Madam Speaker, I rose in the House on February 2, 2016, in order to ask the minister what he planned to do to fix the internal errors made by the Social Security Tribunal of Canada. I asked my question in response to the Auditor General's report, which was released that same day. Although the minister said that he was going to do whatever it took to fix the problem, the Auditor General's report indicates that there are numerous internal deficiencies.
Nevertheless, there is one problem that really stands out, and that is the mismanagement of the Social Security Tribunal. According to the Auditor General's report, wait times at the tribunal have reached 900 days. That is nearly three years. That is twice as long as the wait times identified in the Auditor General's 2015 report. I would like to remind members that the Social Security Tribunal was created to make the appeal process faster and more efficient. How ironic. The reality is quite the opposite with wait times of three years.
The tribunal is making things more complicated and difficult for people. I hear the same comments every week in my riding. Since the Social Security Tribunal was created, unemployed workers in my region have been forced to jump through many hoops. It is not uncommon for people to have to wait several months before their case is heard before the general division of the Social Security Tribunal. If the tribunal does not rule in their favour, the process begins again. Unemployed workers have to file an appeal before the tribunal's appeal division, and we are once again talking about a wait time of several months before their case is heard, and that is the best-case scenario.
The wait times are long, much too long. Meanwhile, unemployed workers are not getting any employment insurance benefits. None. How can people in my riding and other ridings across the country feed their families under such circumstances? It is impossible and even unthinkable.
However, the Social Security Tribunal is not the only one at fault. The department is to blame too. The bureaucracy within the tribunal is massive. Applications are needlessly complex and can take months to complete. As a result, people keep waiting and waiting. People who are disabled or seriously ill and in urgent need of financial help are kept waiting while their files are processed. Once again, administrative and management problems are having a negative impact on society's most vulnerable people.
This is an alarming crisis for the federal government. Many Quebeckers and Canadians suffer every day because of this. People are tired and fed up, and they simply no longer trust the federal government. The government must find a solution to regain the trust of Quebeckers and Canadians. The Social Security Tribunal is a major fiasco.
Although the Prime Minister announced a new approach for appointments, for the time being, we have no guarantee that service standards will be met in the future. I remind members that during the election campaign, the current Prime Minister promised to expand access and lower premiums if he was elected, and he said that workers would pay more than they did under the previous government but would receive more services in return. That is not what we are seeing. We are calling on this government to quickly process Canadians' applications.