Human Resources Committee on Dec. 10th, 2020

[Carla Qualtrough, Liberal, Delta, BC]

Thank you for that segue. That was going to be my next point, that the Minister of National Revenue and I are speaking regularly about this, as recently as this morning, to make sure that both Service Canada and the CRA have the human resource capacity to answer questions.

I think specifically the reality is that if someone got the CERB, they're going to get a tax slip that says they earned a certain amount of income and that income is going to be taxed. We're trying to have our tax slips be as accurate as possible for people going into the 2020 tax season so that the receipt of CERB doesn't negatively impact people's entitlement to other benefits like the GST credit or the CCB or the GIS. That would be a double whammy, if you will, if people are then deemed not eligible for the GST or GIS next year because of their having collected CERB, which they're ultimately going to have to pay back, potentially; and they then get neither and they have to reapply.

It's a very complicated tax reality and, proactively, we're trying to get as many tax slips as accurate as possible by the end of December to avoid that for as many people as possible.

[Rosemarie Falk, Conservative, Battlefords—Lloydminster, SK]

You said you were in communication, but I'm just wondering if you could you could tell me what you and the Minister of National Revenue are doing to ensure that there are enough Service Canada agents so that we don't have added stress at a very difficult time when people are alone, depressed and whatnot?

[Carla Qualtrough, Liberal, Delta, BC]

Graham, could you give us the Service Canada uptake numbers—just how many people are now responding for Service Canada?

[The Chair, Liberal, Sean Casey]

Please keep it brief, Mr. Flack.

[Graham Flack, Deputy Minister, Employment and Social Development, Department of Employment and Social Development]

On the repayment side, there are none for Service Canada yet, because it's CRA doing this for the CERB on the collection side. This is only on the CRA side for now, but, yes, eventually Service Canada will get to this too.

Right now, the letters that have gone out are for people who collected the CERB, which was delivered through CRA and it's their centres that are dealing with this right now.

[Carla Qualtrough, Liberal, Delta, BC]

But we definitely have increased our capacity of Service Canada personnel and their people who call.

[Graham Flack]

Yes.

[Carla Qualtrough, Liberal, Delta, BC]

That's what I'm getting at.

[Graham Flack]

Knowing the surge we were going to get, with a year's worth of work in September, we doubled the call centre capacity in terms of the number of agents, over the course of four months.

[Carla Qualtrough, Liberal, Delta, BC]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sean Casey]

Thank you, Mr. Flack, Madam Minister and Mrs. Falk.

Next is Mr. Dong.

Go ahead, please, for five minutes

[Han Dong, Liberal, Don Valley North, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

Minister, thank you very much for being with us today.

Before I begin my questions, I think it's important to get on record that, on behalf of the people of Don Valley North, I want to say thank you for your good and hard work this year. It's been a very tough year. I know that the majority of the public service are still working from home, and things are not back to normal yet. There are a lot of decisions to be made in a very short period of time. Also, people often forget that we are operating as a minority government and that we need to work with all parties. It's not easy, but I just wanted to make sure that you heard that your leadership and compassion and the hard work by the public service are felt and, in fact, they are making Canada one of the top-performing countries in the world in responding to COVID. I just wanted to make sure that appreciation was on record and passed on to you on behalf of my constituents.

I have a particular interest after seeing $12.65 million in payments for personal support workers' training and measures to address labour shortages in long-term care and home care. I heard in the fall economic statement as well that this was something we were going to do in the future, or something along those lines.

Can you give the committee more information on this initiative?

[Carla Qualtrough, Liberal, Delta, BC]

Thank you.

We all know how the pandemic has really highlighted the need for additional workers in long-term care facilities and assisted-living services. There really are workforce challenges in the supportive care sector, and that's what this is all about. This funding is to create a program. We will ultimately be working with Colleges & Institutes Canada to develop and implement an accelerated online training program for approximately 4,000 new personal support workers. It will have an online component and an integrated learning component, and it will be offered at no cost to the trainees. This is really la relève, the next wave of workers into this system, which we're hoping to professionalize and which we expect will lead to higher wages. We're hoping that these individuals will pursue careers in this field post-pandemic and will increase the capacity. It will really make the training for personal support workers consistent across the country. I'm very excited about this one. This is really good news for Canada.

[Han Dong, Liberal, Don Valley North, ON]

One more detail on this: Is the program available only to Canadian citizens and permanent residents? Can anyone with a valid work permit or a study permit working allowable hours apply for this program as well?

[Carla Qualtrough, Liberal, Delta, BC]

I apologize. I honestly don't know.

Graham?

[Graham Flack]

I don't have that design detail, Minister, but we will get it.

[Carla Qualtrough, Liberal, Delta, BC]

Yes. We can find out and follow up for sure.

I'm sorry about that.

[Han Dong, Liberal, Don Valley North, ON]

No, it's all good. I know that it's maybe a bit of a curveball, but we've seen a lot of foreign international students and work permit holders step forward during the pandemic and help out their local health facilities, so I'd be interested to get that information.

[Carla Qualtrough, Liberal, Delta, BC]

Thank you. I will follow up.

[Han Dong, Liberal, Don Valley North, ON]

Changing gears a bit, I want to ask about the Canada summer jobs program and the youth employment strategy. We all know how important these programs are to our ridings and to the not-for-profits and businesses in our ridings. Can you give us a bit more information on these two programs?

[Carla Qualtrough, Liberal, Delta, BC]

Thank you.

Wow. There's a lot to say about these two programs as well.

Over the last month, we have seen how hard hit young people have been by the pandemic. Quite frankly, there's a real risk that if we don't take significant action, this will have a generational impact on our young people. We still have higher youth unemployment rates than average. There is reduced participation in post-secondary education among lower-income students. We've seen how the pandemic has disproportionately affected our students who face systemic barriers, including indigenous youth and youth with disabilities.

That's why we put in place our COVID student response package. I'm proud to say that the emergency student benefit supported over 700,000 students, and the Canada student loan program helped more than two million students. We did about 150,000 job placements through our enhanced measures. That's what we're continuing.

The youth employment and skills strategy focuses on students who face additional barriers to participation in the workforce and provides them with supports. We are torquing that up.

For Canada summer jobs, of course, everybody here is familiar with that program. We see how every year it's oversubscribed. We think there's a need to even have more summer jobs available next year, and that's exactly what we're doing.

With these two programs, we're supporting both the students who are job-ready and looking for work through Canada summer jobs, and the students who need a little more help, are more marginalized and face more barriers, by supporting them with wraparound supports to succeed in work.

[Han Dong, Liberal, Don Valley North, ON]

Definitely, there is a need for it.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sean Casey]

Thank you, Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Dong.

[Han Dong, Liberal, Don Valley North, ON]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sean Casey]

Ms. Chabot, you have the floor for two and a half minutes.