First of all, clients will call numbers that they may choose to call. If somebody is calling and saying they didn't get their cheque, for example, it could be simply the fact that their last change of address wasn't processed before the cut-off time for the computer system. It's a very simple thing to fix. Do they need to call the ombudsman for that? No; they can call our 1-800 number. We receive approximately one million calls a year at our national call centres.
I can also point out, Mr. Gaudet, that we've actually created a call centre in Montreal that we just opened in April, specifically to improve the quality and level of service to our francophone clients. It's located in Montreal, so that our francophone clients can now deal with someone who is equipped to deal with them in their language of choice.
Sometimes you have to look at human nature. Of the 5,000 or 4,000, or however many in number the ombudsman has, he himself said that they're not all complaints. Some are looking for information. Some could be inquiring about how to change their address. Also, part of human nature is that some people may feel that the ombudsman has a higher level of authority, so if they don't get the answer they like when they call our national call centre or go to one of our district offices, they think maybe the ombudsman has authority to overrule those decisions.
Clearly the ombudsman doesn't have the authority to overrule departmental decisions. He can point out that he feels that there has been an error made and we will correct that as quickly as possible. That's one of the reasons we have what we call the “hot hand-off”, so that in fact they can actually move the call to a departmental official very quickly.
I think he would say that part of his learning experience with his staff is to know when this is a file that we need to take and investigate or this one is simply somebody wanting to do a very simple transaction and they have the number of the ombudsman that they picked up off a website or they got it in any number of places.
That said, one has to bear in mind that just the very nature of creating an ombudsman is going to create some demand for service. That's good, because at the end of the day, if the clients get the service or the information they need, even though they went through the ombudsman as opposed to coming in to the department official, that's really what's important.