Public Accounts Committee on May 9th, 2019

[Jean Yip, Liberal, Scarborough—Agincourt, ON]

Well, I guess we're going to have to look into that a little closer when you come back and maybe do more follow-up.

[Jean Yip, Liberal, Scarborough—Agincourt, ON]

Could you comment on the call centre modernization project? What does that involve?

[Sylvain Ricard]

The department will obviously be able to give you more details, more specifics, but that's a project under Shared Services Canada, which was tasked to modernize 221 call centres. They started about five or six years ago. They realized that the task at hand was more complex technology-wise and more costly, and they managed to modernize eight of the 221 call centres. What we noted in the report—and we made a recommendation on it—is that there's no plan for the remaining 213, so they need to come up with a plan to modernize those call centres.

[Jean Yip, Liberal, Scarborough—Agincourt, ON]

Is it because of funding?

[Sylvain Ricard]

They underestimated the complexity and they underestimated the costs. They will have to define a detailed work plan for the remaining 213. They will have to come up with that cost. I couldn't tell you for them what the cost will be, for two reasons. They have to determine it, and they have not determined that yet.

[Jean Yip, Liberal, Scarborough—Agincourt, ON]

Is there any other thought to maybe going away from call centres and using technology such as online chat to improve the service and to also maybe improve the costs?

[Sylvain Ricard]

There are many options out there, many that are being used. Talking to a human being, an agent, is one means, but there are other tools that are currently in place.

We do refer in the report to the 25% of Canadians who prefer to do business with government by phone, so that's a reality. It's for different reasons. Some don't have access to high-speed Internet. Some have personal situations that make it easier for them to do business by phone. Twenty-five per cent still need to talk to somebody. We noted in the audit that 50% of the callers could not reach out to an agent.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you, Ms. Yip.

I want to ask a very quick question, because we've heard about this idea of modernization of call centres. I think she did ask the question in terms of what all is involved in that. I don't know. Are we talking strictly IT process and information technology? When we talk of modernizing a call centre, we aren't talking about the furnishings and doing an old-fashioned renovation of the office. It's modernization. I'll quote you, Mr. Ricard. You said that they underestimated the complexity and the costs.

We're still living under the cloud of the Phoenix pay system, where the complexity and the costs were perhaps underestimated. The launch was perhaps done too quickly. All these things were part of a modernization of a pay system that really began with the Auditor General's office.

What are we talking about with a call centre? Is it the way the telephone call comes in? Is it including the online call or the online request for help? Exactly what are we referring to, Mr. Goulet or Mr. Ricard?

[Sylvain Ricard]

I'll let Mr. Goulet answer.

[Jean Goulet, Principal, Office of the Auditor General]

Basically we're talking mostly about IT infrastructure, as well as software, in that specific case. Associated with that would be training and a review of the various functionalities that would be added with this new technology that would allow the departments to become more efficient in handling the calls, and hopefully, reducing the number of calls that are prevented from reaching an agent, or calls that hang up, as well.

It's a myriad of things, such as the option to call back. Right now, most of the call centres are using technology that is more than 20 years old and they don't provide those types of functionalities.

The new software is supposed to be providing that functionality. That's what we were told, but obviously because it wasn't operating when we did the audit, we couldn't make that determination. We were told those types of functionalities would be provided as part of that. Because of the complexity of the new software, there have been substantial delays.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Just right on that point, who provided the software?

[Jean Goulet]

I don't know what the exact software is, whether it came from an existing company, but the implementation of the software is currently being done by IBM under Shared Services Canada.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Therefore, there is a commonality there with IBM and with Phoenix, and again, some of the same problems that perhaps we've heard before.

We'll now move to Mr. Kelly, please.

[Pat Kelly, Conservative, Calgary Rocky Ridge, AB]

I want to get back to the e-commerce, but first, on call centres, I was struck by one piece here: Veterans Affairs Canada stopped offering teletypewriter service for the deaf and hard-of-hearing without first consulting with or telling veterans.

Hearing loss is among the highest, most common disabilities that veterans incur in the course of their careers in the armed forces, so that seems a particularly insensitive decision. If veterans are preferring email to the teletype service, fair enough, but the comment where there was no explanation given and no consultation is the troubling part here.

What did they say when you asked why they did it? Did they really just ignore and not respond to the question, or what was the justification? Surely there was something said.

[Jean Goulet]

They didn't know and they couldn't find any documentation that would explain why the TTY service had been removed. That was their answer.

[Pat Kelly, Conservative, Calgary Rocky Ridge, AB]

They didn't know. At the management level, they didn't know that they had discontinued a service.

[Jean Goulet]

That decision had occurred a few years back, so I would speculate that there has been turnover.

The answer that was given to us is that they didn't know why, although what they did tell us is that, based on past experience, it wasn't used all that often.

[Pat Kelly, Conservative, Calgary Rocky Ridge, AB]

Fair enough. That would be a reason to say it's not used. However, the way it's written in your report, it really jumped out at me as perhaps being particularly insensitive.

I'm going to switch back and talk about e-commerce.

On e-commerce, there was the finding that Canadians submitted only 524 GST/HST forms for purchases made from foreign and domestic vendors. Given that there would be millions or tens of millions of transactions—I'm not sure what the total number of transactions would be—524 is such a low number. One wonders who these 524 people are, who even knew that was something you had to do? I don't think very many Canadians are aware of the extent to which the onus is on them to declare.

Monsieur Le Goff, would you care to comment on that finding?

[Philippe Le Goff]

I think you are right. There are millions of transactions and I think the CRA is pleased that no more than 524 people took the time to fill in the form that is available online.

You can fill out the form and send it—

[Pat Kelly, Conservative, Calgary Rocky Ridge, AB]

I want to stop you. You think they are pleased that nobody—

[Philippe Le Goff]

We have been told by the CRA that they could not handle the volume.

[Pat Kelly, Conservative, Calgary Rocky Ridge, AB]

They are pleased that Canadians are not complying, because they don't want to do the work—

[Philippe Le Goff]

They don't have the capacity.

[Pat Kelly, Conservative, Calgary Rocky Ridge, AB]

—and have people to actually.... Well, all right, that's—

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

It's good for the consumer.