Human Resources Committee on March 26th, 2026

[Patty Hajdu, Liberal, Thunder Bay—Superior North, ON]

I will give you a couple of case studies of what happens if you fail to modernize cases.

For example, the Royal Bank of Scotland and NatWest customers were unable to access their money for weeks. What happened was a routine software update, but the system was a huge 30-year-old complex network, and the result was that 6.5 million customers were affected, 100 million payments were backlogged within days and people were unable to pay for their day-to-day lives and life-saving medical treatment or complete home purchases. The bank was fined 56 million pounds by regulators for failing to manage its poor legacy of IT resilience.

There was a similar study in New Jersey with their unemployment insurance system. A 40-year-old mainframe using COBOL, which was a programming language from the 1960s, crashed due to the onset of applications during COVID.

When we speak to the cost of doing nothing, I wanted to give you some examples of what it looks like to do nothing on a 60-year-old system and the risks it poses to individuals.

[Andréanne Larouche, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

I'll stop you there, Ms. Hajdu. I'll see who wants to answer, but I have more questions.

According to the government officials who participated in the technical briefing, the $1.7‑billion estimate wasn't reliable, and the government knew there would be cost overruns.

Who approved the launch of this project based on an unreliable estimate? Is it the norm in your department to approve budgets based on unreliable assessments?

Who approved increasing funding for this program to $6.6 billion? When was the funding approved?

Is the estimate reliable, or should we expect more surprises?

Lastly, who is monitoring expenditures? Who is approving cost overruns for contracts with private firms involved in the project?

[Patty Hajdu, Liberal, Thunder Bay—Superior North, ON]

What I would say—and the Auditor General has noted this repeatedly—is that this program of transformation was largely unknown in terms of costs, although there were some international comparators. We're well in line, by the way, with international modernization programs.

The estimate grew as the complexity was unveiled—as essentially we got under the hood and understood exactly what would happen when we started to try to modernize a system. Many of these systems have bolted-on parts and a different kind of coding, and they are very complex systems. The original estimate grew as the complexity of the transformation was discovered.

The Auditor General said in her 2023 report that she thought we had underestimated it and that it wasn't surprising that it was going to cost more. In fact, she said that it was essential that we move forward with the modernization and had been calling for modernization since 2010 for the very risks that I outlined in terms of a collapsing system.

[Andréanne Larouche, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

Within two weeks, please provide us with a list of contracts awarded as part of this program, including a detailed description of the requirements of each contract, the initial cost estimate for each contract, the actual cost of each contract, an indication of whether the contract is still in progress or complete and list of the contracts for each firm indicating the total cost for this program. I would like the ministers to provide these documents within two weeks.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

Thank you.

That will be provided in writing to the committee.

Thank you, Ms. Larouche.

Mr. Lefebvre, you have the floor for five minutes.

[Éric Lefebvre, Conservative, Richmond—Arthabaska, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Good morning, ministers and everyone here this morning.

First of all, let's keep in mind that this program affects our seniors.

Minister, during question period in the House, I told you about a citizen in my riding, Martial Lavoie, who called Service Canada almost every day. He got a recorded message telling him that, because of a problem with the system, information about the old age security payment wasn't available. The day before a journalist came to visit, the wait time had been one hour and 12 minutes.

My question is this: Do you have a dashboard of wait times for calls, and can you provide that information to me?

[Cliff Groen]

Yes, certainly. We look very closely at all the data from our call centres. We have that information.

[Éric Lefebvre, Conservative, Richmond—Arthabaska, QC]

Thank you for providing me with that information.

Minister, apparently 63,000 seniors are still waiting. Do you have a daily dashboard that shows whether the number of seniors waiting is increasing or decreasing? How are you keeping track of that?

[Patty Hajdu, Liberal, Thunder Bay—Superior North, ON]

Yes, I get weekly updates.

I will turn to Cliff to talk about the details and how they're monitoring the number.

[Cliff Groen]

In other regions, we analyze service delivery results every day. That's why we're so confident that we'll continue to reduce the number of seniors waiting for their payments.

[Éric Lefebvre, Conservative, Richmond—Arthabaska, QC]

Thank you.

Minister, I would also like the committee to receive a copy of your weekly dashboards so we can stay up to date on this issue.

I received a letter from one of the officials who works with the Cúram system. He says it's virtually unusable, emphasis on “unusable”. How would you respond to your employee, who says that the system you're putting in place is unusable?

[Patty Hajdu, Liberal, Thunder Bay—Superior North, ON]

I can't speak to that person's experience. I've never spoken with that person. I'm always happy to speak with people if they want to tell me their story of how a system is unusable.

The data doesn't necessarily demonstrate that that's true. If 7.7 million Canadians are receiving their benefits on time and without delay, if the numbers are going down in terms of the delays and if we know that the majority of the delays are related to paper—

[Éric Lefebvre, Conservative, Richmond—Arthabaska, QC]

I'm sorry to cut you off, but I have very little time. I only get five minutes.

You're talking about seniors who are receiving their benefits, but I'm talking about those who aren't. There are 85,000 seniors who have not been receiving their benefits for eight or nine months, and you're talking about the ones who have been receiving benefits.

Out of respect for the seniors who are paying attention to our work, what do you have to say to those who have been waiting for months and who have had to pay bills in the meantime? They have to pay rent, buy groceries and pay the power bill. They can't just put grocery shopping on hold. What do you have to say to seniors who are waiting?

[Patty Hajdu, Liberal, Thunder Bay—Superior North, ON]

What I would say to any senior who is in deep financial stress as a result of their OAS benefits beginning is to reach out to Service Canada immediately. We have special teams that can help on those urgent cases, and we can get a resolution within 24 to 48 hours.

There's no reason for a senior to suffer in silence. Please reach out to Service Canada. Certainly forward me the names of individuals, if you have them in your constituencies. There is a number for Service Canada to specifically deal with people who need urgent care with beginning their OAS benefits.

[Éric Lefebvre, Conservative, Richmond—Arthabaska, QC]

As I told you, some of your employees have written to tell me that it's not working.

I have a question for you. Would you go with me to meet the employees who are currently using the Cúram system and ask them questions so we can see what's not working? Would you accept my invitation to go with me to meet those workers?

[Patty Hajdu, Liberal, Thunder Bay—Superior North, ON]

I will take it under advisement.

[Éric Lefebvre, Conservative, Richmond—Arthabaska, QC]

Why would you want to think it over? Don't you want to work with me? Can't you see that it's a complete disaster right now, a fiasco? People are working with this system on a daily basis, whereas you and I aren't. People are working with it, and they're having problems.

I'd like you to show some leadership. I'm inviting you to meet with employees and understand how the system works.

[Patty Hajdu, Liberal, Thunder Bay—Superior North, ON]

I regularly meet with employees of Service Canada and ESDC. I'm always happy to meet with people on the front line. What I won't do is turn it into a partisan circus.

I will do that in my responsibilities as a minister and with the department.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

Mr. Joseph, you have the floor for five minutes.

[Natilien Joseph, Liberal, Longueuil—Saint-Hubert, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I would like to take this opportunity to ask my colleagues to address the ministers with more respect.

Mr. Chair, I wanted to congratulate you for starting the meeting in French. I'm from Quebec, and in Quebec, the presence of French is non-negotiable, so thank you.

Minister Lightbound, I was in my riding last week. I was touring private seniors' residences. I met with all the seniors. They told me about challenges related to their tax slips. They didn't have any tax slips, but I ordered some and gave them to them.

It's clear that the Bloc members are not listening. Neither is our colleague Mr. Lefebvre, since he's talking about 85,000 seniors. However, it's no longer 85,000 seniors; it's 63,000 seniors, so let us stop extrapolating. Let us also stop playing petty politics, because we're here to solve problems that affect Quebeckers and Canadians. At some point, we have to be serious.

Why is it important to modernize this decades-old system? What does that mean for long-term services for Quebeckers and Canadians?

[Joël Lightbound, Liberal, Louis-Hébert, QC]

Thank you very much for the question, Mr. Joseph.

We are very sensitive to the situation of seniors who are having difficulty getting their benefits. As a result, given the 63,000 cases in the backlog for processing old age security applications, Employment and Social Development Canada has deployed significant resources to ensure that every senior receives service very quickly, depending on the circumstances and when the situation requires it, and to ensure that the backlog is reduced. In fact, we have gone from 85,000 unprocessed applications to 63,000. We won't stop until we get to zero. Progress is constant, and I commend the work of my colleague and her team.

What we don't talk about enough is the risk that was posed by the old system. When I have heard certain questions about that, I have been a bit perplexed. In 2010, the Auditor General said that if we didn't modernize our systems, we'd be headed straight for a wall, and we'd be jeopardizing the benefits of millions of Quebeckers and Canadians. I think that's a risk we couldn't take if we wanted to act responsibly for the Canadians we serve, and it was entirely appropriate to do what we did. It took a while. We came to power in 2015, and it's now 2026. However, I think measures should have been taken in 2010. It would have been completely irresponsible not to modernize the benefit delivery system. On that note, knowing that 7.7 million Canadians are receiving their correct benefit amounts on time thanks to a system that is no longer at risk, that no longer has any vulnerabilities and that will ultimately save money, I think it was the fair and responsible thing to do.

[Natilien Joseph, Liberal, Longueuil—Saint-Hubert, QC]

I appreciate that. We're talking about old age security benefits and seniors. We know that seniors are really vulnerable, especially when it comes to fraud.

What would have been the consequences if we hadn't modernized these systems?

[Joël Lightbound, Liberal, Louis-Hébert, QC]

There was a very real risk of a service disruption in the payment of benefits. The old age security system in question was 60 years old. The pensions system is 50 years old, and the employment insurance system is more than 20 years old. These are systems that are no longer up to date. We all know how quickly technology evolves. Cybersecurity risks are also evolving. Dependence on systems that require a huge volume of manual data entry was no longer the healthy way to manage this type of program, which pays out hundreds of billions of dollars in benefits every year. I think that, overall, taxpayers got their money's worth when it came to the transition from the old age security pension system that was 60 years old to a working system for $633 million. In fact, in relation to other countries, the cost is certainly comparable.

[Natilien Joseph, Liberal, Longueuil—Saint-Hubert, QC]

Around the table, especially on the Bloc side, we have to be aware that we're no longer talking about 85,000 pending applications but about 63,000.

Are those 63,000 cases solely from Quebeckers, or are they from Canadians across the country?

[Joël Lightbound, Liberal, Louis-Hébert, QC]

They're Canadians across the country. In Quebec, according to the data I have as at the end of February, there are 9,222 cases left to process.