Human Resources Committee on May 6th, 2024

[Randy Boissonnault, Liberal, Edmonton Centre, AB]

Yes, and I'm happy to be able to talk more about it this week by informing you of this element. As for the other aspects, funding is needed, and, from my side, I continue to support this across departments.

It's also worth mentioning that the changes that will be made to the system may be slower than we'd like, but I'm here to make sure that we have an employment insurance system that lives up to people's expectations and is easy to access. I take that responsibility, and I will provide a response to the unions and groups in question.

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

We are already anticipating the response you will be able to provide.

[Randy Boissonnault, Liberal, Edmonton Centre, AB]

Thank you.

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

We don't want to create false hopes, because hopes have been shattered.

Mr. Minister, do you recognize that the employment insurance program is a program under federal jurisdiction and that it is one of the main programs in our social safety net?

[Randy Boissonnault, Liberal, Edmonton Centre, AB]

I wholeheartedly agree with this observation.

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

Why did you make the choice, in the budget, to invest money in programs under provincial jurisdiction rather than investing in programs that fall under your own areas of jurisdiction?

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

Thank you, Ms. Chabot.

[Randy Boissonnault, Liberal, Edmonton Centre, AB]

If you'll permit, Mr. Chair, I think that's—

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

Give a short answer.

[Randy Boissonnault, Liberal, Edmonton Centre, AB]

I'll give a 20-second answer.

Ms. Chabot, I think we want to offer the possibility of making Canada-wide investments. We fully recognize Quebec's areas of jurisdiction. I'll even be meeting with one of the Quebec government ministers later today to discuss very important jurisdictional issues.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

Thank you.

Madame Zarrillo, you have two and a half minutes, please.

[Bonita Zarrillo, NDP, Port Moody—Coquitlam, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'm going to take my two and a half minutes to table a motion that I circulated earlier to the committee. I know many of us were disappointed in the presence of the minister of diversity and inclusion here last week. We certainly didn't get the time we needed to question her.

I have a motion for the committee. I'll read it. It relates to the Canada disability benefit, the barrier of the disability tax credit as an entry point and also the potential for clawbacks, which we all don't want to see.

Mr. Chair, I move the following:

That, in the opinion of the committee, the government should safeguard the Canada disability benefit from any potential clawbacks and engage in comprehensive consultations with the disability community to ensure the effective implementation of the Canada disability benefit by:

(i) ensuring that the Canada disability benefit is adequate to lift people living with disabilities out of poverty;

(ii) ensuring that the Canada disability benefit is accessible through the reconsideration of the disability tax credit as a barrier to access, and establishing a more equitable and accessible enrolment method;

(iii) acknowledging the multitude of unseen expenses associated with living with a disability, which exacerbates financial strain, particularly amidst escalating costs of living and the inflation crisis;

(iv) recognizing the adverse impact of benefit entitlement reductions as families earn higher taxable incomes, perpetuating cycles of poverty among lower-income households;

(v) collaborating with provinces and territories to fortify support systems for individuals with disabilities, thereby fostering inclusive and supportive communities across the country;

and that the committee report this to the House.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'm hoping we can go immediately to a vote because we have another vote coming up.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

Thank you, Madame Zarrillo.

Yes, the clerk advised me that the motion is in order with the 48-hour notice. The motion is currently on the floor.

Mr. Long, please go ahead.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Given that we're at eight minutes and 48 seconds before a vote and I would like to go upstairs to vote, I would like to suspend. Maybe we could pick this motion up afterward in the next hour.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

We need unanimity to proceed. We don't have that, so at this time we'll suspend until the vote is recorded in the House.

We will resume 10 minutes after the Speaker announces the vote in the House.

[Tracy Gray, Conservative, Kelowna—Lake Country, BC]

On a point of order, Mr. Chair, just before you resume, for clarification, would we be going back to the rest of the minister's time or would we be going on to the second minister?

I think we would like to finish up the time with this minister.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

We would resume with the second hour, Mrs. Gray.

The meeting is suspended.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

The HUMA committee is resumed.

I may have been a bit unclear as we suspended for the vote, but we do, Madame Zarrillo, return to your motion that was on the floor.

Committee members, you've heard the motion of Madame Zarrillo, which was moved before we suspended. The motion was in order. There was a 48-hour notice.

We will have discussion on the motion.

Go ahead, Mr. Fragiskatos, on the motion.

[Peter Fragiskatos, Liberal, London North Centre, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you to our colleague for bringing it forward. I know that these matters have been very important for her. They are not recent; she's raised these issues regularly at this committee.

The only concern I would have is section (ii). My point here is that the criticisms or concerns about the DTC are understood. I just think that, when you're trying to get a program like the Canada disability benefit off the ground, you would have to tether it to something from an administrative point of view to ensure the overall functioning of the benefit. If it's not the DTC, I'm not sure what alternative would be put forward.

I wanted to note that for the record, but I'm not going to belabour the point, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

Thanks, Peter.

Go ahead, Mr. Coteau, on the motion.

[Michael Coteau, Liberal, Don Valley East, ON]

In regard to the clawbacks, it's very difficult. You can't tell provinces what they should and shouldn't be doing in regard to programming. How do you ensure that the clawbacks are not made? This is a question to the mover. Do you have opinions on some of the strategies to prevent a clawback by a province?

[Bonita Zarrillo, NDP, Port Moody—Coquitlam, BC]

I don't want to belabour the point too much, because we have a minister here, and I want everyone to get questions.

That's not the work for us to do, MP Coteau. The work for us to do is to make sure that persons with disabilities who are living in deep poverty get access to the benefit. They will not get access to it through the DTC. It just will not happen.

It's up to the staff of this place to figure out how to do it. I know they can.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

Is there any further discussion on the motion of Madame Zarrillo?

Do I see unanimity on adopting the motion?

(Motion agreed to)

Madame Zarrillo, the motion has been adopted. It will have to follow the committee's order of procedure.

With that, then, thank you.

We will now move to the second hour.

I'll advise committee members, unless somebody objects, that it is my expectation to go about 5:45 because of the voting, if that's agreeable.

For the second hour, we have Minister Beech, the Minister of Citizens' Services; Cliff Groen, associate deputy minister and chief operating officer for Service Canada; Brian Leonard, director general and deputy chief financial officer, corporate financial planning; and John Ostrander, business lead, benefits delivery modernization.

Mr. Minister, you have up to five minutes, please.

[Terry Beech, Liberal, Minister of Citizens’ Services]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

It's great to see you. We spent many years together on the fisheries and oceans committee.

Good afternoon, everyone. It is with great pleasure that I am here with you this afternoon.

I want to start by acknowledging that we're meeting today on the traditional territory of the Algonquin Anishinabe people.

It's great to be back at HUMA. I'm going to try to shorten my remarks, given the time constraints. I can start by not introducing my colleagues, since you did that so well, Mr. Chair.

I'm here to speak on the supplementary estimates (C) and on the main estimates. For the supplementary estimates (C) with regard to Service Canada and the ministry of citizens' services, we're talking about four items for $165.8 million, the bulk of which—75%—is for dental. The other big number is loading old age security onto the benefits delivery modernization, BDM, program, which accounts for 22.7% of the estimates, or $37.7 million.

With regard to the main estimates, BDM was the largest commitment. Out of the $194.2 billion that ESDC has budgeted, I think it's notable for all members of the committee that $176.5 billion—91%—will flow directly to Canadians through benefits that will actually be delivered, or are currently being delivered, by the benefits delivery modernization program, namely old age security at $81 billion, the Canada pension plan at $65 billion and employment insurance at $25 billion.

Citizens' services is still a relatively new ministry, coming into place in July of last year. As minister, I'm responsible for Service Canada. I'm also responsible for the Canadian digital service. I've organized my priorities in three broad categories that I like to say are dental, digital and customer service.

Given that it's been a tremendous week for dental, I thought I'd start by providing some highlights there.

We've delivered this benefit in record time—just a little over two years—and 1.9 million Canadians are currently enrolled. Eight thousand oral health professionals are currently signed up, which is quite significant because last week that was 6,500. That's quite an increase. Most importantly, 15,000 Canadians have been able to actually go see an oral health professional, which is a significant benefit for the seniors who are currently benefiting from this program.

Dental itself is actually a code word for benefits because although dental is the largest benefit to ever be delivered at this scale—nine million Canadians are going to benefit from this program—it's also responsible for the benefits delivery modernization program, which will deliver the aforementioned benefits: OAS, EI and CPP.

With regard to digital, this is about making more of Canada's services available 24 hours a day, seven days a week, from the convenience of your computer or your cell phone, no matter where you are in the country. Every time somebody can easily access a government service, that's just one more person who isn't standing in front of you in line. I actually consider it part of my unofficial mandate to try to eliminate lines and eliminate the need for people to wait on hold.

With regard to customer service, it's part of the mandate to make it easier for Canadians to access government services, but it's also making the government more efficient and making it easier to serve in the first place. We're doing that through process improvements, artificial intelligence, automation and machine learning.

Some of the solutions are relatively simple—things like the customer user experience. We spent a significant amount of time thinking about the products that we actually manage. Part of the reason dental has been able to onboard so quickly is because we wanted to make sure that it was as simple as it possibly could be. We took a lot of time going through the very detailed flow charts and physical experiences and then through user testing with actual Canadians in the demographics that are going to be utilizing these services to make sure that we eliminated all the errors in advance, which saves us a lot of work on the back end.

I'm happy to take any questions you have.

With that, I'll hand it over to you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

Thank you, Minister.

We'll now go to Mrs. Gray for the first six minutes.