Human Resources Committee on April 30th, 2020

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

If you could provide it, please, by province and by city, that would make a very big difference. These global numbers don't really mean anything unless we have the details of how this works within the local communities. As well, I would like it program by program, please. Where there is a distinction for indigenous support, could you identify that?

I'm wondering what the plan is from the government side in terms of supporting provinces in the post-COVID period. I'll use B.C. as an example, where we're purchasing hotels to house the homeless. Of course, after COVID, we would need to continue to house these individuals. Otherwise, they will end up on the street all over again, until the next pandemic.

Will the federal government and CMHC offer capital resources in support of provinces that are taking these kinds of actions so that we can secure these assets as permanent housing?

[Evan Siddall]

Mr. Chair, perhaps that's a question that would be better directed to the minister in terms of future plans.

As far as current plans go, we have two funds. We have the national housing co-investment fund in particular. We have another program called the rental construction financing initiative, whereby we are maximizing the distribution of that money throughout the country. It's location agnostic. Both respond to applications that are made to us, and we consult with individual provinces to prioritize that information.

I should tell the member, Mr. Chair, that we may not have the breakdown by city, but we'll certainly get it by province. Through you, I will get that information as soon as I can.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Thank you. I would ask that if you don't have that breakdown by city at this moment, you continue to endeavour to get that information and provide that information to us so that we can have a clear picture of the lay of the land.

With respect to decisions on policy, has CMHC given any thought to putting in, or recommending to the government to put in, restrictions on predatory purchases of assets during this period?

[The Chair, Liberal, Sean Casey]

Let's have a short answer, please.

[Evan Siddall]

That's not currently on the radar. I think that may be a matter of provincial jurisdiction.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

I'm thinking about a national standard.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sean Casey]

Thank you, Ms. Kwan.

We'll now go to Mr. Vis for five minutes.

[Brad Vis, Conservative, Mission—Matsqui—Fraser Canyon, BC]

Mr. Chair, this question is regarding the insured mortgage purchase program.

As I understand it, banks are allowing payment deferrals for people affected by COVID-19, but they are also double-ending on the interest charged, first during the deferral period and then when the deferred amount is added to the back end of the mortgage, where it is then charged interest again. Lenders, as I understood from the testimony, are actually benefiting and profiting from allowing people to defer their mortgages.

Is CMHC looking into putting pressure on the lenders that have loans that are CMHC insured not to double-end them and simply to defer the payment interest-free? If that does not occur, the person putting down the bare minimum, for example, 5%, six months ago, who has lost his or her job to COVID-19 and wishes to defer payments could possibly be in a situation where his or her loan-to-value ratio exceeds 95%, depending on when the purchase was made.

[Evan Siddall]

Mr. Chair, there are a couple of things I should say in response to that.

First of all, we, along with the private insurers, are allowing for these loans to actually exceed 100% loan to value, if necessary, to keep the people in their homes. That's a flexibility we've administered together through the system.

The way mortgage deferrals work, as the member correctly says, is that those deferrals are added to the outstanding principal and interest is charged on that amount, in keeping with the contract that people signed when they entered into that mortgage. It's a contractual requirement.

[Brad Vis, Conservative, Mission—Matsqui—Fraser Canyon, BC]

I just think that ethically, right now with the CMHC giving our banks $150 billion in the purchasing of new mortgages, we should re-evaluate that policy.

Let's turn to business continuity planning, which is planning for the continued availability of services and associated assets that are crucial to the health, safety, security and economic well-being of Canadians, and to the effective functioning of government. I'm quite concerned about some of the things that have already been addressed today with Service Canada.

A 2017 audit on business continuity planning for ESDC revealed that the technical testing of recovery strategies is often limited and provides little assurance regarding the viability of information technology components of continuity plans. That same 2017 audit showed that regular testing of the IT technical aspects of ESDC continuity plans were controlled but that they should be strengthened and that currently they provide only medium-risk exposure to the department.

We now find ourselves at a time and place where federal workers, many of whom are being asked to work from home, either cannot or do not work, yet they are still getting paid their regular salaries. This question did come from a constituent. Those who do try to work from home are finding themselves unable to log in to government services, or they log in to get whatever they need and then immediately log off.

This question is for ESDC. Who was responsible for server capacity at ESDC? How many employees can ESDC accommodate on its server at any given time? How many employees are not completing their regular duties as a result of technological disruptions due to the technological drawbacks of the department capacity right now?

[Graham Flack]

Mr. Chair, what I'm happy to tell you is that, tested in a real emergency, not only have the systems performed magnificently, but the technical team has expanded them in real time.

In a typical day, we would have had 400 people logging in online on our system. During the crisis, we built in additional network capacity, and yesterday we had 19,500 employees working online. That's in addition to the people who are physically still continuing to come into the office. The network capacity has not been a limit on our ability to perform.

Now, in terms of our operations, particularly our processing operations, they had never been designed to be done from home, nor had our call centres. They had assumed that individuals were going to be in at work, and the business continuity planning was done around positioning those workplaces around the country, so that if a flood happened in one place, we could move the work.

In real time, we shipped thousands of devices, headsets and laptops to individuals at home for them to be able to operate from there. In the case of the call centre that Lori described, the CERB call centre that we set up in nine days from when we contracted with a third party provider to provide the platform to be able to do it, we were able to get devices out to the individuals and get the 1,500 volunteers from the department who were willing to be trained and do that, and nine days later we had 1,500 people in the call centre.

As somebody who has worked in business continuity planning for a long time, I would say that you always prepare and try to improve, and you value those odds, because they stress-test what works, but what I can say is that the performance of our system has exceeded all expectations during the crisis in terms of its ability to respond to things it was never built for.

To give you the example of EI, we have received—

[Brad Vis, Conservative, Mission—Matsqui—Fraser Canyon, BC]

Thank you. Mr. Chair, that's sufficient. I want to thank Mr. Flack for that reassuring information.

The reason I ask those questions is that in my lifetime we're going to have another pandemic, and in my lifetime we're going to have another natural disaster, and Canadians need to be reassured that the Government of Canada can fulfill its functions. If it has exceeded expectations, that's great.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sean Casey]

Thank you, Mr. Vis. That's your time.

[Brad Vis, Conservative, Mission—Matsqui—Fraser Canyon, BC]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sean Casey]

This will be the last questioner before the minister comes. We're back to the Liberals.

I believe it's Mr. Long, for five minutes.

[Wayne Long, Liberal, Saint John—Rothesay, NB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and good afternoon to all of my colleagues.

I thank both departments for answering our questions today.

Certainly, on my behalf and on behalf of my riding, Saint John—Rothesay, I want to thank you and congratulate you for the efforts that your whole departments have given to come to Canadians' aid in a time of extraordinary challenges for our country.

My first question is for ESDC with respect to the reaching home program. Saint John obviously has an issue with homelessness, like most municipalities and regions across the country, and I deal almost daily if not weekly with the two shelters here. One is the Coverdale Centre for Women, and the other one is the Outflow shelter for men.

Recognizing that the reaching home program was rolled out, my first question is for ESDC. How did ESDC make the decision regarding the allocation of funding under the reaching home program? How did you come up with that decision as to how it was allocated?

[Graham Flack]

It was an evidence-based process that made the allocation to the community-based organizations, the 64 community-based organizations that were in. There's a formula that's used to determine need and the volume of individuals involved. The minister ultimately makes those decisions, but it's based on the evidence we have to be able to compare those communities.

If I could just slip in on the original question I got on the reaching home program, 10% of the reaching home allocation is for urban indigenous, so that's $15.7 million.

[Wayne Long, Liberal, Saint John—Rothesay, NB]

Thank you for that.

My understanding is that the $157 million has been given across the country to help organizations protect homeless people from COVID-19. In my riding, money was allocated to the Human Development Council, with Randy Hatfield and his team, to allocate that money to the shelters and organizations in the riding that certainly need it.

I know that an earlier question was asked about the what, but how did you determine the regional breakdown of funding? How did you come up with that?

[Graham Flack]

For the additional $157 million that was provided during the crisis, we followed the exact model we had for the reaching home proposal. We didn't shift from that. We distributed according to the same proportions we use with the main reaching home program. Then we have left, as the program does, considerable flexibility for community entities to determine how to spend the money. It could have been spent on personal protective equipment or on renting hotel space to allow distancing. It was up to them to determine what was most appropriate. We basically piggybacked on the reaching home proposal, and the $157 million was allocated in the same proportions.

[Wayne Long, Liberal, Saint John—Rothesay, NB]

To go further along that line, how does the money actually get to front-line organizations? The Human Development Council, which is in my riding, received that money, but how are the decisions made? Are they in the hands of the local organizations? Do they have a lot of flexibility to think outside the box, to go in different directions with that money? How are those decisions made?

[Graham Flack]

You're right that the program is designed to give maximum flexibility to individuals on the ground, and that's allowed them to tailor it to the needs they have. In some cases, organizations may have had physical spaces or extra spaces where they could have allowed physical distancing to take place. In other community organizations, where there is no such possibility with the shelters they're dealing with, they've had to rent hotel space, for example, to accommodate that. Some have had protective equipment shortages. We really leave it to them to do that.

It has been assisted by the fact that Health Canada, through PHAC, issued guidance on March 23 on measures to take in homeless shelters, so I think there's an evidence base on which to guide that. However, we really have left it to the community-based organizations to determine the greatest need on the ground and adjust as they need to. There is very little intervention from us and maximum flexibility for those on the ground.

[Wayne Long, Liberal, Saint John—Rothesay, NB]

Have you had much feedback yet from the organizations on the ground with respect to the extra money, the allocations? Have there been any red flags or have any major concerns been flagged?

[Graham Flack]

That's something the minister and Mr. Vaughan on the committee might want to address, because they've had considerable contact with folks on the ground to get feedback and allow us to adjust.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sean Casey]

Thank you, Mr. Flack. That's an excellent note to end on, because the minister is up next.

That ends your time, Mr. Long.

We're going to suspend just long enough to do a mike check for the minister, maybe three minutes, and then we'll come right back.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sean Casey]

We're now back in session and very pleased to have the Minister of Families, Children and Social Development joining us.

Welcome, Minister Hussen. It's nice to have you here. You have 10 minutes for your opening statement.