Human Resources Committee on Feb. 23rd, 2021

[Philip Lawrence, Conservative, Northumberland—Peterborough South, ON]

I understand that once you've been denied.... Some of them are legitimate. I've talked to some folks who have been denied.

We're putting people through the notice of objection system, which is for your taxes and which can take up to six months or a year. These are people who are struck down by the pandemic, having a horrible time, perhaps the worst time of their lives, and now they may have a rightful claim, but they won't get their day in court for literally six months, if not years. Is that true?

[Frank Vermaeten]

I have to look into that. Generally that is not the procedure. If individuals are blocked for whatever reason, for example, we don't have any income on their files, or we have income and it's too low, or they don't meet the age, they are entitled to call us. If they can put forth a reasonable case, we do that right over the phone and there's no need to go to an objection.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sean Casey]

Thank you, Mr. Lawrence.

Thank you, Mr. Vermaeten.

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

I have a point of order, Chair. I noticed that the witness didn't have enough time to answer the question to give the committee a full explanation. Would it be possible for the witness to submit a written response to some of the questions that he felt he didn't have enough time to respond to?

[The Chair, Liberal, Sean Casey]

It's always possible for a witness to augment or clarify their answers in writing after the fact. That won't be a problem.

Generally, Mr. Dong, the length of the answer is to match the length of the question. You're right that Mr. Lawrence did interrupt the witness a couple of times, but he did allow him as much time as he took to ask the question. I didn't see him as being entirely unfair, but the answer to your question is yes, absolutely.

With that, Mr. Dong, you have the floor for six minutes.

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

Thank you, Chair.

I want to thank all the witnesses for taking time to come to the committee to answer some of these important questions. I'm going to stick with StatsCan because it's very interesting to me. As we all know, members of Parliament sometimes reference StatsCan findings in our debates and in question period, especially in comparisons of the numbers between Canada and the United States and there are good reasons for that. Our economies are very similar, and they're very much linked, as well.

Would you be able to let us know if there's a variance in the methodology between StatsCan and the Bureau of Labor Statistics in the United States when calculating each country's unemployment rate?

[Josée Bégin]

Mr. Chair, I can answer that question.

Canada and the U.S. both adhere to the United Nations International Labour Organization's guidance on defining and measuring labour market activity. The guidance does, however, include some flexibility so that each country can interpret and adapt it to its own labour market.

Accordingly, it's not always possible to do a country-to-country comparison of employment and other main labour market indicators. With respect to Canada and the U.S., specifically, a technical paper is available on our website to explain the conceptual differences between the two countries' surveys, the LFS and the Current Population Survey.

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

That's great.

[Josée Bégin]

I'll just finish, if I may.

Every month when we release our information, if the information from the United States has already been released, we do this adjustment to our own data to allow for the comparison with the United States.

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

That's very interesting.

In your opinion, is it accurate to make a one-to-one comparison between the two nations' employment rates, or would it be, to some degree, misleading to make the comparison of these absolute numbers?

[Josée Bégin]

The answer to your question is really based on the fact that there are adjustments that need to be made in order to make sure that the concept.... We can think of the population that we're measuring in terms of the age groups that we're trying to measure, as well as the reference period between the surveys. Once we've made those adjustments, then it is okay for us to publish the information.

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

You have to make certain adjustments.

[Josée Bégin]

Yes.

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

Is there a better statistical calculation, like the labour force participation, that should be used when making comparisons among Canada, the United States and other OECD countries?

[Josée Bégin]

The unemployment rate is not the only indicator that we use in those comparisons. One of them, as you said, is labour force participation. We also refer to that in our communities, in our analysis.

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

I'm going to push the envelope a little bit more on this. Is it your expectation that the former minister of Employment and Social Development Canada would know that there is a difference between how Canada and the United States calculate their unemployment rates?

[Josée Bégin]

I wouldn't be able to speculate on that, Mr. Chair.

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

Okay.

I find the disaggregated data quite interesting. I know last year StatsCan announced that they will be increasingly relying on disaggregated data. Can you explain this process and what impacts it can have on our attempt to help the most vulnerable in our society, especially racialized populations?

I've heard a lot of input from those communities in my riding.

[Josée Bégin]

Thank you for the question.

It is clear that not all Canadians face the same challenges, which differ depending on whether they belong to a diversity group. The pandemic really shone a spotlight on those differences. Even though Statistics Canada has long been working to build an accurate picture of Canada's diversity through the census of population, the disaggregated data still present major gaps as far as certain fundamental economic indicators are concerned.

One of the challenges we run into is that the limited sample size of our surveys can hinder our ability to paint a clear picture, particularly when it comes to employment and labour market indicators for racialized groups.

At Statistics Canada, we are committed to working with private and not-for-profit groups and organizations, as well as different ethnocultural communities, to develop joint data collection and analysis initiatives. Those initiatives are the key to obtaining more representative statistics and enhancing our overall understanding. Equally important, however, is our intention to maintain our whole-of-government approach by continuing to work with our federal partners. That makes existing data available to us and allows for more effective integration of disaggregated data collection, while, of course, protecting Canadians' confidentiality and privacy.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sean Casey]

Thank you, Ms. Bégin.

Thank you, Mr. Dong.

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

I think my time's up. I just want to encourage you on this policy, because it's very important to break down the systemic racism. It's a very important part of it.

Thank you, Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sean Casey]

Thank you, Mr. Dong.

Ms. Chabot, you may go ahead. You have six minutes.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to the witnesses for being here today and for taking part in our study on employment insurance reform.

My first question is for the Canada Revenue Agency officials.

I realize that you do not administer the EI program, as you pointed out, but I still have a question for you. The CRA was called upon to administer all of the temporary or emergency benefits that were introduced—you came up with their names, in fact. You will, in all likelihood—and you can confirm whether this is true—have to administer the three new measures that were recently extended by regulation. On top of that, tax season is almost here.

You said that the challenge you faced was delivering the benefits in a timely manner. As you know, there were problems. People had to wait seven or eight weeks for a decision on their Canada response benefit application. People had numerous problems involving the Quebec parental insurance plan and alignment with the new benefits.

Would you say those long wait times are behind us now?

[Frank Vermaeten]

Maybe I could make a couple of remarks there. Some of those questions are probably best for ESDC. As you pointed out, we are delivering the extension of the benefits with the CRB, the sickness benefit and the caregiver benefit. Those three benefits we're delivering. The extension of the EI program is being delivered by ESDC, so that's certainly happening at the same time.

You talked about some challenges. I believe you were referring to challenges with respect to ESDC and the delivery of some programs that take six to eight weeks. I'd say that, generally speaking, we're delivering our emergency benefit payments in three to five days—

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

It's eight weeks.