Government Operations committee  We've heard the same comments from ESDC, but what our research tells us is that Gatestone is a family of companies and their international headquarters are in Phoenix, Arizona. I haven't heard North York. They do have offices in Canada, but it's a family of companies that's primarily U.S.

Government Operations committee  I agree that the current process does take too long and is overly bureaucratic. I think that on occasion, the employer has already demonstrated the ability to work within the existing system and to streamline it so that we aren't waiting six months for a process. If the process is done right, we've seen hundreds of employees being hired in a couple of months.

Government Operations committee  They were mean.

Government Operations committee  I'm happy to. There are a few different things. Gatestone, as I mentioned, is a family of companies in the United States and Canada that is focused primarily on debt collection lines. They also have offices in the Philippines, Mexico and Belize. They've held many previous contracts for the Government of Canada that were, to my knowledge, all collection contracts.

Government Operations committee  On three separate occasions, the PSAC had made efforts to unionize the workers at Quantum. We are currently working to try to unionize the workers at Gatestone. I have a memo from 2018 that Quantum management sent out to all of its employees warning them about—

Government Operations committee  I've talked already about loyalty with federal public sector workers. We also know that working conditions and wages are heavily correlated to increased production, accuracy and retention. My understanding is that instead of making a good government salary, some of these workers were making $18 or $19 an hour.

Government Operations committee  Thank you for your question. I'll answer in English. A lot of the apparent lack in quality of service that we see comes up when it's been contracted out. I can give the example of when the hotline for CERB was contracted out at its inception. Somebody who would get through to an actual employment insurance call centre would tell us that they had been given bad information, that they were misinformed and that a very basic question couldn't get answered, as I mentioned earlier.

Government Operations committee  I asked some of those efficiency questions during labour management meetings with the deputy minister, and we didn't get any kind of satisfactory answers. The two companies that have, to my knowledge, held the contracts for 1-800-O-Canada are Quantum and Gatestone. Quantum's call centre was located in Ottawa.

Government Operations committee  I have the privilege of co-chairing our newly established joint employment equity committee with ESDC. I also co-chair with the IRB and IRCC. Some of the things we talk about, particularly when it comes to persons with disabilities.... I will say that time and again, when we get the reports, we see that there's under-representation of persons with disabilities at most levels in the federal public sector, and in our departments at least.

Government Operations committee  In this particular situation I think it's laziness. In this situation, from what I've seen, they have every reason to have the capacity internally to hire these workers. It's an easy thing to contract out that work. They might argue that they have trouble with retention in call centres.

Government Operations committee  Thank you for the question and the comments about my members and their work. Employees at Service Canada centres are among some of the hardest working in the federal public sector. As you can appreciate, the clients who come in are too often hostile and emotional. They're looking for money to put food on the table for their families.

Government Operations committee  That was it. We hope the government will do the right thing and end the contracting out of this significant public service. Thank you.

Government Operations committee  I represent workers at the immigration departments and Service Canada, so I can only speak to anything that would happen in those three departments. As far as we are aware, aside from 1-800-O-Canada, there was other call centre work that Service Canada—for example, during CERB—outsourced as well.

Government Operations committee  Thank you very much for inviting me. As mentioned, I serve as the national executive vice-president of the Canada Employment and Immigration Union. We're a component of the Public Service Alliance of Canada, and it's a role I've held since 2017. I represent over 34,000 workers in the federal public sector.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Of course. Our members have the same values and principles that our union does. We believe that Canada is a compassionate country. We welcome the diversity. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that our union would like to see this government suspend the safe third country agreement.