Evidence of meeting #54 for Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities in the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was passport.
A video is available from Parliament.
Liberal
Chad Collins Liberal Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON
Thank you, Minister.
I have about a minute left, I think.
I'll just ask, for those people who are planning to travel abroad in 2023 and who may need to renew or apply for a new passport, what's in store for them as travellers? I know no one has a crystal ball, but can you give some assurances that we're not going to experience what we did in 2022?
Liberal
Karina Gould Liberal Burlington, ON
Certainly. We are much better prepared than we were in 2022. Obviously when you shut something down and turn it back on, there are going to be some challenges in that regard, but we are in a much better place.
I can say that in January we received 374,000 applications, and we processed 357,000 of them. The reason for the discrepancy is that we received some at the end of January and we are processing them in February. We are meeting our service standards 98% or 99% of the time, both in person and by mail.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Bobby Morrissey
Thank you, Mr. Collins.
Thank you, Madam Minister.
Ms. Chabot, you have the floor for six minutes.
Louise Chabot Bloc Thérèse-De Blainville, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you for being here, Madam Minister, and thank you for providing your speaking notes to the committee ahead of the meeting. When I read your notes, I found them predictable. It is much easier to talk about what is going well, especially now that you are meeting service standards once again, than it is to talk about the passport crisis, which was also predictable.
As early as last spring, the committee asked you about this. By last fall, your own employees, who did exemplary work, sounded the alarm, saying they expected an increase in passport applications. We cannot ignore this crisis; it was a real fiasco. During this hour of your testimony, I was expecting some accountability for what happened.
In your remarks, you said that this crisis had caused Canadian citizens stress and uncertainty. I can tell you that it caused more than that. It resulted in a loss of confidence in Service Canada's ability to provide high-quality and accessible services for all Canadians.
Do you acknowledge that the crisis was predictable?
Liberal
Karina Gould Liberal Burlington, ON
Thank you, Ms. Chabot.
I agree with what you said about the exemplary work of Service Canada employees. As I said, they worked extremely hard in very difficult circumstances.
I also agree that the situation was predictable. Nonetheless, we could not have anticipated the huge number of applications we received. That is why we hired more people at Service Canada in January, precisely because we knew that there would be an increase in passport applications.
As you also know, it takes time to train employees, managers, and passport staff. We knew there would be an increase in applications as soon as the restrictions were lifted. What we did not know, and what no one knew in advance, was exactly when the travel restrictions would be lifted. That placed a lot of pressure on the system and, as you said, put a lot of stress on Canadians who wanted to travel after staying home for two years.
Bloc
Louise Chabot Bloc Thérèse-De Blainville, QC
Madam Minister, the Parliamentary Budget Officer, Yves Giroux, told a Senate committee last Tuesday that what happened with passports was a real disaster and that departments often have trouble evaluating themselves after that kind of thing. It is easier to say that the crisis is over, that things were sorted out, that things are going more smoothly now and that the demand is being met.
You have to do a self-evaluation of the crisis, though, because it was not a normal situation. I have heard you time and again, because you were also questioned by the media. They asked what mark you would give yourself for how you managed the crisis.
Your management did not make any sense. Where were you when people were lining up and waiting? Where were you during question period, after you tried your numbers system, which was also a fiasco?
Our constituency offices were swamped. We had to hire extra staff and work 24/7 to respond to the requests we received.
This was unprecedented because of poor management. Do you acknowledge that?
Liberal
Karina Gould Liberal Burlington, ON
Ms. Chabot, with respect, I never said the situation was acceptable. From the outset, I acknowledged that it was completely unacceptable, and I worked extremely hard, as did all Service Canada managers. They were also on the front lines 24/7. They were there.
The demand was incredibly high—
Bloc
Louise Chabot Bloc Thérèse-De Blainville, QC
It was predictable that the demand would be incredibly high, Madam Minister.
Bloc
Louise Chabot Bloc Thérèse-De Blainville, QC
You stated a number of times that there were applications for children. We have heard all of that.
Liberal
Karina Gould Liberal Burlington, ON
It is important to explain the situation. As we know, the demand was high after two years of low demand. So the system had to get up and running again.
Liberal
Karina Gould Liberal Burlington, ON
Of course, no one at Service Canada wanted to see that. I can tell you that it was also an extremely difficult situation for Service Canada staff. Those people really want to help Canadians. They worked very hard and did thousands of hours of overtime.
Bloc
Louise Chabot Bloc Thérèse-De Blainville, QC
Madam Minister, it is not the public servants who are at issue here.
Liberal
Karina Gould Liberal Burlington, ON
I am not saying that everything went smoothly. We had to make many changes, but we did some extremely difficult work and we are now in a new situation.
Bloc
Louise Chabot Bloc Thérèse-De Blainville, QC
Have you done an assessment of the passport fiasco at Service Canada?
Liberal
Karina Gould Liberal Burlington, ON
Yes, of course, we did a complete assessment. The passport program conducted that assessment, analyzed what happened and drew lessons from that.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Bobby Morrissey
Thank you, Ms. Chabot and Madam Minister.
Go ahead, Madam Zarrillo, for six minutes, please.
NDP
Bonita Zarrillo NDP Port Moody—Coquitlam, BC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I am hearing a little bit of echo. Are you able to hear me?
NDP
Bonita Zarrillo NDP Port Moody—Coquitlam, BC
Thank you so much.
Thank you so much for being here, Minister. I realize that we are soon going to be heading into spring break, so I just wanted to get some confirmation from you that you feel confident that the spring break rush will be accommodated.
Liberal
Karina Gould Liberal Burlington, ON
Yes, I absolutely do. As I mentioned, in January we received 373,000 applications, which is almost 100,000 higher than at any point in the past three years, and we are meeting our service standards over 98% of the time.
NDP
Bonita Zarrillo NDP Port Moody—Coquitlam, BC
Thank you.
Minister, while you're here, I wanted to have the opportunity to talk to you about poverty and community supports.
A part of your mandate letter was the advancement of the community services recovery fund, and I want to talk about that, Minister, because that's what's of importance in my riding right now.
I had a meeting this week with a number of women's organizations that have put in a pre-budget submission to talk about loss of funding for the capacity-building grants that they've had in the past. LEAF, the YWCA, Oxfam, the Elizabeth Fry Society and the Canadian Council of Muslim Women are all concerned about how it is going to impact families and children in the community when they lose this capacity funding.
We all know that COVID-19 has had a huge impact, a disproportionate impact, on women and gender-diverse people at this point in time. This organization, a coalition of women's groups, has asked for $25 million over five years in relation to capacity-building funds, and I'm wondering if you could expand a little bit on what's happening with community services recovery funds and if they could benefit from that, because we cannot afford to lose this capacity that has been built in the communities at this point in time.
Liberal
Karina Gould Liberal Burlington, ON
Sure, I'd be happy to. Thank you, Ms. Zarrillo.
There are two things here. One would be applications through the Department of Women and Gender Equality, which I think has specific, dedicated funding for women's organizations. Then there's the community services recovery fund, which is a $400-million fund that is being administered through three national funders: the Red Cross, the Community Foundations of Canada and the United Way.
They have an application portal that's open now to charities and not-for-profits to apply for funds that would be specifically for capacity building for HR, for wellness among staff. We know that the pandemic has had a huge impact on everyone, but it's also hit the charitable and not-for-profit sector, which provide services to Canadians, particularly hard. This fund was really launched in response to consultations that my predecessor, Minister Hussen, did with that sector, asking them what they need. This is directly in response to what they have asked for, and I believe that the application portal is open until February 21.
If you have charitable or not-for-profit organizations, certainly encourage them to apply. There are grants between $50,000 and $200,000, and there's both a local stream and a stream for national or regional bodies as well, recognizing that this is often funding that is not tied to programming and is not usually available to these organizations.