Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
I'm pleased to be here on behalf of Statistics Canada to discuss the government's action in assessing and measuring access to benefits for hard-to-reach populations.
Statistics Canada is participating with the Canada Revenue Agency and Employment and Social Development Canada on a joint action plan, with specific activities and deliverables geared towards improving understanding of benefit take-up. Since the summer of 2022, we have been working together to identify governance for the joint program and discuss strategies to develop performance measures.
Regarding benefit uptake and performance measures, in our response to the OAG recommendation we highlighted the substantial statistical difficulties with calculating accurate benefit take-up rates. The statistical system relies on data from programs that are taken up by the population. Thus, inherently, when someone does not use these programs, or is ineligible or not aware of them, it creates a challenge. This relates to the importance of developing new strategies to assess benefit take-up, as indicated in the action plan.
We do, however, have data sources and methods to estimate the population that is missed or not in scope and provide their characteristics, such that policy-makers can target efforts to better include them. Through data integration of administrative data with other data holdings of StatCan, we can describe the numbers of recipients belonging to particular age, sex, racialized, indigenous identity, or another population or at-risk group.
Statistics Canada is also well placed to provide information on groups that are more or less at risk of not receiving benefits to which they may be entitled for reasons of not filing their taxes. Through tabulation of linked datasets, Statistics Canada can determine population groups that are less likely to be tax filers. While these measures only approximate the benefit take-up rate, this information can be used to target our outreach to particular communities.
It is important to underscore that Statistics Canada's actions cannot include the sharing of confidential microdata. This means that we cannot identify individuals, but rather can provide information about the characteristics of those who are at risk of not receiving benefits. However, CRA and ESDC can access anonymized microdata through a Statistics Canada research data centre hub or through other secure means.
StatCan has a number of other initiatives that are designed to better understand this important group, with the necessary safeguards that protect privacy and confidentiality, and is continuing to explore new, innovative ways to shed important light on this element of our population.
For example, an existing partnership that will be leveraged to respond to the recommendation is the tax research advisory group, co-led by Statistics Canada and CRA. This group serves as a collaborative partnership between CRA and StatCan to share knowledge and expertise relating to methodology, tax data, tax administration and tax process understanding. The tax data research group is already discussing new research that is relevant to the OAG recommendations on using behavioural economic analysis to investigate the value of “nudges” to encourage people to file taxes, and an analysis of benefit receipt among marginalized groups, notably new immigrants, including refugee claimants.
In another initiative, ESDC and Statistics Canada are working toward the establishment of a joint data strategy that will build on existing collaboration and data-sharing agreements to create a more strategic partnership that goes beyond data. The joint data strategy proposes to prioritize action on data access and data acquisition for statistical purposes and the development of data standards.
In summary, Statistics Canada is well prepared to carry out the action plan with the Canada Revenue Agency and Employment and Social Development Canada to improve the measurement of benefit take-up. Once the details of a plan have been agreed upon, Statistics Canada will present funding requirements to federal partners to allow for the work to proceed, if necessary.
I thank you again for having Statistics Canada to speak here today, and I look forward to your questions.