Human Resources Committee on Feb. 14th, 2023

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you for being here, Minister.

You are responsible for Service Canada. That is an important service for Canadians. Your department issues passports, pays out employment insurance benefits and manages old age security pensions. In the first two cases, we know it's a fiasco, both for passports and for EI processing times.

I will tell you about an email I received from a mom on February 6. I want to tell you what she says, so I can ask you a question afterwards. This is one case too many.

She says that she is contacting me to ask for my help. She is a mom who, on December 16, was let go from her job. In order to take action, she immediately applied for employment insurance, since, only a few days before Christmas, she could not afford to be without an income with a family. The reason she is contacting me is that, to date, her application was still not processed and the clerk informed her that a six month delay is possible, given the increases in EI applications since the beginning of 2023.

She asks how is it that families can be left without income for six months. What happens to the bills that need to be paid, that pile up, and the stress that is created?

She states that she has already been faced with uncertainty and waiting for over five weeks. She was told that she must be patient and that she is not alone in this situation. She goes on to say that she is an understanding, respectful person, but that she now feels helpless in the face of the system that keeps telling her that delays are to be expected, without even being able to conclude her case.

She then asks me whether something can be done to speed up the process, so that families like hers do not end up in a fragile and unstable financial situation.

Minister, do you think it is normal for workers who pay into employment insurance to wait six months for a response? During that time, they have to go without groceries or struggle to pay their rent. Do you think this is normal, yes or no?

[Karina Gould, Liberal, Burlington, ON]

Absolutely not, Ms. Chabot.

I would like my office to send you some statistics, after the committee meeting. Not many people wait six months. If they do, there are other problems.

As far as this particular case is concerned, I hope you will share it with my office. My office is working with all members of Parliament—including the Bloc Québécois members, of course—on passport cases. We also want everyone to receive their EI benefits on time.

I can also confirm—

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

Minister, we really do not live on the same planet. You have only to look at all the reports that have recently appeared in the newspapers.

[Karina Gould, Liberal, Burlington, ON]

Ms. Chabot, we can send you the statistics.

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

We have the numbers, Minister. We have even asked for more numbers through an access to information request, to which we still do not have a response. There is a very significant backlog of EI claims. It is close to 750,000 cases. Those are people who have been waiting for 90 days, for 60—

[Karina Gould, Liberal, Burlington, ON]

Yes, Ms. Chabot, but this is not—

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

You will talk to me about the service standard, but there is a backlog behind the service standard. Behind your statistics, Minister, there are people, workers who are waiting.

[Karina Gould, Liberal, Burlington, ON]

Ms. Chabot, I am very committed to people. As you know, we've been working with your office and the offices of all members of Parliament to resolve these cases because we don't want people to have inappropriate waiting periods before they receive their EI benefits. We know how important this is.

As far as the Quebec region is concerned, I can also assure you that, for the month of January, 85% of people received their EI benefits within the 28‑day target.

In addition, it is important to know that we are doing a lot to improve the system. We have already hired 330 people in Quebec alone, 220 of whom have already started working. We're doing this because we don't want anyone, and I mean anyone, to be in this situation.

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

There are plenty of people in this situation, Minister. You don't seem to see the same reality that they see.

[Karina Gould, Liberal, Burlington, ON]

Ms. Chabot, if you can send those cases to us, we will get them sorted out. We are working with all members of Parliament to ensure that people get the help they need.

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

Minister, you are answering exactly what you answered a year ago, and no situation has yet been resolved. It was even decided to reduce the work hours of employees in Quebec City. Fortunately, you decided to change that, as it didn't make sense. You don't jump ship when there is such a high volume of applications.

For all regions, things are not going well at Service Canada, in terms of service delivery. The delays are unbearable and there has been no real change. All you are doing is telling us again that 80% or 70% of the time you are meeting the service standard of processing applications within 28 days, but you are not talking about the backlog. When someone applies for a review, their file hasn't even been assigned to an agent yet. The situation at Service Canada is chaotic in terms of processing times.

What steps will you take to correct this and help people like this mother who wrote to us? A father also wrote to me today because he has been waiting for two months. These are all very recent cases, not to mention others.

[Karina Gould, Liberal, Burlington, ON]

Ms. Chabot, I hope you will submit these cases to my office. Otherwise, we will not be able to help these people. So I encourage you, as well as all the other members, to do so.

The fall economic update announced a $1.4‑billion investment over three years precisely to ensure we have as many tier 2 agents as needed to meet the needs. As I mentioned, we have already hired 330 people in the Quebec City region and over 1,300 people across Canada to ensure we meet the needs. They are being trained. In the Quebec City region, in the last two weeks, 220 new employees have already started working.

From the moment you raised these situations last year, we recognized that we needed to do better. I submitted a request for funds, which the Finance Minister approved, and we hired people because we want the same thing you do, which is for people to get the help they need.

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

Minister, I am amazed at your zen attitude. It is your responsibility to deal with the cases; it is not our responsibility to send them to you.

[Karina Gould, Liberal, Burlington, ON]

Ms. Chabot, I'll always be ready to help you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

Thank you, Madame Chabot and Madam Minister.

We'll now move to Ms. Zarrillo for six minutes, please.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I know that the minister spoke about first nations, Inuit and Métis, and I just want to speak specifically about poverty eradication and also food security as laid out in the mandate letter.

I note that, in the supplementary estimates, in about a third of them, the funding is focused on reconciliation. We know that racialized and indigenous children are more likely to be living in poverty according to our most recent census data. The Campaign 2000 report that was published this morning showed that Canada's child poverty rate dropped during the CERB payments, but we know that kids are still going hungry and that one in eight children are still living in poverty in this country.

My question is around this food security issue. I want to ask specifically about the national nutritious school meal program and where it's at. Could you give us an update and a timeline? Also, how are we reaching the most vulnerable kids, including those in first nations, Inuit and Métis communities?

[Karina Gould, Liberal, Burlington, ON]

Thank you very much, Ms. Zarrillo.

The national school food policy is something that is a shared mandate item between Minister Bibeau and me. We launched consultations in November 2022. They concluded publicly in December 2022, although we're still receiving input from a number of community organizations as well as first nations, Inuit and Métis communities.

We're engaging directly with indigenous partners on this. In fact, ITK has an Inuit-specific proposal when it comes to school food, so we're also collaborating and engaging with Indigenous Services Canada.

Right now there's a patchwork across the country. Every province and territory and many indigenous communities have some kind of school food program, but it's not even, so we're trying to collect this information to find a way to level the playing field and raise all boats—we don't want to go to the lowest common denominator—to make sure that kids across this country have access to healthy and nutritious food.

I think at this point the latest statistics say that one in five kids in Canada go to school hungry.

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

Minister, I understand it is a shared mandate, and I think that's problematic. It's been shown to be problematic in the past—mandates not sitting with one desk, but shared. Often, there's a lack of definition in responsibilities.

I'm interested in understanding the action on the ground. When can we expect those numbers you just quoted to me, the sad reality of one in five kids going hungry...? I fully agree with you that it's a piecemeal effort, right now, in communities. Too many kids are going hungry. When can we expect some real movement? Instead of, potentially, just passing reports back and forth, when will we see some real movement on food for kids who are going to school hungry?

[Karina Gould, Liberal, Burlington, ON]

Ms. Zarrillo, I hope soon. We're collecting and analyzing all the information from the consultations, and we'll be coming out with a “what we heard” report in the next couple of weeks, hopefully—soon. Then, we'll continue to do that engagement.

As I'm sure you and others know, this is traditionally a responsibility of the provinces and territories, so we're also engaging with our PT counterparts. There are some amazing models in Canada. P.E.I. is the only province that has a truly universally accessible breakfast-and-lunch program, so we're collecting information from them. My hope is that we'll be able to engage in partnerships with provinces, territories, first nations, Métis and Inuit to deliver school food across the country and make sure it's zero out of five kids—no kids in Canada—going to school hungry.

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

I agree fully, and I hope we can get there quickly.

The NDP has been doing a lot of work on the price of food. There is even more food insecurity in this country because of the price of food. I checked the Dimensions of Poverty hub again, this week, as I was preparing for this meeting. We're seeing a decline in rates of poverty in this country, but we know there are still so many people living in poverty. I note that, at the same time as we're working towards lowering poverty rates, food insecurity is on the rise.

How can we square that, Minister? How can we address that reality and potentially modify those measurement tools for poverty eradication, since food is a fundamental need?

[Karina Gould, Liberal, Burlington, ON]

I think that's a good question. As we discussed on Friday, it's one of the reasons why our poverty reduction council and food policy council are getting together to talk about this. I think that, for too long, food was not included when we talked about poverty, and this is something we're working to address. This is where having a shared mandate between the Minister of Agriculture and me is actually a good thing. Working together, we can help solve some of these issues, because, on our own, neither of us has the tools to do it.

I'm looking forward to the outcomes of that work and the collaboration between those two councils.

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

Very quickly, Minister, is there an opportunity to get some visibility on that new shared working round table? I'm interested in getting some additional details about it.

[Karina Gould, Liberal, Burlington, ON]

Certainly. We can follow up with you after the committee meeting.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

Thank you.

We'll now go to Mrs. Falk for five minutes.

[Rosemarie Falk, Conservative, Battlefords—Lloydminster, SK]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Minister, in your exchange with Madame Chabot, you said each of us can bring the cases we have to your office. Will you please table, with this committee, the preferred contact in your office, so we can do that?