Mr. Speaker, I welcome the opportunity to respond to some of the questions posed by my colleague from Cape Breton—Canso.
In an economic downturn, EI is the first line of defence. We recognize that it is a challenging time for many Canadian families. We understand this and we sympathize with those who are feeling the negative effects of the current situation. There is no question about that.
We want to ensure that people who have the misfortune of losing their jobs get the benefits they need and deserve just as quickly as possible. This minister and the government have made, and are continuing to make, a number of significant efforts to ensure that this happens.
Through Service Canada we have a high standard for service delivery. Despite the increase of claims, owing to this unfortunate downturn in the economy, these standards have not changed. We continue to put resources toward ensuring that we meet or exceed these standards. Service Canada is doing what it can and we are applying the resources that are necessary to achieve that.
This is not simply an administrative issue. We are making these efforts because we know just how important it is for families to get their EI benefits just as quickly as they can. The time after individuals lose their job is indeed a stressful time and an uncertain time. We want to help ease the burden as much as we can.
Our government has taken a number of steps to deal with the influx of EI claims. For obvious reasons, and in the interests of privacy, I will not get into any specific cases. But as I have said, the government has taken a number of steps to ensure help for Canadians continues to flow quickly.
We have hired and trained additional employees at Service Canada to meet the demand in different parts of the country. Agents are working overtime to process claims. We have increased the capacity of our call centres significantly and hours of operations will be extended to 6 p.m., Monday to Friday. These extended hours start today and will help us ensure that more Canadians receive benefits more quickly.
Processing centres are working together to balance processing workloads, shifting claims from busy centres to less busy centres to help Canadians faster and to ensure all of our resources are working to help Canadians.
We are also working with companies to help employers and employees get the information they need so that we can process their claims faster. All employers are encouraged to register for ROE Web to create and submit ROEs, commonly referred to as records of employment, online. We are improving and promoting self-service options in order to speed up processing even further.
Ensuring that applications contain all the required information goes a long way to avoiding delays in payment. Every delay is regrettable and painful for Canadian families. We understand that. Measures like these help minimize delays and we will continue our work in this regard.
Unfortunately, delays do occasionally occur. Sometimes this can happen because applications miss some important information from the employer, especially on the ROE I just mentioned. Once complete information is received a claim can be processed, a recalculation can be made and a cheque issued.
I can assure hon. members that our department is monitoring EI service very closely. We are taking and will continue to take the measures necessary to ensure that Canadians who have lost their jobs will get their benefits as quickly as possible. That is what Canadians expect, and that is what we will continue to do.