Human Resources committee  Absolutely, and certainly it is of great concern to us. Just to give you context, the call demand is just unprecedented. In a typical week we might have received, at the same time last year, 350,000 calls and this year we're receiving over a million calls. The demand is just very

Human Resources committee  I'm happy to answer. I don't have a statistic on that. The eligibility rules did not change significantly, going from CERB to the CRB. Of course, there are the three benefits: the CRB, the sickness benefit and the caregiver benefit. Those rules changed. It was a slightly differe

Human Resources committee  I'm not sure what you're referring to by “the EI benefit”.

Human Resources committee  That is a policy question. It's not really our job within the Canada Revenue Agency to comment on a policy such as the guaranteed annual income. I will say that it's a challenge. If I think about administering the CERB and the CRB, one of the big challenges is to determine elig

Human Resources committee  It's just challenging when someone has a lower level of income. Why is it that they have a declared lower level of self-employed income? Is it because of a lower effort or is it because of changing market conditions, or what are those conditions? Isolating those effects becomes v

Human Resources committee  I could say maybe a few words. Again, this is a policy area best directed to the Department of Finance or ESDC. The DTC is aimed towards those who have a severe disability, so it isn't for everyone. It is considered a benefit that can provide a gateway to other benefits, such a

Human Resources committee  I'm not aware of any of those types of waiting periods. In our system, the way it works is that, generally, if you apply and we deem you as qualified, we deliver that in three to five days. There are situations where individuals are deemed to not be qualified. They have to call,

Human Resources committee  Maybe I could make a couple of remarks there. Some of those questions are probably best for ESDC. As you pointed out, we are delivering the extension of the benefits with the CRB, the sickness benefit and the caregiver benefit. Those three benefits we're delivering. The extension

Human Resources committee  I'm sorry. I'm not sure what you're referring to. Are you referring to a CRA delivery of benefits or are you referring to ESDC?

Human Resources committee  I can't speculate on that.

Human Resources committee  I'd like to get clarification on the question. Would you like to know how the volumes have declined over time?

Human Resources committee  It's difficult to say. It changes. When we launched the CERB, we declined a very small number of the applications. When the program was up and running, there weren't as many upfront validations and we didn't have 2019 income at that time. Then we moved to the CRB and the new mea

Human Resources committee  I would say that is a rare occurrence relative to the total number of people applying. Generally speaking, if you've applied for EI and you're still EI eligible, the legislation, in fact, says you're not eligible for the CRB. You need to first go to EI. In the vast majority of c

Human Resources committee  We set up a new system. When individuals in those rare situations run into that problem, it can be resolved. Is it 100% resolved? No, people will need to call when they're in that rare situation. As you said it's hundreds—

Human Resources committee  Absolutely.