Human Resources Committee on Nov. 4th, 2020

[The Chair, Liberal, Sean Casey]

I call the meeting to order.

Welcome to meeting number 3 of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities.

Today's meeting is taking place in a hybrid format. Pursuant to the House order of September 23, 2020, proceedings will be made available by the House of Commons website.

So that we are aware, the website will always show the person speaking rather than the entirety of the committee.

To ensure an orderly meeting, I'd like to outline some rules that have now become quite familiar to all of you. Members and witnesses may speak in the official language of their choice. Interpretation services are available for this meeting. You have the choice at the bottom of your screen of “floor”, “English” or “French”.

I understand that we have some members participating in person, so just proceed as you normally would when the whole committee is meeting in person in the committee room.

Keep in mind the health protocols from the Board of Internal Economy.

Before speaking, please wait until I recognize you by name. If you're on the video conference, Madam Minister, please click on the microphone icon to unmute yourself. For those of you in the room, your microphones will be controlled as normally by the highly dedicated, highly trained professionals employed by the House of Commons who are there to support us.

This is a reminder that all comments by members should be addressed to the chair. When you are not speaking, your microphone should be on mute.

With regard to the speakers list, we'll do our best, between myself and the clerk, with the people who are in the room and online, to keep that coordinated and consolidated.

We will now welcome our witnesses. We have the Honourable Carla Qualtrough, Minister of Employment, Workforce Development and Disability Inclusion. We have Graham Flack, deputy minister, Employment and Social Development; Mark Perlman, chief financial officer, Employment and Social Development and Benoît Robidoux, associate deputy minister, Employment and Social Development.

Minister Qualtrough, you have five minutes for your opening remarks. Welcome to the committee. You have the floor.

[Carla Qualtrough, Liberal, Minister of Employment]

Thank you, Chair and committee members, for inviting us to join you here today.

As was said, I'm accompanied by ESDC deputy minister Graham Flack, associate deputy minister Benoît Robidoux, and chief financial officer Mark Perlman.

I'm here today to speak to the main estimates for 2020-21, which represent a total of $68.6 billion in planned budgetary expenditures. This is a net increase of $3.8 billion over the 2019-20 main estimates. This is primarily due to an increase to old age security pension and guaranteed income supplement payments resulting from the planned increase in the average monthly benefit amount and changes in the number of beneficiaries.

These main estimates include funding for seniors pensions, learning and skills development, apprenticeship programming and transfers to provinces and territories. This money is spent to assist students to afford higher education, youth to gain valuable work experience, afford workers with apprenticeship opportunities and provide basic income security to seniors.

I and the officials are happy to speak in more detail to these main estimates.

Mr. Chair, since March 2020, our world has completely changed, but our government's priorities—supporting Canadian workers, investing in youth and helping people overcome barriers to training and working— remain the same.

Since March 2020 we've also had supplementary estimates (A), which were debated in the House in June, and supplementary estimates (B).

Mr. Chair, I will make two specific notes related to the supplementary estimates.

The first is on the Canada student grant program. The supplementary estimates (A) showed $912 million to reflect the total funding that could have been allocated for the CSSG. Given the cancellation of this program, this total has been adjusted and supplementary estimate (B) is $0. I note that all monies have been recovered.

Second, supplementary estimates (B) show an additional $28.5 billion in CERB payments under statutory authorities. This brings the proposed authorities for the CERB to $88.5 billion, which is for the full 28 weeks of the CERB. This helped almost nine million Canadians during a very difficult period.

I will conclude by highlighting the extraordinary measures we have taken to support workers, youth and persons with disabilities during the COVID-19 pandemic.

When the pandemic first shuttered our economy in March, we moved very quickly to support Canadians. This began with a moratorium on student loan repayments, the Canada emergency response benefit and the Canada emergency student benefit.

We also created thousands of jobs and training opportunities for youth and provided a one-time payment for persons with disabilities.

As of last Friday, payments were made to more than 1,642,000 persons with disabilities to help them with additional expenses incurred due to COVID-19.

As the CERB was coming to an end, we made changes to the EI system so that more people could access benefits, including regular and special benefits.

The EI system is currently the best tool at our disposal to support Canadian workers in this transition from emergency to recovery. Features like working while on claim, access to training and work-sharing provide incentives to work and help keep people connected to the labour market.

For Canadians who still don't qualify for EI, we introduced a complementary new suite of benefits: the Canada recovery benefit, the Canada recovery sickness benefit and the Canada recovery caregiving benefit.

The Canada recovery benefit, just like EI, has a requirement that people must be looking for work and has built-in integrity measures for the application process. Together these new measures are helping millions of Canadians in this challenging time.

Mr. Chair, the appropriations requested in both these main estimates and supplementary estimates (A) and (B) would allow us to continue to support Canadians during the pandemic and beyond.

I would now be pleased to answer any questions you might have.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sean Casey]

Thank you very much, Minister.

We're going to start with the Conservatives. Mr. Kent, please, you have six minutes.

[Peter Kent, Conservative, Thornhill, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Minister, and I thank Deputy Minister Flack and the other officials for attending with us today.

I agree that discussion and examination of the main estimates tabled in February is through the looking glass, given all that has happened since March and many billions of dollars spent.

First, can you tell us how many of the 25,000 employees of the department, including those who work under Service Canada, have now returned to work or are working productively from home?

[Carla Qualtrough, Liberal, Delta, BC]

Certainly a main priority for us as we moved to support Canadians was to make sure that our employees were safe, could work from home, could be productive and attend to their own individual circumstances while still doing their jobs.

Graham, can you give us the employee details, please?

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

I would say that literally all of our employees are working productively. They might argue it's too productively, given the pressures that have been put on the department. There are individuals, for example, in the passport office area who would have seen a decline in work and have been reassigned to areas like EI. Everyone is productively working.

In terms of those who are in the office, it really varies. Where we can socially distance safely, the Service Canada centres have reopened. We're not back to full occupancy but to socially safe occupancy.

I would say that in our highest offices and our processing centres, there would be up to 25% of employees who would be physically present in the office. At our headquarters—our large building here—our occupancy is about 3%.

That has necessitated a massive investment in our network. To give you a sense of it, Mr. Kent, pre-crisis we would have had four employees working remotely on any given day. We average over 25,000 employees every day now.

[Peter Kent, Conservative, Thornhill, ON]

Thank you.

Minister, you mentioned the supplementary estimates (B) and the $28.5 billion in new government spending over the rest of the year for CERB, which actually terminated at the end of September.

I wonder if you could explain how those funds are being spent or were spent.

[Carla Qualtrough, Liberal, Delta, BC]

Thank you. I will get Mark to give the more granular details.

We had originally invested approximately $60 billion in the CERB through supplementary estimates (A) and we added an additional $28 billion through supplementary (B)s, because we were both further along in the calendar year in the months that were covered and also because we added an additional four weeks.

Mark, can you add some further detail?

[Mark Perlman, Chief Financial Officer, Department of Employment and Social Development]

Yes, Minister.

In supplementary estimates (A), we provided the estimate of what we were expecting to spend. Because it was statutory, it was for information purposes only. For supplementary estimates (B), we brought it up by the $28.5 billion to get us to the funded amount. This is an up-to amount; it is based on what we are projecting to spend.

As of September 30, we'd spent just over $77 billion. We were projecting spending another $3.3 in the schedule that came in the Bill C-4 schedule. This is an up-to amount, and it's whatever we're planning to spend.

The other element is that people still have the ability to apply for the CERB up until December 2 and go retroactive to that period, so this is to be able to cover that amount.

[Peter Kent, Conservative, Thornhill, ON]

Thank you.

Minister, thank you for following up on the question I asked you last Thursday.

You informed me on the weekend that issuance of the notices of debt were to resume this week to lawyers who are holding severance packages in trust until back payment of EI claimed, and the same to employers.

Can you tell me if those notices have gone out, and how they are being circulated?

[Carla Qualtrough, Liberal, Delta, BC]

Thanks for the question. It was really important for me to get you further details.

As you said, as part of our effort to support Canadians during the pandemic, in March we put a pause on collection activities for all ESDC debts until the end of September. This meant that notices of debt were not being issued.

As we transition back to a different, simplified EI system, we resumed issuing these debt notices on November 1. However, the big caveat, as I explained, is that all debts will be removed from collection activities until February 2021.

Graham, or Benoît maybe, could you explain the process of issuing these notices and how they're actually delivered?

[Graham Flack]

Minister, I believe it's through email communication principally, when we have that with the individuals, but it's also through letters.

The letter does make it clear that the individual can work out a sort of payment schedule with us when they owe the resources. I would say it's softly written in a way that's designed to be flexible, given the context that we're in.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sean Casey]

Thank you, Mr. Flack. Thank you, Mr. Kent.

Next we're going to Mr. Dong, please, for six minutes.

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

I want to welcome the minister this afternoon, as well as Deputy Minister Flack.

My question is in two parts. The first part has to do with the Canada recovery benefit. There are a number of items seen in the supplementary estimates that address the various supports for people facing economic hardship as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. Now that the CERB has ended, Canadians have migrated to a simplified EI program and the Canada recovery benefit. Could you explain how these two initiatives tie into our government's larger economic recovery strategy, including the changes to the EI program, as well as how these initiatives are better suited to recovery than CERB?

[Carla Qualtrough, Liberal, Delta, BC]

Thank you for the question. There a lot to unpack there.

When we put CERB in place, it was at a time when we asked people to stay home and not go to work. We effectively shut down the economy in the interest of public health. We weren't able at that time to use the EI system to deliver as quickly as we wanted to or to as many people as we wanted to help.

Public servants have been working non-stop to get the system ready to transition unemployed workers back to EI. As I said, it's the best system we have, and it has robust integrity measures and work incentives. We made the eligibility criteria for EI more flexible. We set a uniform unemployment rate across the country that set standard eligibility criteria. We gave workers hours of credit and we set the minimum EI weekly amount at $500.

We also wanted to continue helping workers who still didn't qualify for EI, like gig workers or the self-employed. We recognized that many workers would continue having ongoing care responsibilities, and we wanted to support workers who were sick or had to self-isolate because of COVID. We wanted a longer runway for Canadians to provide certainty for the next year in terms of the benefits they could access. Canadians know that these benefits are available to them should there be outbreaks or waves like the one we're experiencing now.

We also wanted to ensure equity between EI and the new recovery benefit. For example, the minimum number of EI weeks is the maximum number of the CERB weeks. The minimum EI weekly benefit is the amount of the CERB, and we wanted to address concerns raised over disincentivizing work. Basically we wanted to send the clear message that there's an expectation to work if you're able to and it's available, but that if you're not or if you don't have a job, we want to make sure that we have your backs as well.

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

That's great. Thank you, Minister.

My second question has to do with support for students. I know our government, in the response to the COVID-19 pandemic, has introduced the Canada emergency student benefit to provide direct income assistance to students. I know that at Seneca College in my riding, for example, the students there were counting on this type of income during the summer to pay for their expenses, their rent or their tuition in the fall. The CESB was very helpful in providing that support. Can you also discuss the packages or measures other than CESB that the government provided to support students, and anything else you'd like to include or tell the committee about the support for students?

[Carla Qualtrough, Liberal, Delta, BC]

We have invested $8 billion in measures to support students, which included, of course, the CESB at $1,250 a month, or $2,000 a month for students with dependents and disabilities. We also made investments in job creation and investments that allowed students to continue their studies. This included things like expanding employment, skills development and youth programming, including thousands of jobs, as I said, through Canada summer jobs; the student work placement program; and the support for students learning program. Then we immediately put a temporary moratorium on student loan payments, doubled the Canada student grants and enhanced the Canada student loan program. All of this was an effort to provide a wholesome package of measures for our students and young people.

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

That's great.

How much time do I have left, Chair?

[The Chair, Liberal, Sean Casey]

You have just under a minute for the question and the answer.

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

On the Canada recovery sickness benefit, I know why this program was designed, but I want to hear from the minister how this program in particular is supporting Canadians during the pandemic.

[Carla Qualtrough, Liberal, Delta, BC]

Thanks. I'll be super-quick.

As you know, the sickness benefit was legislated with all-party support, and I thank everyone for that.

It's two weeks at $500 a week to make it a little easier for people to make the choice to stay home and self-isolate. We've already had about 123,000 Canadians access this benefit, and really it's a game-changer in terms of our public health goals and economic stability.

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

Yes, it was very much—

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sean Casey]

Thank you, Minister. Thank you, Mr. Dong.

Ms. Chabot, you have six minutes. Go ahead.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Good afternoon, Minister. Thank you for being here.

My first question is about the benefit for persons with disabilities. The department allocated funding for a one-time payment of up to $600 per person.

However, many people in my riding contacted my office to say that they were not eligible for the benefit because they had never applied for the disability tax credit certificate. More people could receive the tax credit than have actually applied for it. The deadline to apply for the credit was extended to December 31.

Has your department estimated how many people with disabilities are entitled to the benefit but have still not applied?

[Carla Qualtrough, Liberal, Delta, BC]

I don't know if there is anybody more frustrated than me at our inability to help more Canadians with disabilities.

Quite frankly, we are very excited to have helped 1.6 million Canadians, and we hope to help many more by extending the eligibility period for the DTC, the disability tax credit, until the end of December.

We also know that the rate of disability in this country is significantly higher. I have been very honest with Canadians that up until this point, we haven't had at our disposal as a federal government a way to deliver directly to everyone with a disability, and we are planning to make sure this never happens again by modernizing, updating and making more inclusive our eligibility criteria. Quite frankly, disability policy has been largely driven historically by tax policy. We need to change that, and our citizens deserve it.

I don't know, Benoît or Graham, if you have any specific numbers on how many people it is. Through the DTC, the VAC programming and through CPP disability, I believe our estimates are 1.8 million, but please correct me if I have that wrong.