Thank you, Mr. Chair.
You have all received the motion. I will read it out to be sure that we are all on the same page. After that, I will briefly provide some background.
That the Committee invite the Minister of Families, Children and Social Development and the Minister of Employment, Workforce Development and Disability Inclusion for a period of two hours each to appear before the Committee no later than February 4, 2022, on the subject of the processing times that exceed the goal of a 30‑day service standard for responding to Canadian Employment Insurance claimants at Service Canada.
I believe the wording of the motion is simple and engaging for these two ministers. As we know, the former is responsible for Service Canada, while the latter is responsible for the employment insurance program. Therefore, I feel the invitation to receive the two ministers responsible for these areas to be quite urgent.
As I was saying, this is an urgent situation. Canadians across the country have been waiting to receive their employment insurance benefits for weeks, even months. This is putting them in unimaginable and inconceivable situations. We have heard a lot of testimony, and personally I would say the situation is chaotic.
This is nothing new. The alarm bells have already gone off for the ministers responsible through emails, letters and media scrums. Everyone is crying out for assistance, and rightly so. I think it is appropriate that the ministers responsible for these areas appear before the committee and answer our questions. The goal is to put into perspective the measures taken to respond to this emergency situation.
Some might say that the committee has other important work to do. I'm thinking of the motions you introduced to establish our agenda. On my opinion, next week we could carry out everything we need to do to in the motion. The other issues are important, but they can certainly wait. For the EI claimants who have been waiting for months, it must feel like time has stopped. It is our duty to do something, hence the motion.