Ms. MacLean, you made the comment in your opening statement that you are the face of the federal government in a lot of cases, and I agree, especially to those who are.... As we often hear, and I'll be candid, the system handles the majority well. We never hear about it. It's the small group who are under-serviced that we hear about.
I'll give you a reference to one case. A gentleman on EI called in and said that it had been seven weeks since he had filed a claim. He still had no response back, and it hadn't been settled. Then it went to eight weeks, and his bills were piling up. When he finally reached out to my office, we talked to the agent responsible for dealing with it, who said, “Yes, we see the file, but there is nobody available to look at it. If somebody looked at it, it could be turned around.”
Those are the unfortunate situations that give the whole system a negative...and we've heard the Auditor General's report.
I want you to comment. You made a reference to budget 2016. The funding you got there allowed you to begin addressing accumulated problems. What occurred in 2016 that allowed you to begin to address these public issues?