Mr. Speaker, I am pleased once again to respond to the member for Nanaimo—Cowichan on her concerns about providing services to out of work Canadians.
I will begin by dealing with an issue that has been in the news a significant amount lately, the fact that Service Canada is not renewing the contracts of some 330 temporary employees.
Service Canada must deliver services efficiently and effectively. To do this it must ensure that its workforce is aligned with its operational needs. It is the nature of our business that our needs vary from season to season and from year to year, which is why we need the flexibility of using temporary workers.
These 330 employees were hired for a specific length of time during the economic downturn to help us cope with the surge in applications for employment insurance. They were hired for a specific period of time. This was indicated on their contracts. There was no promise expressed or implied that their contracts would be renewed at the end of their term.
As members know, our government has made a commitment to reduce both its spending and its size. Our government is working toward eliminating the deficit and returning to balanced budgets while continually improving services delivered to Canadians.
We know that Canadians want efficient government that gives them good value for their hard-earned tax dollars. It is our job to make sure Canadian taxpayer dollars are used wisely. Canadians expect no less from their government. That is why we are moving forward with the next phase of the EI modernization initiative which began in 2005.
Service Canada will continue to modernize the delivery of EI by automating its processing, consolidating its processing sites, and managing its workload more efficiently. Automation has already made EI processing more accurate and has resulted in significant savings. In fact, thanks to automation, the EI processing costs have been reduced by almost 30% since 2003.
In addition, the workforce management strategy is in effect to assist with planned personnel changes. This will include attrition, reassignments and training. All changes will occur within the parameters of the collective agreements.
Processing no longer needs to be done in a paper-based system. With our new technology and workload distribution system, an EI claimant can have his or her file processed electronically by the next available agent in any processing centre anywhere in the country. This saves time for everyone and money for Canadian taxpayers.