSPC awarded the contract to Canada Life.

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

Thank you very much.

I assume that the benefits—these benefits, in particular, that are covered in this plan—are part of negotiations between the government and the unions.

As has been noted by my colleagues, parliamentarians have received many complaints from members about changes from the Sun Life plan to the Canada Life plan.

Were the reductions in the services provided put forward by the government or the unions? Were the reductions in the drugs that are covered or the services provided put forward by the government or the unions?

[Marie-Chantal Girard]

The plan is managed as part of governance, or part of the policy. Therefore, what the plan covers is indeed negotiated under the purview of the partners committee of the PSHCP. It includes representatives from bargaining agents, the NAFR—the national retiree federation—and the employer. It's negotiated there. We provide a recommendation if we can land on a joint proposal, which we did.

We provide the recommendation to the President of the Treasury Board, who in turn presents it to the Treasury Board. They were part of it. Because we, on an ongoing basis, oversee the policy of the plan, they were aware also, and they received the same benchmarking analysis. It's at those meetings that we will welcome, for example, the association of physiotherapists or massage therapists to present to us the evolution and the advancements in their fields. Therefore, they have exactly the same information as the employer when we begin negotiations.

It was a consensual recommendation to the President of the Treasury Board.

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

Thank you very much.

Mr. Chair, how much time do I have?

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

You have one minute.

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

Thank you.

It is my understanding that the industry standard is to not conduct manual enrolment when transitioning plans, but that this was a requirement put in place by the federal government.

I do understand that the purpose was to use the transition to refresh data and to use Canada Life to remove those who should no longer be eligible for benefits. Canada Life was required to delay payments for thousands of claims until it completed pre-payment audits, which was not a requirement when Sun Life was the administrator.

In hindsight, do you think this was a mistake?

[Marie-Chantal Girard]

First, I believe that Sun Life had to, during the extensive period that it delivered this, update its information and its enrolment information of the members.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

I'm afraid that is our time. Perhaps you can get back to the committee in writing with this.

[Marie-Chantal Girard]

Indeed. Perfect. Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Now we have Mr. Sousa, please, for five minutes.

[Charles Sousa, Liberal, Mississauga—Lakeshore, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thanks to the witnesses for appearing before us. I appreciate it.

This is obviously a very topical issue for many. All of us in this room were somewhat affected as a consequence of this transition. We appreciate the challenges and also the ways that are being taken to overcome those challenges.

I would like to follow up the previous questioner, my colleague, by noting that you spoke about the differences between PSPC and the Treasury Board, which has a right to this contract.

Maybe it would be helpful to have some greater clarity on those different roles. Maybe you can explain those different roles that the Treasury Board and PSPC have in what has taken place and how it has come to be. People are worried about the procurement process not taking into account other issues. Maybe you can clarify all of that here.

[Mollie Royds]

Why don't I start and then turn to Marie-Chantal for a Treasury Board Secretariat perspective?

With regard to our respective roles here, PSPC is the contracting authority, so we're responsible for ensuring an open, fair and transparent procurement process—in this case, it was a competitive process—as well as supporting our colleagues in the stewardship of the contract and ensuring that we are appropriately managing our contractual relationship with Canada Life.

Again, this is one of great complexity in a large program, so the PSPC and Treasury Board teams are meeting daily with the supplier, Canada Life. There are a number of initiatives that are ongoing, but we're responsible for supporting the due diligence needed, supporting the stewardship and ensuring the performance against the contract itself.

I'll turn to Marie-Chantal regarding Treasury Board's role as the employer.