Public Accounts Committee on Oct. 25th, 2022

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

I call this meeting to order.

Welcome to the 34th meeting of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Public Accounts.

Pursuant to Standing Order 108(3)(g) and the motion adopted by the committee on October 4, 2022, the committee is meeting today for its study on Report 1, Access to Benefits for Hard-to-Reach Populations, of the 2022 Reports 1 to 4 of the Auditor General of Canada.

I would now like to welcome our witnesses, who are joining us both here in person and virtually.

From the Office of the Auditor General, we have Ms. Karen Hogan, the Auditor General. It's nice to see you. Nicolas Swales is returning as well. It's nice to see you as well, sir.

I'm not going to try to find all of you on the screen, because there are at least 12 boxes in front of me. I will acknowledge that you're here, and if you're not, the clerk will inform me in a few minutes.

From the Canada Revenue Agency, by video conference, we have Bob Hamilton, commissioner of revenue and chief executive officer; Maxime Guénette, assistant commissioner, service, innovation and integration branch; and Gillian Pranke, assistant commissioner, assessment, benefit, and service branch.

The next department is the Department of Employment and Social Development. We have, by video conference, Lori MacDonald, senior associate deputy minister of Employment and Social Development, and chief operating officer for Service Canada; Tammy Bélanger, senior assistant deputy minister, benefits and integrated services branch; and Atiq Rahman, assistant deputy minister, learning branch.

Finally, from Statistics Canada, we have, by video conference, Josée Bégin, director general, labour market, education and socio-economic well-being; and Andrew Heisz, director, centre for income and socio-economic well-being statistics.

Each department and agency will have five minutes right off the top for its opening statement.

Ms. Hogan, we'll begin with you or one of your officials. You have five minutes. Go ahead, please.

[Nathalie Sinclair-Desgagné, Bloc, Terrebonne, QC]

Excuse me, Mr. Chair.

Can we verify that the sound tests were conducted with all participants? We have a lot of witnesses on Zoom.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Yes, the tests were done as usual.

It's over to you, Ms. Hogan.

[Karen Hogan, Auditor General of Canada, Office of the Auditor General]

Mr. Chair, thank you for this opportunity to discuss our report on the access to benefits for hard-to-reach populations, which was tabled in the House of Commons on May 31, 2022. I would like to acknowledge that this hearing is taking place on the traditional unceded territory of the Algonquin Anishinaabe people.

Joining me today is Nicholas Swales, the principal who was responsible for the audit.

The Government of Canada delivers several income support benefits to low-income Canadians to help lift them out of poverty and reduce inequality. These programs can achieve their goals only if those who are eligible to receive benefits are aware of them and can access them.

The Canada Revenue Agency and Employment and Social Development Canada know that some individuals are not accessing the benefits available to them. These individuals include low-income members of groups who are not easily served through regular channels, such as Indigenous people, seniors, newcomers to Canada, and people with disabilities. These hard-to-reach populations require more help from the government.

For this audit, we wanted to know whether the Canada Revenue Agency and Employment and Social Development Canada ensured that hard-to-reach populations were made aware of, and could access, the Canada child benefit, the Canada workers benefit, the guaranteed income supplement, and the Canada learning bond.

We found that the government lacked a clear and complete picture of the people who were not accessing benefits. The government estimated that overall, a high proportion of low-income people were receiving the benefits. However, the agency and department overstated the rates of people accessing benefits because they did not always account for people who had not filed income tax returns. Filing a tax return is required to access most benefits.

Since 2018, the agency and the department have increased their efforts to raise awareness of benefits among people who most need them. Outreach activities have focused on hard-to-reach populations, who are more likely to have modest incomes and often face barriers to accessing benefits. These populations include people who may be unaware of available benefits or reluctant to interact with government organizations.

We found that, despite these efforts, the department and the agency had not developed measures to assess the impacts of outreach activities. For example, they could not measure increases in the rate of benefit take-up for targeted groups over time, or related impacts, such as increased tax filing by those groups over time.

Finally, we found that service approaches for helping people who required more personalized support were not sufficiently integrated between the agency and the department. The agency and the department had initiated some pilot projects to work with community groups on more individualized support, but they had not established an integrated service delivery approach.

Better collection and use of disaggregated data would improve their ability to understand and identify barriers and target outreach. Statistics Canada is an important partner in data collection, measurement and analysis. Although the agency and the department have taken some action, they still have not done enough to connect people with benefits. As a result, they are failing to improve the lives of some individuals and families who may need these benefits the most.

We made three recommendations as a result of this audit. The Canada Revenue Agency, Employment and Social Development Canada and Statistics Canada agreed with these recommendations.

Mr. Chair, this concludes my opening remarks. We would be pleased to answer any questions the committee may have.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Thank you very much, Auditor General.

I'll turn now to the CRA for their opening remarks.

Mr. Hamilton, you have five minutes, please.

[Bob Hamilton]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you for this opportunity to discuss the Canada Revenue Agency’s response to the Auditor General of Canada’s Report 1— Access to Benefits for Hard-to-Reach Populations.

Today, I am accompanied by two agency assistant commissioners, namely Gillian Pranke and Maxime Guénette.

First, I want to recognize the excellent work of agency employees during the COVID‑19 pandemic who have been supporting Canadians in accessing benefits and credits to which they are entitled.

They have gone to great lengths to do so, and despite the impacts of the pandemic over the past three filing seasons, our employees have been able to provide billions of dollars in urgent support to help millions of Canadians.

When it comes to hard-to-reach populations, the agency has taken many steps to continue to reach the most vulnerable. In fact, when many tax clinics that are part of the community volunteer income tax program—the CVITP—were set to close in March 2020, the CRA quickly pivoted to alter processes so as to keep these clinics up and running, many in a virtual format. These approaches remain in place and provide much greater flexibility and access to those in need.

Over the 2017 to 2020 period, there has been a roughly 7% increase in individuals who have accessed the CRA’s CVITP. The number of tax returns filed has increased by over 11%, and the number of individuals who were assisted during outreach sessions has increased by over 15%. The CRA is making it easier for individuals, especially those from at-risk populations, to access important benefits and credits by enhancing the funding available to CVITP clinics.

Minister Lebouthillier recently announced a new formula for the CVITP grant that will increase the amount of money awarded to organizations through the grant each year, helping them to cover the cost of hosting free tax clinics. It also recognizes the unique challenges of organizations that serve northern and indigenous communities. Thus, we are proud to have been able to implement this important part of the Minister of National Revenue’s mandate letters for the past five years.

With respect to the specific recommendations in report 1, the CRA has noted that it agrees with all three recommendations from the Auditor General. Although we are proud of our achievements in this area, we also recognize that there is more work to be done. Indeed, the CRA has provided a detailed action plan to the committee already, outlining how we will work towards meeting all of the recommendations and the timelines for those initiatives.

This will include, among other things, continuing to work with ESDC to ensure alignment in the prioritization, planning, and monitoring of work related to the take-up of benefits by hard-to-reach populations, and, as well, continuing to leverage Statistics Canada’s expertise, including the most recent Census data, to gain more insight into hard-to-reach populations.

In closing, CRA is committed to improving its client service to Canada, including our country's most vulnerable, through its “people first” service philosophy.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I am now happy to answer any questions you have.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Thank you very much.

Questions are still a few minutes out, but I appreciate that.

We'll now turn to the Department of Employment and Social Development.

You have five minutes for one of your officials to make an opening statement.

[Lori MacDonald, Senior Associate Deputy Minister, Employment and Social Development and Chief Operating Officer for Service Canada, Department of Employment and Social Development]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, for the invitation to appear before the committee today and the opportunity to discuss the Auditor General’s report on benefits for hard-to-reach Canadian populations.

I am joined today by assistant deputy ministers Tammy Bélanger and Atiq Rahman, and by the director general of social policy and strategic service policy, Hugues Vaillancourt.

First, let me say that the Government of Canada welcomes the Auditor General's report and we fully accept her recommendations.

We are always looking for ways to improve services to Canadians and better support hard-to-reach people across the country.

Many vulnerable Canadians face barriers in accessing government services or benefits, for a variety of reasons. For example, certain people do not appear in administrative databases. They do not, and are not required to, file taxes. In cases like these, it becomes difficult—even impossible—to remind them to apply for a benefit by mail or phone, because we can't find them and don't know where they are, and they may not know how to access us.

The audit’s main finding was that the government did not have a clear and complete picture of the people who were not receiving benefits to which they may be entitled. Our department has been working to overcome this challenge for some time.

We strive to reach all Canadians, no matter where they live or in what circumstances. But I agree that we need to do more.

That is why, in 2020, Service Canada introduced the reaching all Canadians initiative, which is specifically designed to increase benefit uptake and eliminate barriers to access and delivery. Through this initiative, we have been connecting directly with communities and organizations that can refer clients to us or help us identify new clients who wouldn’t otherwise be known to us.

For example, working with the Rainbow Resource Centre in Winnipeg, we help members of the 2SLGBTQI+ community regarding benefit entitlements associated with common-law partnerships. We also work directly with their trans ID clinic coordinator to help those with questions about changing gender designations on government identification, social insurance numbers, passports and employment insurance. Those are just examples of where we're reaching out to hard-to-reach populations to make those connections.

We also work with service delivery providers, such as Islington Seniors' Shelter in Ontario, to reach seniors living in homelessness or poverty. Partnerships like these deliver help to clients who may face accessibility, literacy or technological barriers, and ensure they are obtaining their GIS, CPP, OAS and potentially other benefits to which they may be entitled.

We have also resumed regular community and outreach liaison services to residents of rural, remote, northern and indigenous communities. Last year, almost 100,000 clients were served directly through this work, and almost 80,000 this year, as of September 30. We meet directly with individuals within these communities to help them with their unique needs.

Of course, the COVID‑19 pandemic did have an impact on our ability to reach some communities and individuals.

In April 2020, we launched the Outreach Support Centre to provide immediate, direct and personalized toll-free phone service to Indigenous communities and clients facing the same barriers identified within the Auditor General's report.

This expansion of service now helps tens of thousands of Canadians every year. Last year, the support centre received over 27,000 calls and provided nearly 32,000 services to hard-to-reach Canadians.

We also reach as many Canadians as we can through the mail and by phone. Over the last five years, Service Canada and the CRA mailed over 425,000 GIS applications and received over a quarter of a million completed applications. By phone, we contact seniors directly to help ensure that they can renew their GIS benefits. For example, last year, we called 100,000 seniors, which helped result in 43,000 renewed GIS benefits.

We will also continue to work closely with our colleagues at Canada Revenue Agency to share information, identify best practices and collaborate on data collection, where needed and where appropriate.

Our work includes ensuring that as many people as possible automatically receive benefits when entitled. For example, all individuals eligible for OAS are automatically put into pay in the month after they turn 65. Since 2014, 1.4 million Canadians were auto-enrolled in OAS.

Ensuring reliable and accessible services to all Canadians, regardless of where they live, remains a top priority for my department. This is how we will achieve improved outcomes for Canadians from all walks of life.

Thank you for asking us to be here today.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Thank you, Ms. MacDonald.

Lastly, we have Josée Bégin from Statistics Canada. You have the floor for five minutes.

[Josée Bégin, Director General, Labour Market, Education and Socio-Economic Well-Being, Statistics Canada]

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.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

I'd like to thank all the witnesses who joined us today.

We're now going to begin the first round, which will have every recognized party, four members, asking questions for up to six minutes.

I'll turn now to Mr. McCauley, from the official opposition, please.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Thanks, Mr. Chair.

AG Hogan, Mr. Swales, welcome back again, and welcome, other witnesses.

I want to start with you, Ms. Hogan.

We're talking about vulnerable populations. Who is defining vulnerable populations, or what do we have to define what is “vulnerable”, so they're not just lumped into one group? Not all in northern hard-to-reach areas are actually vulnerable.

I'm curious how we're defining that, so we can target, so to speak, the right people we need to be directing resources to.

[Karen Hogan]

We actually started off our audit with asking exactly that question when we did this. We started with the Canada Revenue Agency and Employment and Social Development Canada and how they defined it. We included that information in exhibit 1.2.

As we went through our work, we focused on the fact that these are benefit programs meant to lift people out of poverty. It would be individuals within target groups that are at that lower-than-poverty level. It isn't the entire group of people who are elderly. It's really about that income-based approach. That's why we included the definition in here, because we thought it was really important for the readers of our report to understand who was being targeted.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Thanks.

You stated that—and this has come up in previous studies—the departments lack a clear picture of whom their outreach helps. How long has this been going on? Is this a new issue for them? Has it been repeatedly brought to them? Is this a brand new issue?

[Karen Hogan]

Well, I feel like I should start with telling you why we actually launched this audit.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Sure.

[Karen Hogan]

Back in 2019, we did an audit on the Canada child benefit. We found in that report that the Canada Revenue Agency did a great job in a timely way of delivering the child benefit to those who had applied. The outstanding question was, are you reaching those who are most vulnerable, those who need it the most? When they're in the system, it works effectively for them.

That's when we started looking at a whole bunch of programs. I can't tell you how long it has existed, but we looked at a period between April 2019 and August 2021 and looked at—

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Let me pose the question to the CRA, then.

How long has this been on your radar? Is it just a recent phenomenon?

[Bob Hamilton]

I wouldn't call it a recent phenomenon. It's a challenge.

I think the one thing, when you read the Auditor General's report, that we would all—

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

I'm sorry. How long has this been an issue that CRA has been aware of?

[Peter Fragiskatos, Liberal, London North Centre, ON]

Chair, I have a point of order.

[Bob Hamilton]

Well, certainly since—

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Excuse me for just one second. I heard a point of order, I think.

Did I hear a point of order?

[Peter Fragiskatos, Liberal, London North Centre, ON]

Yes. Just so we're on the same page.... Mr. McCauley is a new member of the committee, but he has served on many committees in the past. Let's allow witnesses to complete their sentences. Let's not interrupt them after they've spoken two or three words, as a courtesy.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

I can address it, Mr. McCauley.

Mr. Fragiskatos, I give latitude to members to use their time as they see fit. Should a member want to come back to a question that they feel another member has not permitted a witness to give time to, they're free to do that. Time is limited here. In particular, some members have only two and a half minutes. I think members do have the ability and the right to end the question if they think it's going down a path that they do not think is helpful.

Having said that, I take your point that we do want to show courtesy to our witnesses, and if questions are asked, witnesses should be given the chance to provide at least a brief retort.

I'm going to turn it back over to you, Mr. McCauley. Don't argue with me, because the time is now running and you're eating into your time.