Human Resources Committee on May 23rd, 2013

[Rodger Cuzner, Liberal, Cape Breton—Canso, NS]

As long as the line of questioning is extended on this side, Mr. Chair.

[Devinder Shory, Conservative, Calgary Northeast, AB]

You are the one who started that.

[Rodger Cuzner, Liberal, Cape Breton—Canso, NS]

No. Great. I'm looking forward to it.

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Komarnicki]

Carry on. We've allowed latitude—

[Devinder Shory, Conservative, Calgary Northeast, AB]

I have very limited time.

Thank you for confirming. It's my understanding that appointments were made on a merit basis and there was a rigorous process system.

My second question will be from the Auditor General's report. This spring the report of the Auditor General indicated that we could do more to collect ineligible EI payments and more could be done to prevent and detect these payments.

I'd like you to tell the committee what is being done to improve the prevention and detection of those EI payments. Is there a plan in place yet to address this? If so, what steps are being taken?

[Karen Jackson]

I'll try to address that question.

To begin with, very quickly, as part of our regular business we conduct about 400,000 investigations a year across the statutory programs—employment insurance as well as the pension programs. In addition to that, over the last few months we have undertaken a very targeted and special EI stewardship review. What we're trying to do there is improve our understanding of what the root causes are of overpayments. What lies behind errors that get made, abuse, and fraud? With the results of that review, once it is finished, we hope to fine-tune the approaches we take to investigations on an ongoing basis.

There are other things we are doing to improve our ability to detect and prevent. We regularly run training and retraining programs of our employees who work in these areas. A lot of this work is about data matching and lining up reports we receive from employers with those we receive from workers. There's constant improvement in the techniques we use in that data matching. We work with clients, through information sessions, so they understand the rules of calculations of benefits and they understand the information they are required to provide for us. We have payment accuracy and processing accuracy monitoring that's going on, on an ongoing basis as well. Those are some of the things that I would suggest we are doing to respond to improve that capacity in detecting and preventing errors and overpayments.

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Komarnicki]

Thank you, Mr. Shory. Your time is up.

We'll move to Mr. Cuzner.

Go ahead.

[Rodger Cuzner, Liberal, Cape Breton—Canso, NS]

Mr. Speaker, I wasn't planning on going here, but since it's been opened....

In light of the fact that there's such a disproportionate number of people who have been selected, who would fall under this particular category, was it a requirement that you had to be a donor to the Conservative Party of Canada? Or would that be just experience that would be appreciated?

[Ron Parker]

I don't think I'm in a position to comment on that, Mr. Chair.

[Rodger Cuzner, Liberal, Cape Breton—Canso, NS]

Okay.

I would like to address the youth employment strategy. The different programs aren't broken down in this year's report, but the total number of students who will benefit from the youth employment strategy this year is identified, in 2013-14, as 50,349.

Is that a correct number?

[Ron Parker]

I believe that's correct. I don't have it right in front of me.

[Rodger Cuzner, Liberal, Cape Breton—Canso, NS]

I'm quite certain it is. The categories—the career focus, skills link, and summer work experience—aren't broken down in this, but they have been in the past.

In 2005-06 there were 113,292 jobs that were supported through this program. That's a decrease of 63,000 students who are being supported by this program.

Could you rationalize why there is such a significant drop?

[Ron Parker]

It's important to acknowledge that youth are critical to Canada's labour market, economic growth, and long-term prosperity. There's another way of looking at this. When you look at the dollars that are being invested in fiscal 2013-14, it comes out to about $336 million in programming through—

[Rodger Cuzner, Liberal, Cape Breton—Canso, NS]

What's critical is we're supporting 60% fewer.

[Ron Parker]

If you go back to 2005-06, it was about $287 million, so what you're observing there, I believe, is largely related to the effects of inflation.

[Rodger Cuzner, Liberal, Cape Breton—Canso, NS]

It was $330 million in 2005-06.

[Ron Parker]

Well, I can come back to that.

[Rodger Cuzner, Liberal, Cape Breton—Canso, NS]

It was $330 million in 2005 and 2006. You've got all the right words. You know they're critical, they're important, and we're there to support them, but the numbers don't add up. It's a drop of 63,000. That's the reality. This is at a point where we're almost at 15% youth unemployment in this country, so that's a concern.

If I could, I'd like to touch on the Auditor General's report, specifically on EI processing times. I know Ms. Jackson is sick of me beating on this, but the speed-of-payment indicator is a bogus indicator. The department has to understand that, too, because we still haven't been able to measure what component of speed of payment is notice of non-payment. We haven't been able to pull that number out, have we? Speed of payment could be, “Sorry, you're not getting any money” or “You don't qualify.”

[Karen Jackson]

That is true. Yes, that speed-of-pay indicator is that 80% learn within 28 days what their benefit will be or whether they will receive a benefit.

[Rodger Cuzner, Liberal, Cape Breton—Canso, NS]

But the Auditor General indicated that this past year it was only 71%. The standard is that 80% are notified within 21 days. It's 71% now, the lowest it's been in the history of record keeping. Why the poor performance there?

[Karen Jackson]

To clarify, we measure speed of pay weekly, monthly, and then on an annual basis.

I do expect that what the Auditor General saw was a point in time where we were at 71%.

[Rodger Cuzner, Liberal, Cape Breton—Canso, NS]

I believe it's an annual number—

[Karen Jackson]

I'll put it on the record. The annual number is about 75%.

[Rodger Cuzner, Liberal, Cape Breton—Canso, NS]

So it's still below the 80% standard.

[Karen Jackson]

Yes, it is.

This is something we are working to improve. But this past year, 2012-13, with the volume of claims we received and the resources we had to devote to the processing, we did not quite meet our 80% speed-of-pay indicator.