Sure. Thank you very much.
As I outlined in my opening remarks, WEPP is a very important program that we brought into place to deal with issues that were certainly out of the hands of employees. It's stark reality that sometimes businesses close their doors, go bankrupt, and don't pay their employees. That's where the government steps in.
What we do is we fill a gap of time for the employee. The employee has a right to the money should the company go to bankruptcy; however, sometimes it can take a very long time for their claim against the company to make its way through a process. What we do instead is step into the shoes of the employee and make sure they receive as much as they can, to a cap level that we have with respect to unpaid wages, vacation pay, and, as I said, severance pay and termination pay too.
We want to make sure that people who are already dealing with the fact that they've lost their jobs don't have to worry about getting their unpaid wages, that they have something. We go on, hopefully to collect from the company throughout the process and make sure we get the money back for taxpayers.
Since 2008 it has been a used program. We've spent, as I said, about $120 million for 53,000 workers. That's 53,000 workers who didn't have to worry about how they were going to feed their kids the next day because they weren't paid their wages by a company that suddenly went bankrupt. We are the backfill, in a sense, through the WEPP program.
Of course, after those issues are dealt with or they make their applications to us for trustee in bankruptcy, it is for the eligible worker, if they qualify, to apply for EI for their income support going forward. That's how the two departments work well together, and that's why it's a good program.
What we want to make sure of, in a service standard, is that applications are processed within a 42-day service standard. As a result, we've asked for more funding, with the realization that the program itself has expanded with the additions we've made on it since 2008.
