Human Resources committee  Good afternoon, Mr. Chair and esteemed members of the committee. Thank you for inviting me here today to address the committee on Bill C-43, and more specifically on clause 252 regarding the appointment of members to the Social Security Tribunal of Canada. The tribunal began it

Human Resources committee  Okay. I want to assure the members of the committee and all Canadians that every tribunal member and all of our staff are fully aware of the difficulties that appellants may face while waiting for a decision. This situation makes each and every one of us at the tribunal want to

Human Resources committee  First, allow me to specify that the tribunal is divided into three distinct sections and that it has four case loads. At this time, the backlog of approximately 11,000 files comes mostly from the General Division, which deals with questions regarding income security. At this time

Human Resources committee  Obviously, with a greater number of members, we will be able to take bigger bites out of the backlog.

Human Resources committee  Absolutely; there are people.

Human Resources committee  Very well.

Human Resources committee  Are you talking about the program regarding income security?

Human Resources committee  Are you talking about employment insurance or the Appeal Division?

Human Resources committee  The situation at the Appeal Division is different from that at the General Division. At the Appeal Division, in order to be heard, the parties must submit a request to obtain the permission to make an appeal. That request must be heard by a member, who renders a decision accordin

Human Resources committee  The appointment of members is a prerogative of the Governor in Council, but it is done following a very rigorous selection process whereby members are assessed based on education, knowledge, and experience. After they pass this rigorous process, the Governor in Council makes the

Human Resources committee  You are referring to the Appeal Division?

Human Resources committee  We have a few months of experience in working with the income security backlog. With this experience, we are now able to start looking at and defining a reasonable amount of time that members should take to complete the different types of cases, because even in income security we

Human Resources committee  This is my priority. I am working on it and I hope to have it concluded in the coming...very soon.

Human Resources committee  Absolutely, that's the objective.

Human Resources committee  We have taken a number of measures to work on the efficiency of our processes. We provide our members with significant amounts of training so that they become more efficient in dealing with the backlog. We put in place a new process as of April 1, whereby we are assigning older