Human Resources Committee on Jan. 31st, 2022

[Alex Ruff, Conservative, Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound, ON]

All right.

How is ESDC communicating with the EI claimants whose accounts have been frozen or whose payments have been disrupted due to this hacking? Is it by email? Is it by phone? What are the processes?

[Lori MacDonald]

I'll ask Mary Crescenzi to come in, but, yes, it's by phone call and by email.

Mary, go ahead.

[Mary Crescenzi]

Thank you, Deputy.

You are right. In order to ensure that we do not feed additional information into the hands of potential fraudsters, we are reaching out ourselves, directly to the clients who are impacted, who have declared or reached out about having an issue. We ask specific questions to move up to next-level assurances so that we can determine that they are who they say they are, because the last thing we want to do is to contribute to refrauding. The procedures are very clear.

[Alex Ruff, Conservative, Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound, ON]

Thanks. That's perfect.

If I heard correctly, witnesses have testified that additional resources were required. I did hear that there are 105 new investigators for Quebec alone. I guess there are two parts to this question. One, how long does it take to train an investigator? Two, when was the minister provided the plan to address these shortfalls and challenges, especially considering there is an annual peak? On what date was the minister briefed?

[Lori MacDonald]

Thank you for the question, Mr. Chairperson.

As I indicated earlier, we brief the minister on a weekly basis. These conversations started last fall. It does take some time to train investigators, so as we were hiring new staff, which started last fall, we'd hire.... It's obviously more difficult to—

[Alex Ruff, Conservative, Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound, ON]

Approximately how much time does it take to train—30 days, 60 days?

[Lori MacDonald]

I'll ask Mary to respond to that question.

[Mary Crescenzi]

Training would take two to four weeks for an investigator to be able to start their work, but there is continuous training, of course, so that they can become more and more experienced. We are also shifting some of the call centre resource staff to help alleviate some of these pressures directly with clients as they are coming in. That training takes about a day, because we are able to train individuals who already know employment insurance and those procedures well.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

Thank you, Mr. Ruff.

We will now go to Mr. Coteau for five minutes.

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

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I want to start by thanking Madame Chabot for taking the initiative to speak to this issue and bring it to this committee. This is a very serious issue, and we're here with the experts within the system discussing this issue, government employees, bureaucrats, who have been working tirelessly for the last two years, during COVID, trying to look for ways to ease tension withing the system for citizens.

The associate deputy minister started off by talking about the hardships and the prioritizing of clients. I can tell that a lot of effort has been put forward to look for ways to mitigate fraud in the system. Even just seeing that there have been 3.1 million applications and seven million calls....

My question for the associate deputy minister is this: What initiatives have been put forward to further look for ways to reduce fraud within the system? I know money has been allocated to fight against fraud, but what other initiatives have been put in to mitigate fraud within the system over the course of the two years?

[Lori MacDonald]

That's a big question. I'll ask Mr. Littlefield to respond.

[Peter Littlefield]

Thanks for the question.

Since the beginning of the pandemic, since we noticed that instances of fraud and attempted fraud were going up, a number of measures have been put in place. They have focused a great deal on identity proofing and strengthening. We have also uplifted some of our cyber-protection measures. For example, we've put in place a requirement for clients to authenticate with more than one factor to connect to our services. This is typical in the financial industry, and many would recognize it as the requirement for a message with a code to be sent to their cellphone so the code could be entered. This gives an extra measure of assurance that the people connecting are who they say they are.

We have also taken steps to simplify the means for clients to prove their identity to us through simplified measures, so that it is easier for them to establish themselves as legitimate clients so that we can recognize them when they connect. Further measures, as I said, will be put in place over a period of time.

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

Thank you so much. I do appreciate that.

When the associate deputy minister was speaking, or one of the officials, there was an explanation of the system and the way in which fraud is being committed. It sounded like it wasn't specifically based on the manipulation of the technology within the system, or the system being hacked. It was more about identity theft and folks who are committing this fraud getting their hands on someone's identity, putting in an application on their behalf, and redirecting the funds back to another bank account.

Is that correct, and if so, can you explain how this process works so committee members know that this is not the fault of a breach within the government system, but rather external forces manipulating personal data?

[Peter Littlefield]

If it's okay, I'm happy to respond, Mr. Chair.

The question is quite correct. The general method that we are seeing for these attacks is.... There have been data or privacy breaches at other institutions in the private sector or the financial sector in the past, where large volumes of Canadians' personal information have been stolen from those organizations.

The fraudsters obtain this information on the Internet, through back channels. The list contains usernames, passwords, often social insurance numbers, and often the personal information of Canadians like addresses. The fraudsters use that information to attempt to get into legitimate client accounts inside our systems in order to obtain benefits. In many cases, if clients use the same usernames and passwords that they do for other institutions, there may be a way for fraudsters to get in.

So that's the general nature.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

Thank you, Mr. Coteau.

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

Do I have more time?

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

Your time has gone by.

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

Thank you very much to the witnesses.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

Thank you, Mr. Coteau and Mr. Littlefield.

We'll go now for two and a half minutes to Madame Chabot.

Madame Chabot, you have the floor.

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

Thank you.

I want to make a heartfelt appeal to you. We are here to get answers, but above all, to find solutions. We don’t seem to be taking the measure and the magnitude of the problem, which is that some 300,000 cases go over the service standard, and it could take more than six weeks.

We have already sounded the alarm every week since the fall. The ministers will tell you that. Up until the procedural motion, there was no sense of urgency among the ministers. However, we still do not feel the urgency of finding solutions for claimants who have been waiting, sometimes for months, since the fall. That’s six or even eight weeks without benefits.

I’m not just talking about identity theft; I’m not ignoring it, there are obviously problems, but we’re talking about the volume of current EI benefits. When people apply for their benefits, they need them. They do not want to be told that their case is not urgent enough and that it cannot be given priority. In every Action-Chômage movement in Quebec, in every MP’s office, we have sounded the alarm that claimants are victims.

In the short term, what do you plan to do to relieve this volume of service requests? Will you hire and train staff? What do you intend to do so that people are no longer told, as is still the case today, that, unfortunately, there are wait times of six weeks or more? It makes no sense to people. There are human beings behind it. What solutions can you confirm are in place to address these needs in a timely manner?

[Lori MacDonald]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, for the question.

I would just like to provide a context for a couple of things.

It is very rare for a client to wait six months to have their case resolved. In fact, each week we do an analysis on what we have in our inventories, so we can work from our most outdated to the most recent cases and ensure that those cases are not floundering. From a pure numbers perspective, Cliff mentioned that we have 3.1 million EI claims this year, and right now in our inventory there are about 200 at the six-month mark. Those are mostly fraudulent cases. The vast majority of claims are getting processed within four weeks and, among the rest, the vast majority within six weeks.

We completely appreciate and understand that those people are waiting, and it's not acceptable. As a result of that, we've done a number of things to try to process those more quickly. We have triaging processes in place, and we put an alternative service delivery model in place, where people can go online and contact us—either through a phone call to get a call back, or through an online application that they can quickly fill out and we can call them directly, so they don't have to come to a Service Canada centre or leave the comfort of their home. We're actually able to help them fill out the application online—

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

Thank you, Ms. MacDonald. We could probably follow up on that.

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

I might add that I'm very familiar with triage in emergency departments and hospitals—

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

Madame Chabot, your time is up.

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

I didn't get an answer to my question.

There is no reason why EI claimants are still waiting for their benefits. They have a right to their income.