Human Resources Committee on May 28th, 2015

[Jamie Nicholls, NDP, Vaudreuil—Soulanges, QC]

But first, Mr. Minister, let me be more specific. I would like to talk about the results and make things clearer for Canadians, because they are not really familiar with the youth employment strategy.

What projects are currently funded under the three streams of the youth employment strategy and how will they be improved?

[Ian Shugart]

Simply put, we will do our best, keeping in mind the comments people made last year about the administration.

The three pillars of the program are: Career Focus, geared toward employers, Skills Link, a program for young people facing a number of obstacles, and the Summer Work Experience program that involves all members in the administration of program selection.

Those are the three pillars of the strategy.

[The Chair, Conservative, Phil McColeman]

Go ahead, Minister.

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Nepean—Carleton, ON]

I'll just very quickly sum up, Chairman, on the three programs the deputy mentioned.

Under skills link, in 2013-14 we served 12,390 youth; 1,477 returned to school and almost 6,000 were employed or self-employed. Under career focus, the primary results for the same year saw 3,726 youth served; 402 returned to school and 1,342 were employed or self-employed. Then, of course, there's the Canada summer jobs program, with which you're very familiar. It serves annually about 40,000 students, give or take, depending on the rates of minimum wage in the various jurisdictions.

That's an overview of the results. I'm sure we can talk off-line about other particular projects within these programs to assess their efficacy, but that's an overview.

[The Chair, Conservative, Phil McColeman]

Thank you, Minister.

Mr. Armstrong.

[Scott Armstrong, Conservative, Cumberland—Colchester—Musquodoboit Valley, NS]

I want to thank the minister and the officials for being here this afternoon.

Minister, it's been great to work with you over the last several months as you've taken on this gigantic portfolio. It's great to see the energy and enthusiasm you put behind your work every day.

I'll focus the first part of my questions around the social security tribunal. We've heard a lot in the House and other places about the social security tribunal and the legacy backlog. I know that your predecessor worked very hard on this issue and you have as well. Can you give us an update on just where we are on our progress in dealing with the legacy backlog we were left with?

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Nepean—Carleton, ON]

Yes.

We considered the backlog to be unacceptable. My predecessor came up with a common-sense plan to address that backlog.

To recap, the plan was for officials at the department to triage the outstanding cases that were awaiting appeal to the general and appeal divisions and to settle as many as humanly possible so that they did not have to go before the tribunal at all. I am happy to report that the department has done an exceptional job in this practice. They are settling cases at a very rapid rate.

The team that some in the media have called the spike unit—I'm not sure that's the proper technical term—has done an extraordinary job serving Canadians and resolving as many of these outstanding cases as possible. I'm happy to report that they will have done all of the triage work on those cases by about mid-August, which was the original plan. Of course, there are some cases that we can't settle because our officials deem them to be not appropriate for settlement, and they do need to be put before the tribunal for deliberation. But I can tell you that the department's work is going extremely well and it will be completed on schedule.

[Scott Armstrong, Conservative, Cumberland—Colchester—Musquodoboit Valley, NS]

Great.

The current SST chair has also mentioned that she expects to be able to handle 500 cases per month.

Can you extrapolate on that, Minister, on the 500 cases per month that the SST will be able to take on?

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Nepean—Carleton, ON]

The chair of the SST indicated that they would do 500 cases per month. That work is done at arm's length, and we continue to encourage the rapid resolution of cases before the tribunals.

What I can report is that within ESDC, our officials are shouldering the responsibilities that they took on. They are completing the caseload at the pace they promised, and they will be finished their work on schedule.

[Scott Armstrong, Conservative, Cumberland—Colchester—Musquodoboit Valley, NS]

That's good news, Minister. I appreciate that.

I'm going to switch gears now. In the budget this year, we made an expansion of the EI compassionate care benefit. Could you elaborate on the positive benefit that will give to families across the country?

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Nepean—Carleton, ON]

I mentioned that the three pillars of our agenda are jobs, families, and communities. This is really on the second pillar.

When people are critically ill, often they have to rely on our hospitals, sometimes regrettably even palliative care, but more than anything they want to be close to their families. The previous employment insurance program for compassionate care allowed someone to take up to six weeks off during the critical illness of an immediate family member. We announced in budget 2015 that under the leadership of Prime Minister Harper, we will extend compassionate care for six months so that people can be with their loved ones in this extremely difficult and painful time.

[Scott Armstrong, Conservative, Cumberland—Colchester—Musquodoboit Valley, NS]

Do you have any idea of how many families this will benefit in the country? Is there any calculation of that?

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Nepean—Carleton, ON]

I don't have those numbers, but I'm sure we can get back to you.

Is it 6,000?

[Ian Shugart]

About 6,900 is our estimate.

[Scott Armstrong, Conservative, Cumberland—Colchester—Musquodoboit Valley, NS]

Wow, that's impressive.

Minister, going back to the EI numbers and the progress we've made, it wasn't too long ago that we were hearing a lot of complaints in MPs' offices across the country about the rate at which people were able to receive their EI benefits. It was far below the 80% that we were looking to get within 28 days. It's great news that we've been able to now achieve that benchmark goal.

Can you talk about some of the steps that were put in place to try to make the difference for Canadians looking to receive their EI benefits?

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Nepean—Carleton, ON]

Absolutely, but before I do, I think the deputy wants to provide a bit more information on your previous question.

[Ian Shugart]

Mr. Chair, it occurs to me that I may have answered a little bit the wrong question. We estimate that there will be about 6,900 beneficiaries, which would be an increase of about 900 from the current take-up. I thought I should clarify that.

[An hon. member]

Thank you.

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Nepean—Carleton, ON]

Under the leadership of my predecessor, frankly, the department made a decision to hire about 400 additional processing employees to help deal with the challenge of shortening the wait time. They have allocated resources and provided good solid training to these new workers. The result is that we've now achieved the goal of providing payment to 80% of eligible applicants within 28 days.

[The Chair, Conservative, Phil McColeman]

Thank you.

Madam Davies.

[Libby Davies, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Thank you, Minister, and officials for coming here today.

Minister, you've pointed out that this is the largest federal department, and I wish we had an hour for every major program you have just to go through them. It's obviously a generalist situation we're facing with one hour with you.

You said at the beginning that obviously jobs are a key priority, and certainly there would be agreement on that. My colleague has pointed out $40 million of allocated funds was unspent in youth employment programs.

When you look at something like adult learning, literacy, and essential skills, that was underspent by 31%, which is quite shocking given that the OECD says that 49% of adult Canadians fall below high school equivalency. Obviously, that's a very important program in terms of job readiness.

You spoke a little about foreign credentials. That program has been underspent by $30 million over five years. You talked about the pilot project, which sounds well and good, but it seems to me there's a pattern here.

Your response was, “Well, you know, every department likes to come in under budget”, and that's good, but we're talking about millions and millions of dollars here that haven't been spent in the way they were meant to be spent to help people who really need it.

I don't feel satisfied by your answer. I think it requires some explanation as to why, for example, with youth employment, money that's meant to go to such a critical area, or adult literacy, or foreign credentials isn't being delivered.

Either the departments are deliberately overestimating what they need, or the whole thing's a bit of a farce. These estimates are meant to be there as estimates. They're meant to be there. The allocation is meant to be real. I wonder if you could give us a better explanation as to why so much allocation is unspent when there is such a high need, whether it's for youth, adult literacy, or whether it's for new Canadians.

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Nepean—Carleton, ON]

I guess we have different definitions of success. Some believe you define success by how quickly and abundantly you can shovel money out the door. Others define success by—

[Libby Davies, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

These are your allocations we're talking about, not our allocations. This is what Parliament agreed to, based on what your department said needed to be provided for that program.

No one is talking about shovelling money out the door. It's based on your estimates.

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Nepean—Carleton, ON]

Those estimates are, and have been, for the history of parliamentary democracy, ceilings and not floors. We don't wake up at the end of the fiscal year and say, “Oh my goodness, we're under budget. We'd better shovel out the last $10 million or $15 million of allocated money,” regardless of whether there are good projects available and ready to receive that money.

[Libby Davies, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

This would help us getting out of the basement.