Public Accounts Committee on April 15th, 2021

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly Block]

Thank you very much, Mr. Flack.

Colleagues, we are now moving into our next round of questioning. It is of five-minute segments. As you are all aware, that will take us past 1:00, at which time I will test the room to see whether our colleagues were able to reschedule some meetings or whether we should adjourn.

Moving on to our five-minute round, we have Ms. Dancho for five minutes.

[Raquel Dancho, Conservative, Kildonan—St. Paul, MB]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Mr. Flack, I have some questions about the official evaluation of the CERB, which you mentioned in your opening remarks ESDC is going to conduct, and on Ms. Hogan's Auditor General's report on the CERB.

On page 15, in paragraph 6.65, she recommends that both ESDC and the CRA conduct a formal assessment, as she calls it, and that the CRA commit to doing one. It also says: “The findings from this exercise will be available by 31 December 2021.”

Ms. Hogan can correct me, but I believe that when the CRA's response says “be available”, it means it will be publicly available.

I noticed, both in your remarks today and in the response given in this Auditor General's report, that you don't commit to releasing what you called your “official evaluation” or findings publicly; nor do you commit to a date for doing so. Can you give us the reason you have not made that commitment?

[Graham Flack]

We're more than happy to release it publicly.

We're going to start that work with CRA this summer. I guess we have not set a firm date because we want to see how it evolves. As you know, the lessons will not just be from the CERB; they'll also be, for us, from the recovery benefit, from the student benefit.... We had a series of them. We want to be able to take the lessons from all of them.

Also, we are trying to go beyond the recommendation. We don't just want to apply the lessons to what would happen in the event of another crisis of pandemic, but to see whether there are lessons from this that we can apply to regular programming.

[Raquel Dancho, Conservative, Kildonan—St. Paul, MB]

Why is it that the CRA is able to commit to a deadline, but you're not able to? I don't find that very comfortable or transparent.

[Graham Flack]

At this stage we don't know how long it's going to take to do the full evaluation, but we'll be doing it as expeditiously as we can and have no problem releasing it publicly.

[Raquel Dancho, Conservative, Kildonan—St. Paul, MB]

Do you anticipate that it would be in five years, two years...?

[Graham Flack]

No, I don't think the utility would be there if we waited that long. We're certainly trying to get it done within a year.

What I would point out is that we are still learning lessons from the crisis—the benefits are still live—and are still analyzing the data. We might be able to do a preliminary report, but what I don't want to do is truncate the work such that we don't get the full lessons learned.

[Raquel Dancho, Conservative, Kildonan—St. Paul, MB]

I want to change topics a little here to speak more about how pregnant women in Canada have been impacted by being left off CERB, and then there are some more issues in that regard.

At the time when they were not eligible for CERB, immediately following the onset of the pandemic, a woman from Airdrie, Alberta, was quoted in the media saying she was not allowed to get CERB money “because I'll be going on maternity leave”. I'm glad that issue was fixed, but it was certainly a grievous oversight. “Oversight” may not even be the respectable term; it was a massive error, in my estimation.

Because there seem to be more errors in this regard, I want to ask about the CRB EI issue. It has come to my attention in the last couple of months that thousands of Canadians who, if they have had an EI file open, are not able to get CRB but have run out of all their EI money. The Liberal government has promised them CRB money, but they're not able to access it because they have an open claim over here. This is as a result of some of the control measures your department and the CRA put in.

Here we have another error that is impacting thousands of people. The CRA confirmed to me at a HUMA committee meeting a few weeks ago that it was thousands of Canadians who are facing this issue.

There's the woman in Winnipeg. She and her husband are young and are having their first child. They've spent dozens of hours on the phone with CRA trying to fix this.

It turns out that there is no solution or way to fix it. We continue to get commitments from your department and ESDC, and from the minister of ESDC as well. I would like an update on when the solution is coming for this.

[Cliff C. Groen, Senior Assistant Deputy Minister, Benefits and Integrated Services Branch, Service Canada, Department of Employment and Social Development]

Thank you for the question. Chair, I'll gladly take this. I'm Cliff Groen from Service Canada.

This is an issue we are very much aware of. The reason we have implemented those controls is the challenges that were identified relating to the CERB and the need for the data exchange between us and the Canada Revenue Agency to ensure that people actually are not able to receive the CRB and/or EI at the same time.

We have that existing control in place. There are instances in which someone may have.... Typically it's not that they have run out of EI regular benefits, because the EI regular benefits do have the maximum—

[Raquel Dancho, Conservative, Kildonan—St. Paul, MB]

I apologize for cutting you off, but I only have 10 seconds. Is there a date by which you estimate this will be fixed?

[Cliff C. Groen]

There is a process in place now in which this is addressed, and there is clear communication that will be going out on our websites, both the CRA—

[Raquel Dancho, Conservative, Kildonan—St. Paul, MB]

The money is coming for these individuals?

[Cliff C. Groen]

Certainly—

[Raquel Dancho, Conservative, Kildonan—St. Paul, MB]

You're committed to that.

[Cliff C. Groen]

Yes.

[Raquel Dancho, Conservative, Kildonan—St. Paul, MB]

The money is coming to them.

[Cliff C. Groen]

Yes.

[Raquel Dancho, Conservative, Kildonan—St. Paul, MB]

Okay. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I believe that's all the time I have.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly Block]

Thank you very much.

We will now move on to Mr. Sorbara for five minutes.

[Francesco Sorbara, Liberal, Vaughan—Woodbridge, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

Good morning, everyone. It's great to see everyone today.

I think one of the benefits I have from working virtually and working here in my office is that my lovely better half, my wife, was able to bring me a fresh lunch today. It's always nice when you have that type of perk of any perks that are available to her, so I want to say thank you to my wife Rose for being so accommodating to me this morning in my needs.

I want to speak first to the Auditor General.

Auditor General, in your reports and in your opening remarks from last week, you used the word “nimbleness” in terms of how ESDC and CRA were able to provide benefits to Canadians at this most extraordinary time. Within the context of nimbleness, can you elaborate for 15 or 20 seconds, please?

[Karen Hogan]

Sure. I think I would highlight a couple of things that we raised in our report.

One was the speed at which key decisions were made about the design and rollout of the program, right? We drew the comparison to days and hours versus typical months, so it was a huge contrast to what's normally done when a new program is designed.

Also, then, I would highlight all of the changes that occurred as the pandemic continued to evolve and the program rolled out. The departments were able to see the take-up and how it impacted individuals: being able to expand to include workers who are seasonal or not normally eligible for EI payments, recognizing that you wanted to encourage individuals to go back to work when they could to maintain that employer-employee relationship, and being able to allow income to be earned and still be eligible for the CERB.

I think that would show how the departments were responsive and reactive as the pandemic evolved.

[Francesco Sorbara, Liberal, Vaughan—Woodbridge, ON]

Absolutely, and obviously that was not only about both departments knowing the numbers and what was going on in terms of the uptake of the programs, but also about MPs providing feedback via their constituents on how the programs needed to be altered, to be changed and to be more inclusive. I think that's something that we can all be proud of.

For the Canada Revenue Agency, it's great to see you today, Commissioner. I've looked at the CRA's detailed action plan, which you provided to our committee, and I do wish to say thank you.

One thing you referred to in your opening remarks, Commissioner, was that we asked Canadians to attest, but we also saw during this time that if Canadians received a CERB payment or if their employer had moved them to the wage subsidy, they weren't eligible. Do we in fact know how many payments were returned by Canadians to the CRA specifically for the CERB program?

[Bob Hamilton]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I don't have the specific number with me of how many repayments have been made. I know that we were clear with people about how they would repay if they needed to.

We also told people that if they knew they had to repay, it would be easier to do it before the end of the 2020 calendar year for 2020 tax purposes, but I don't have an up-to-date number. I don't know if my colleague Frank has the number, but if not, I'm happy to provide it afterward.

[Francesco Sorbara, Liberal, Vaughan—Woodbridge, ON]

Frank, do you have any follow-up on that?

[Frank Vermaeten, Assistant Commissioner, Assessment, Benefit and Service Branch, Canada Revenue Agency]

I as well don't have an exact number, but I do know that it was over a million a little while ago. More than a million repayments have been made.