Human Resources Committee on June 11th, 2009

[Joanne Lamothe, Assistant Deputy Minister, Program Operations Branch, Department of Human Resources and Skills Development]

I think the issue for us would be that we would have to respect the provincial legislation. Students who are in school are a provincial jurisdiction, so we would have to do this in cooperation with the provinces. We have had some success in with other programs, where we've had internships, but we've moved away from that into more active labour market programs. Again, we would have to do it in cooperation with the provinces.

[Olivia Chow, NDP, Trinity—Spadina, ON]

So if the province, let's say Ontario, has no problem and they sign off on this, you could go ahead and do the investment. You could extend some of these jobs to students who are in university or high school, so they could continue working two days a week, or whatever, and there'd be no jurisdictional problem if the province allowed you to do so, right?

[Joanne Lamothe]

No, but again, I guess it becomes more of a policy issue and what we're trying to redress in looking at the labour market to see if that's something that would be of benefit to youth. Again, it would become more of a policy rationale and policy framework, so we would have to do some analysis, etc.

[Olivia Chow, NDP, Trinity—Spadina, ON]

Thank you.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Raymonde Folco]

Mr. Komarnicki.

[Ed Komarnicki, Conservative, Souris—Moose Mountain, SK]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I noticed from your discussion of the work sharing agreement that it's fairly popular. It looks like the uptake has been fairly good. I've been watching the numbers, and they've been increasing from 80,000 or 90,000 to as high as 135,00, I think you mentioned.

What's your reaction to the uptake of that program, and what has the department done to streamline the process to make it easier for people to access it? If you'd like to comment on that, then I have a few more questions as well.

[Joanne Lamothe]

I would be happy to talk about the work sharing program.

The work sharing program was announced. What we did was provide more flexibility. We did two things. We allowed the employers to basically have work sharing for a longer period of time, by providing them with an additional 14 weeks. So instead of 38 weeks, they would now be allowed to go to 52 weeks. We've also allowed them more flexibility in terms of the recovery plan, therefore allowing them more latitude to be able to qualify, so to speak.

We're very happy. As you've said, the uptake has been tremendous. It's a sign, I guess, of what's going on. What I would say is that the work sharing program is doing what it's supposed to do in this economy. It's basically helping employers who are facing temporary issues within their companies to be able to keep their skilled and trained workers while they're going through these tough economic times.

The uptake has been tremendous. Over the last four months, applications have been coming in. It has been very popular from that perspective. We presently have about 120,000 workers participating and approximately 3,500 agreements across the country.

[Ed Komarnicki, Conservative, Souris—Moose Mountain, SK]

Thank you.

I was relieved to hear that through a process of reasoning, we established that the $60 million was additional money. I know that in the adjournment proceedings another time, there was some suggestion that there wasn't new money for processing. We were brought to the place where I think even my learned colleague from Dartmouth—Cole Harbour accepts that there are additional funds put in there.

But that said, what I find remarkable is that your department has been on top of this. I see from the report that in January, February, and March you saw an increase of almost 50% in the number of applications. But given that, I see that for the corresponding months of January, February, and March, you were within the range of 22, 23, or 24 days of processing time, notwithstanding what I would call a very substantial increase in applications. I take it you would attribute that to a number of factors.

Could you maybe tell us how you were able to level out the processing, or what methods you used in terms of regional distribution and electronic processing that allowed you to stay on top of this, notwithstanding the increase in claims?

[Liliane Binette]

Thank you for your question.

First of all, the bulk of the money from the $60 million went to regional processing. Out of the $60 million, there was $50 million directly related to regional processing. We covered a number of fronts. For regional processing we first hired over 900 staff to help with the processing of the applications and over 100 staff in the call centres and in the in-person environment to support the people who are applying for EI benefits or who have questions on their EI benefits.

We've also developed what we call a joint response team, which involves a number of specialized people in processing who proactively meet with employers when they hear about possible layoffs to ensure that we inform the employers and the employees about the programs and services, including work sharing. If we can avoid layoffs and keep people active, we do, but when there is a mass layoff and the employer cannot do otherwise, we support employees by providing them with a simplified process for applying and we help employers with the records of employment so that we can pay clients faster.

[Ed Komarnicki, Conservative, Souris—Moose Mountain, SK]

Good. Thank you.

I note the comment made by Mr. Thompson. He said that you will continue to work to improve processing times for EI claims and will come back to report, and in the next three months there is the intention of hiring an additional 400 staff.

What is the plan with respect to additional staff? Where will they be allocated and what will they be doing? You say an additional 400 staff will be hired and trained within the next three months. Do you want to comment on that?

[Liliane Binette]

We continue monitoring the situation very closely. We cover at least three fronts in that area. First, wherever we can simplify and automate processes so that we can pay clients faster, we do, so there is a continuous improvement exercise going on. We review our processes and simplify, and we report on a biweekly basis.

We also train staff in different ways so that they can process claims faster and with a high level of quality. We train them by using modules. For example, we know the bulk of the type of applications we get, so we train them so they can process these faster.

The third element is linked to monitoring nationally and adjusting nationally. It's a national workload process. One region can do work for another region to ensure that a Canadian is paid with similar excellence in service anywhere across the country.

[Ed Komarnicki, Conservative, Souris—Moose Mountain, SK]

Finally, I note that you've mentioned that all regions in British--

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Raymonde Folco]

You only have two seconds. Perhaps you can continue on another round.

[Ed Komarnicki, Conservative, Souris—Moose Mountain, SK]

As I think about it, the two seconds have gone.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Raymonde Folco]

Well, thinking is important; it's not just asking questions.

We're now into the second round, and the second round is five minutes.

Go ahead, Mr. Dhaliwal.

[Sukh Dhaliwal, Liberal, Newton—North Delta, BC]

Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you, panel members.

First of all, I would like to give credit to the local Service Canada staff in Surrey, who were very helpful for the summer employment youth program.

My concern is that you mentioned an increase in dollars for the summer jobs program, but when we look at inflation and the base increases, don't you believe that this amount has gone towards that, and that there is no new money to create new jobs in the summer employment program?

[Joanne Lamothe]

For the summer program, you are right. Through the economic action plan, the government did allocate an extra $20 million for the Canada summer jobs initiative. There is $10 million for this year and an additional $10 million for next year.

It is a fact that the minimum wage does increase, but minimum wage is the prerogative of a province. If they increase the minimum wage, it's good for the students; however, our dollars are going towards creating as many jobs as we can, so we will be creating additional jobs with the $10 million. There will be approximately 3,700; that's about 10%, because it's 10% more of the $97.5 million base that we have.

[Sukh Dhaliwal, Liberal, Newton—North Delta, BC]

But you said that the increase has also gone towards the increase in wages. So that will not result in 10% more jobs.

Coming back to the other topic you were mentioning, you're hiring new staff and you are building capacity. Now, what is the point of beefing up staffing and building this capacity when thousands of Canadians are still ineligible? What is the logic behind this? Isn't this investment just a band-aid solution, when there is the real problem people are facing when they're denied claims when it comes to EI?

[Paul Thompson]

I can start on that, and Liliane can jump in as well.

As Liliane noted, and as I noted in my remarks, we've seen a very significant increase in the volume of claims being received in Service Canada offices. In response to this trend line of claims, we've made these additional investments. So there's a very real increase towards which those investments have been made.

With respect to access, as I outlined in the last committee appearance, there are various reasons why individuals don't have access to EI. The latest employment insurance coverage survey indicated that approximately 30% of the unemployed didn't pay premiums. Therefore, they weren't eligible, because they weren't part of the program. Another 16% didn't have the type of job separation that qualified. They either quit voluntarily or chose to go back to school. So a large portion of the unemployed don't access EI because of those two fairly significant reasons.

With respect to those who are eligible, we've seen, as I say, very significant increases in volume, which has been the basis for the additional investment.

[Sukh Dhaliwal, Liberal, Newton—North Delta, BC]

The labour market development agreements have been a very long and slow process. We cannot get any status report on what's going on, particularly in British Columbia. I can tell you that B.C. has lost tens of thousands of jobs. There is no information. People don't have the luxury of moving around and finding out.

Can you tell me what steps you are taking to make sure that those people who need it the most have the information ?

[Paul Thompson]

With respect to the training programs, the first step was to conclude agreements as the basis for flowing these incremental funds to provinces. British Columbia was actually the very first province to sign on to a new agreement, on April 9, for the receipt of these additional employment insurance funds through the labour market development agreements and for the non-EI funds through the Strategic Training and Transition Fund. So both those agreements with British Columbia have been signed, and it has been factored into the work plans by the province, or any other province. Their planning is proceeding on the basis of this enhanced funding.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Raymonde Folco]

Thank you.

We'll go to Mr. Vellacott.

[Maurice Vellacott, Conservative, Saskatoon—Wanuskewin, SK]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

My first question is pretty quick and to the point. I think it can be answered quickly.

My question is in respect of the matter of employers now being able to submit records electronically when they were previously required to print a paper copy for their employees, therefore cutting red tape for businesses and getting the benefits to Canadians sooner. Patrick Culhane, the president of the Canadian Payroll Association, says that “The Government of Canada has taken a major step in supporting both employers and employees” and that “submitting electronic ROEs...reduces the administrative and compliance burden on employers, while enhancing accuracy and response time for employees who are applying for Employment Insurance benefits”.

As well, the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives is commending you because “the government has recently taken welcome steps to increase the speed with which the jobless who are entitled to benefits start receiving their cheques, by investing $60 million to increasing the number of workers processing the claims”.

My question is about what the electronic submissions have now made possible. Why was that not done some years ago? Certainly we've had computer technology around for a while. Is there a reason that was not done sooner?

[Liliane Binette]

We had regulations that were clear about the need for employers to provide a copy of the electronic record of employment to the employee. This meant that employers were sending the records of employment, the information, electronically to the department, but they also needed to provide a paper copy to the employee. So what we did as part of the paper burden initiative is change the regulations to--

[Maurice Vellacott, Conservative, Saskatoon—Wanuskewin, SK]

Oh, the regulations changed?