Human Resources Committee on April 30th, 2020

[Kate Young, Liberal, London West, ON]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to the officials for joining us today.

I think it's pretty apparent from that first question that Service Canada is dealing with some very quick changes in a system that, as you say, is 46 years old.

I think all MPs can attest to the overwhelming number of calls our constituency offices have received over the past five to six weeks about accessing emergency government support through Service Canada. I have a daily Zoom call with my constituency office, and I hear about these challenges every day. Today, we actually received calls from happy constituents, so that was really good to hear.

How has Service Canada adapted through this crisis? What measures are being put in place to safely and efficiently serve Canadians each and every day?

[Lori MacDonald, Senior Associate Deputy Minister, Employment and Social Development, and Chief Operating Officer for Service Canada, Department of Employment and Social Development]

Mr. Chair, I'd be happy to take that question.

In fact, our Service Canada centres continue to deliver services across the country on any given day and, in fact, 24 hours a day. One of the things that we learned very quickly with this crisis is that we needed to pivot and develop a new alternative service delivery model, because we needed to continue to reach Canadians, and we needed to continue to provide access to benefits and capacity to deliver services. We developed a process that is a four-tiered approach to doing that.

We have online services. We also have e-services, meaning that someone can actually email us and ask us to contact them, which we do within 48 hours. We have community outreach services so we're reaching our aboriginal communities and our northern indigenous communities. Also, of course, we have self-service.

Beyond that, we took action very quickly within our department to realign services. We realigned approximately 3,000 staff to ensure that we're continuing to deliver benefits. We actually established a new virtual call centre to support calls coming in for claims on EI, where we've staffed 1,500 staff to answer calls and questions from individual Canadians.

At the same time, we look for electronic and technological solutions to services that could continue to be delivered. As an example, this week we launched a new e-SIN application, ensuring that people who need either urgent or ongoing support from a social insurance security number perspective could apply online to a portal and receive those services and a new SIN number in a very quick manner.

Also, at the same time, we're realigning staff to support a new hub to provide individual services to the most vulnerable populations in our country. As an example, we established a 50-person call centre that reaches out to people in remote areas, and they can access services online and have someone actually assist them in terms of completing their applications.

A number of new services have been put in place, as well as alternate service delivery, that actually continue to meet the needs of Canadians. At the same time, we have 19,000 people teleworking and another 12% of our staff still coming in to our offices to deliver services to Canadians.

[Kate Young, Liberal, London West, ON]

Thank you very much, Ms. MacDonald, for explaining that. I really appreciate your talking about vulnerable Canadians. I am very interested in making sure that people with disabilities are well served by Service Canada. I underscore that this is such an important issue.

The other area that I wanted to talk about is indigenous housing and homelessness. This committee had planned to study indigenous homelessness in urban areas, but we have had to delay the start of the study because of this unprecedented health crisis.

If anything, COVID-19 has made the problem of homelessness even worse and even more concerning because of the need for self-isolation, which is almost impossible for people who are living on the street.

When we look at the $157 million in additional funding the Government of Canada has provided for reaching our homelessness strategy, how much of that amount is directed specifically to indigenous people living in the urban communities?

[Graham Flack]

There are 30 indigenous communities we are supporting and I will endeavour to get you the number regarding exactly how much of the $157 million is for urban indigenous. I will get that to you shortly.

[Kate Young, Liberal, London West, ON]

Okay. Thank you very much. I think it is important to know that this is necessary to make sure that our indigenous communities are well served. I would like to get that number.

I don't know how much more time I have, but I was thinking about—

[The Chair, Liberal, Sean Casey]

You have less than a minute, Ms. Young.

[Kate Young, Liberal, London West, ON]

I have less than a minute.

I was thinking about the magnitude of this crisis and how we'll determine how long the funding needs to flow. How will the government know when these funds are no longer needed? How will that be decided?

Has that been considered at this point?

[Graham Flack]

I'll start, but Evan may want to come in because he has measures as well that have potential time limitations associated with the crisis.

We've been working at three levels in the department throughout the crisis. The first is the immediate crisis response. We had an unprecedented historic drop in employment. To give you the latest numbers, we're at 7.33 million Canadians who are recipients of the CERB, well over one-third of the workforce. These are unprecedented conditions. The first phase was emergency supports, which we've continued to work with the committee on enhancing in that phase.

The second phase, though, is the phase where we see the restart of the economy. We don't expect that will temporally happen at either the same time everywhere in the country or in the same industries everywhere in the country. It's not like a normal economic recovery where we're likely to see a “V” or a bounce back that's relatively accelerated. It's likely to be much more unpredictable in terms of how to do that.

We are working through how we deal with a phase where it's neither on nor off. How do we deal with the fact that even in our own work environments as a federal government we need to accommodate physical distancing and work through that? How will the income support measures have to be tailored to deal with where, in some sectors, employment might come back full on and in other sectors there might still be a longer period? What does that mean for the duration of the benefits? As Minister Qualtrough has said, and Minister Hussen will say, the government has indicated that these measures are in place for at least this period, with the opportunity to increase the period if necessary.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sean Casey]

Thank you, Mr. Flack. We're well over time. Feel free to supplement your answers in writing afterwards.

Ms. Chabot, you have the floor for six minutes.

[Louise Chabot, Bloc, Thérèse-De Blainville, QC]

Good afternoon.

My first question pertains to Service Canada. As we all know, Service Canada, adapted to the worst part of the crisis, when we were asked to remain in isolation, a tough situation for all of us.

I heard the answer, but now we are talking about emerging from the lockdown and gradually resuming operations. I'd like to know whether Service Canada plans to reopen its service centres, while following the rules in place, as many businesses will be doing.

[Graham Flack]

I can go first and Ms. MacDonald can take over.

Naturally, the department has a plan. We had a discussion today with our management team to figure out how we are going to reopen our physical locations when provinces begin lifting restrictions. We are going to have to deliver service in a different way.

It's important to keep two things in mind. If governments continue to ask people to keep their physical distance, some Service Canada offices will be too small to accommodate people. There won't be enough space. The consequences for those locations will be different from those associated with our larger locations, which will have plans in place to make returning easier for both employees—

[The Chair, Liberal, Sean Casey]

Sorry, Mr. Flack, but I think there's a point of order.

There is a point of order from Mr. Turnbull, I believe, and perhaps Mr. Long was waving as well.

[Ryan Turnbull, Liberal, Whitby, ON]

Mr. Chair, I think we're probably both indicating the same thing.

I think Mr. Flack might be on the opposite channel. Maybe he's speaking French on the English channel.

[Graham Flack]

I switched channels now. Is it working?

[Ryan Turnbull, Liberal, Whitby, ON]

Mr. Chair, it is very hard to hear, and I actually couldn't make out what he was saying.

[Graham Flack]

I'll quickly repeat what I said. Right now, we are providing plans to reopen Service Canada offices.

Some of our offices are too small to allow people to keep six feet apart when inside. We are looking at how we can make that work. For our larger locations, we need to make sure that employees are able to follow the distancing guidelines, that offices are cleaned as well as possible and so forth, so we can welcome people back.

In the medium term, we will continue to rely heavily on digital and telephone solutions for service delivery, because people won't necessarily come into our offices when they reopen. We need to keep those options available.

Ms. MacDonald may be able to comment further.

[Lori MacDonald]

Thank you for the question, Mr. Chair.

In fact, we do have a four-phase plan in place to assist in the reopening of our Service Canada centres. That consists of looking at things, from our physical infrastructure to the current conditions in each of the provinces and territories, the current alternative service delivery model that we've put in place and how we can continue to meet the safety and security needs of our staff and clients coming into our centres. It's something we're working on every day, and we are completely committed to having our offices open in the future as we address these issues.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sean Casey]

Ms. Chabot, you may go ahead.

[Louise Chabot, Bloc, Thérèse-De Blainville, QC]

We read, or understood, that people receiving special sickness benefits, as well as those receiving regular EI benefits, would move over to the CERB program and could therefore supplement their benefits or stop them if they were done.

We've received a lot of telephone calls from people telling us that it's not working that way. According to them, they are being asked to exhaust their sickness benefits before moving over to the CERB program.

If that's true, can the situation be corrected?

[Graham Flack]

It all depends on when the person began receiving benefits. If the person was eligible and received sickness benefits before March 15, they will continue to receive EI sickness benefits as per the applicable rules and conditions.

If you were able to provide us with a specific case, we could answer on the basis of that person's situation.

Nevertheless, nothing has changed for eligible individuals who applied for EI benefits before March 15. They will stay with the EI program.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sean Casey]

Thank you, Ms. Chabot.

We wil go to Ms. Kwan, please, for six minutes.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Thank you very much.

My first question is about Service Canada's response time to constituents and to MPs' offices. My office continues to have extensive problems in connecting to and getting a response back in a timely fashion from Service Canada as it relates to constituency cases.

In a previous committee meeting, I asked for a contact number to be made available to us. I have yet to receive that. Honest to goodness, right now, as it stands, for our office to connect to someone at Service Canada to help out constituents and answer questions is like winning a lottery. It's just hit and miss. We'd be damn lucky if we could actually get through to someone. Could someone please provide us with that direct contact information so that we can indeed get on with helping our constituents?

[Lori MacDonald]

Mr. Chair, we've actually identified the contact numbers for each of the MP lines. We'd be happy to provide it again to ensure that people have the appropriate numbers for contact. I will say that staff are working to ensure that we're able to answer all of the questions as they come in, and we will continue to make our best efforts. Certainly, we can reach out to your office to see what we can do to help assist with that.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

I would appreciate that very much.

Yesterday, I got another email from another constituent who has been trying to reach Service Canada for 17 days. Literally, with May 1 coming on, he was extremely stressed about not having money for rent and not having received CERB for this period of time and being unable to contact Service Canada. These are the realities of people who are struggling out there today. I would appreciate it if someone would call my office in that regard.

I'd like to turn my question to housing. Across the country, this is hitting people in a very significant way, as we know. Earlier, I think a question was asked about the resources that have been provided to provinces and cities across the country. Could the committee get from CMHC the breakdown under each program of how much money is being offered to support provinces, and then have that broken down into cities, so that we actually have that information?

In terms of British Columbia, I know for a fact that while it all sounds good that the federal government is at the table, in reality much of the dollars have actually not really flowed. This last weekend, B.C.'s minister of poverty reduction made an announcement about the purchase of hotels and motels to house people who are in homeless encampments in Vancouver and Victoria. Has the federal government offered dollars to provinces and territories across the country to support purchases of empty hotels to house the homeless population during this pandemic?

[Evan Siddall]

Mr. Chair, there is no such offer at this point. The programs that have gone through CMHC are national in scope. The only exception to that would be the Canada housing benefit, which is being shared with provinces as agreements are reached.

I can follow up, though, with a response to the member's question with respect to the breakdown of spending by province.