HRPD Committee Meeting

STANDING COMMITTEE ON HUMAN RESOURCES DEVELOPMENT AND THE STATUS OF PERSONS WITH DISABILITIES

COMITÉ PERMANENT DU DÉVELOPPEMENT DES RESSOURCES HUMAINES ET DE LA CONDITION DES PERSONNES HANDICAPÉES

EVIDENCE

[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]

Tuesday, December 9, 1997

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[English]

The Chairman (Mr. Reg Alcock (Winnipeg South, Lib.)): Let's get started on time. We might as well do it once in a while around here.

Before we get into the substance of today's discussion, I would like to note that this is probably the last time—I hope it is the last time—that we will meet until the new year. So I think it's only appropriate that we take just a very brief moment to thank everybody—the clerk, the researchers, the translators, the switchers, the assistants, and anybody else who happens to make us run the way we do—and wish them all a Merry Christmas.

I'd also like to thank the department. We've bumped you guys around a fair bit, and I appreciate your willingness to accept the vagaries of our decision-making and be here nonetheless.

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Given that the unemployment file is one of the biggest files in the department and certainly one that is of great interest to members, there was a desire to bring you back before the committee. Certain members had questions they wanted to ask, just to get a handle on some of the issues and some of the pressures people are feeling. So I appreciate your being back here. We'll go for a while, and I suspect that your answers will be sufficient to satisfy all of the questions Mr. Crête has, and we can all adjourn to Christmas.

Would you like to start, Ms. Smith, with an opening statement, or do you just want to launch into the discussion that will inevitably flow from your remarks?

Ms. Norine Smith (Assistant Deputy Minister, Insurance, Department of Human Resources Development): I could start by introducing my colleagues.

The Chairman: Please.

Ms. Norine Smith: Some of these folks you will know from our previous visit here two or three weeks ago. If any members of the committee were not at that previous meeting and don't have copies of the presentation we went through, we brought a few more along with us that I think the clerk has and can be made available.

We have Diane Carroll, who is the director of insurance policy; John McWhinnie, the director general of insurance policy; Doug Matheson, who is the director general of insurance services; and I'm the assistant deputy minister of the insurance program.

I'm in the committee's hands with respect to any introductory remarks. We did, as I say, a thorough briefing on how the program works. I was asked to be prepared to talk about some of the things we're working on now and some of the questions that are top of line for us. I could start that way if you like, or we could launch into questions. I'm in your hands.

The Chairman: Maybe it would make sense for you to make some introductory comments. That might in fact clear away some of the areas of questioning and allow members to focus a little bit.

Ms. Norine Smith: Okay.

We have gone through a very extensive period of change within the department. The reform was a very large and fundamental one. As was noted at the committee by the minister last week, we are now in the process of pulling together our first monitoring report.

The legislation has set out the requirement for annual monitoring reports for the next five years. The questions that would be looked at are how individuals, community, and the economy are adjusting to the changes, whether the savings expected are being realized, and the effectiveness of the benefits and the other assistance utilized by employees and employers.

That report is in the draft stages. It's with the commission for their preliminary reactions. As the minister promised to this committee, it will be tabled in Parliament and available to the committee very early in the new year.

For that report, unfortunately we are at a very preliminary stage in terms of the data that is available to us, so we'll only be able to make some preliminary commentary on some of the questions that have been raised by the members of this committee.

I thought I might turn my attention a bit to some of the other areas of quality service and program administration that are very important to us and to the client, which is another aspect of the program besides reform. I'm sure the questions will bring us back to the nature of the reform itself.

One of the key performance indicators for the insurance program is the speed with which a claimant is paid, the speed with which they receive their first cheque. We have a national standard that 90% of all claimants should be paid on the first legal day of payment within 28 days, and we meet that target pretty well all of the time. When we don't meet that target, it's often because we're missing some information, such as we don't yet have the ROEs.

Just because we're meeting the target doesn't mean we're satisfied that's the best we can do. We could tell you about quite a number of initiatives we have to to try to push us a little further forward on that really important service issue for claimants. For example, we're working on automated adjudication so that claimants would be able to enter an office or eventually use an Internet site, file their claim, and get some answers right there and then about whether they qualify and how much they might receive.

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In order to speed up the issuance of ROEs, we're working on projects such as laser printing and electronic filing of ROEs. The first cheque is only the first of a stream of cheques, of course, so Teledec and direct deposit are things we're rolling out on a national basis. It's a very big project for us in order to make that ongoing stream of payments much more predictable and reliable for the claimant.

Quality service commitments is an area that is a priority government-wide and something we take pretty seriously within the insurance program as well. The department as a whole is committed to publishing national service standards for all the program areas this fiscal year. Within the insurance program there are very many offices that have been doing that for some time, and all offices will be doing that by the end of this fiscal year.

The service standards are stated in fairly general terms in some respects. You're entitled to courteous and considerate treatment and complete and accurate information. It might sound like a motherhood statement, but it is a very important statement of principle for the way in which we deal with our clients. We also are committing to keep wait times to a minimum and to make sure clients always know what the wait time is in an office. One of the most concrete commitments, of course, goes back to what I was mentioning earlier about the speed of pay of the first cheque.

Telecentres and the quality of our services to Canadians through the telecentres is something we're continuously working on. It's a relatively new area of business for us, as it is for many parts of government. We've made a lot of progress in the last few years, and we're well aware—it's been brought to our attention by a member or two of this committee—that we don't have things perfect yet on telecentres. We need to make further commitments of resources to keep the staffing levels up and to increase our levels of staffing, plus we need to do such things—and we are doing such things—as improve the logic of our automative voice response system so that people can get into the information they want even more quickly than they can now.

You may not be aware that in the insurance area, about 70% of the inquiries are handled by the computer, so getting the automated system as finely tuned as possible is really important for us, as well as making sure we're getting leading-edge and cheap telephone service from the telephone companies.

The service delivery network is something we've been talking about for some time and you might have thought we had it done by now. We're very close, but it's not a completely finished project. There are a few more offices that will be consolidated and more to be done with respect to putting kiosks in smaller communities and partnership arrangements with other agents in the communities to make sure we have a complete and full service that meets the needs of Canadians.

One of the aspects of that, which has had some attention from members of Parliament in recent weeks, has been the amalgamation of a few boards of referee centres. That is something that is sort of consequential to some of the changes we've been making in the service delivery network.

We've been working on alternatives such as desktop videoconferencing, which has been used on a pilot basis and is in full operation in a number of locations in the country. It has exceeded our expectations and has been well received by clients as a really viable alternative to actually being there in person, though of course there is also the possibility for claimants to be reimbursed for their travel costs if they want to drive that extra bit to get to their appeal hearing.

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There are quite a number of other things we're doing to improve and further strengthen the quality of our service, the speed with which we hear appeals. There's quite an extensive work plan in that area, and we'd be pleased to tell you more about that as well.

Finally, I'll mention insurability rulings. That's also an area where it has been brought to my attention from time to time that we could be improving our efforts. We're very painfully aware and are working hard with Revenue Canada, which is our agent on this matter, to improve the speed with which insurability rulings are made and to reduce the backlogs.

We have, for example, undertaken in recent weeks an extensive training program for our local staff to make them more familiar with some of the factors they need to know in order to make the insurability rulings themselves and send fewer requests over to Revenue Canada, do more of our business ourselves.

So that's a highlight of some of the things we're focusing on internally when we turn to the operations, the bread and butter, the day-to-day of our business. I'd be pleased to give more information to the committee.

The Chairman: Okay. Mr. Crête....

Angela, I'm sorry. You're a New Democrat, right?

Ms. Angela Vautour (Beauséjour—Petitcodiac, NDP): Yes, and I'm proud of it.

The Chairman: So we will start then with Mr. Crête.

So you're satisfied with that and have no questions, and we'll move on?

[Translation]

Mr. Paul Crête (Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup—Témiscouata—Les Basques, BQ): Thank you for your presentation. I tried to read the Chief Actuary's report on employment insurance premium rates since it is available. The messenger finally reached my office. The report states that the program could be self-financing and have an acceptable surplus if premiums were between $1.90 and $2.10, subject to certain comments.

I would like you to tell us in a little greater detail, based on the information contained in the report, about the report you have to submit to the Minister. What issues will you assess and on what issues will you be giving your opinion to the Minister?

Other issues such as, for example, the effect of the intensity rule, the change in the number of weeks, the reduction in the number of weeks required to be eligible for benefits, the issue of the maximum amount for young people, which is $2,000, for repayment of premiums?

Ultimately, the measures contained in the bills tabled yesterday, which you may already have read, are the main elements. Will these points be addressed in your report and will they include the issue of making the employment insurance account an independent account, a separate account in the government's accounting?

[English]

Ms. Norine Smith: Could I ask for a little bit more clarity around your first question, with respect to the actuary's report?

[Translation]

Mr. Paul Crête: In fact, there is only one question. In the report you are preparing for the Minister, will there be an assessment of the risk factors that I mentioned and that are found in the bills, and will there be other issues which you may consider relevant?

Will there also be an analysis, for each region of Canada, of the effects of the policy such that, when the report is made public, we will have a true picture of the situation, as regards both the effects of the various phenomena and the impact on each region of Canada?

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[English]

Ms. Diane Carroll (Director, Employment Insurance Policy Directorate, Department of Human Resources Development): Yes, in terms of the monitoring and assessment report, to the degree possible, we are trying to report in the same manner we did when we tabled the estimates for the reforms. So we're looking at the impact by region, sector, age, and gender. We're using those types of breakdowns.

As Ms. Smith said a moment ago, because we are very early on in the reform stages, the analysis that will be in this first report will be very preliminary. But to the degree that we have information on the impacts of the reform on benefits, initial claims, and so on, I think that will be in the report with the same types of breakdowns.

[Translation]

Mr. Paul Crête: So I understand you are going to make recommendations to the Minister as regards these reports. It won't simply be an analysis of the situation, but will also contain directives on what actions you feel should be taken in future.

[English]

Ms. Diane Carroll: I think section 3 of the act just states that the commission is to report to the minister on the impact on individuals, communities, economy, and the effectiveness of the programs. It does not talk about making actual recommendations to the minister. So the commission is simply reporting on the status of the reforms.

[Translation]

Mr. Paul Crête: I have a few more questions.

Earlier we were talking about 1-800 telephone lines. Would it be possible for you to report on your actual level of satisfaction with these systems? You should know we are prepared to hear your report in an objective manner. We know that often, even very often, people are unable to get through. They are not even put on hold by the telephone system. They just get a busy signal. I also believe we heard a few expressions of dissatisfaction. So I would like you to explain the situation and tell us what you're going to do in the next few weeks and months to improve the situation.

[English]

Mr. Doug Matheson (Director General, Insurance Services, Department of Human Resources Development): In our telecentres across the country—we have eleven of them—we do keep a weekly report that shows the number of calls, the length of time that people have to wait to be received by an attendant, the number the computer is able to respond to, and things of that nature.

Let's discount the last few weeks, when the postal strike made it such that our phone lines were just overflowing with calls, and look first of all at where we stand in terms of responding to the public. Then we can look at what we're doing to improve that service.

In our call centres, until the postal strike, the response rate was—I wouldn't say it was excellent—not too bad on a national basis. That's to say that our standard was to respond to 80% of the calls waiting for an attendant within 150 seconds, which is two and a half minutes. So the wait time should not be longer than two and a half minutes for 80% of our clientele. We met that goal on a national basis.

Specifically, we had problems earlier in the summer in Glace Bay that were resolved. We had some problems over time with the situation in Shawinigan. It has been noted before that Shawinigan has had some specific problems.

Let's look into the future at where we're trying to go to improve our service to the public. First of all, on a national basis, our own feeling is that 80% is not good enough for a response within two and a half minutes. We would like to see that number go higher. We're working toward a higher number now. Exclusive of Shawinigan, in most weeks we go above 90% or get to around the 90% mark. We're taking steps to improve our telephone services to do even better than that. We would like to get to the 95% level.

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In terms of Shawinigan itself, where there are specific problems, which we're well aware of, we've recently taken steps to increase the number of staff in that centre and to install additional telephone circuits to try to provide a better service and bring that area of eastern Quebec up to the same standard as the rest of the country.

[Translation]

Mr. Paul Crête: When you say you're taking steps to improve the situation, what steps are you taking? What I just said was reported in January 1997. We didn't get the impression that the postal strike made any difference. The system works poorly all the time and never works. The number of citizens who wind up in riding offices because they can't get into the system to get the information they want has risen very significantly and regularly over the past year.

More particularly, what will happen in Shawinigan? Will staff be added? Will additional equipment be purchased? When will the system be ready to operate?

[English]

Mr. Doug Matheson: First of all, with respect to the calls that go to Shawinigan, it's not common to receive a busy signal on the line. The calls are answered by the computer. Those people who use touch-tone phones and who have a relatively straightforward question—the bulk of the callers—can still get their responses by that means.

But where there is a problem in Shawinigan in comparison to other sites is that those callers who either don't have a touch-tone phone or who have a more complex inquiry have to be received by an attendant and given a response by an individual. And it's here that there is a long waiting time, which leads to the frustration of the public that you're referred to in eastern Quebec.

In the situation that we're working with, this is simply a matter of having enough attendants on hand to respond to the queue of calls and enough telephone circuits that link from the computer back to the attendants. We have struggled a bit to get the proper mix of resources in place in Shawinigan. We do agree that there is a problem there, and we're working hard to resolve that problem. As I said, very recently we've taken steps to increase the number of attendants by ten and install some extra lines to bring that service up to the same level that the rest of the country enjoys.

[Translation]

Mr. Paul Crête: I have another question. A big concern for me is to know what people know about employment insurance and the rules governing employment insurance. I know that efforts have been made to transmit the information. Scarcely two weeks ago, I met an investigations officer. But the fact is that a great many people do not know the ground rules.

Consider the example of convenience stores. There used to be no penalty in the Act as there is now. The first time a convenience store owner hires someone for only one week, he'll have to pay a $10,000 fine. It's $10,000 or $12,000, I don't really remember. I'm not trying to justify fraud, but there are people whose business turnover is $100,000 or $125,000 and who are facing a fine of $12,000 because they decided to hire the neighbour for four days. She may have worked four days out of two weeks, but if they put the four days in a single week, it may put them in bankruptcy.

Have efforts also been made with regard to individuals? Are people receiving much information today? I have to say that many people don't read things. There is a fantastic difference of perception between what public officials say and what people understand about the Act at the other end.

Is that part of the analysis you have to conduct in your report in December? Will this question be addressed?

[English]

Ms. Norine Smith: Just to take your points in order, I'm not sure what exact situation you might be referring to with a small employer. There is a $12,000 penalty against employers when they falsify an ROE, when they make up an ROE for work that doesn't exist, when they sell an ROE. We consider that a very serious offence. We had very limited penalties in the act prior to the EI Act. So that is something that has been taken very seriously.

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That is not the circumstance that I think you're describing. If you're aware of people who have difficulty and there are particular cases, as you know, we'd be pleased to help to try to sort out any misunderstandings. It sounds to me more like you're describing problems about insurability questions.

Turning to your more generic point about what it is that we're doing to try to constantly get the message out, particularly to employers, we have been working particularly with the Canadian Payroll Association, undertaking seminars across the country with them and with their members. They hold seminars at least a couple of times a year to help small businesses learn the rules. So that has been one of our main outreach activities, though within each office there is also a record-of-employment officer who is there to work with employers and answer any questions they might have.

As you say, there are brochures and flyers and inserts, and there's always a question as to how effective that form of communication would be. I must say that improving the effectiveness of communication, when people are bombarded with large quantities of it, is something we find a continuing challenge. I would be pleased to get any ideas that you might have about how we would reach people like the corner store operator with the information they need, because that is quite a challenge for all parts of government, not just us.

[Translation]

Mr. Paul Crête: The examples I gave may be insurability issues, but this is really what's going on where I come from. In the region, people really have the impression that a government offensive is under way. In the past year or a little less, the former Minister said that the government would make a particular effort to hunt down EI cheats and take back the money paid out and spent for grouping short weeks together. The result in the field was a systematic auditing of small businesses, but not so much of large businesses. In any case, I'm sure that, if these people knew, they wouldn't do anything of the kind. It may be genuine fraud, in which case they deserve to be penalized, but a penalty of $10,000 or $12,000 is enormous for a convenience store owner.

Just one last question. I would like you to clarify for me how agreements on the devolution of manpower will be controlled. There are audit mechanisms that were part of the active measures in the case of the agreement with Quebec, for example. I would like to know what is the responsibility of the province that signed the agreement and what is your responsibility. What do you expect to receive in the way of information from the province from the moment the devolution is in operation.

[English]

Ms. Norine Smith: Before starting, could I clarify your question? Are you asking with respect to the operation of the insurance program, if I can use a very narrow interpretation of insurance, or with respect to the part II employment benefits and measures within the employment insurance umbrella? Would the latter—

[Translation]

Mr. Paul Crête: Yes. On active employment measures, the five employment partnership programs, targeted wage subsidies and devolution to the provinces. What type of control will the government exercise over the devolution to the provinces?

[English]

Ms. Norine Smith: Besides making the very general comment, which you're very aware of, that there is within the agreements with provinces a section with respect to accountability and evaluation of results, I have to beg the indulgence of the chair. You do not have experts in that area here, and I don't think we're well positioned to answer that question.

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Ms. Angela Vautour: I want to thank you for the presentation. I do believe we meet a second time, Mrs. Smith and I. In my activist role, I wangled myself a meeting and Mrs. Smith was present. Of course I would love to have five hours, but I don't think I do.

The Chairman: Well, from our last meeting I think—

Ms. Angela Vautour: I'm going to try to briefly ask a question. Of course you know my position. Hearing your presentation, there were a lot of questions that came up.

You put a lot of emphasis on quality of service, and I'm very concerned. You seemed to mention that quality of service to the clients is a high priority. Speaking from where I'm from and looking at what's happening in the Canada Employment Centre, the quality of service has gone extremely down. You're talking about up to three hours to fill out a claim. You're talking about up to eight weeks before you get your first one-week cheque. That's a result of both changes to unemployment and how a lot of the calculation for claims now has to be done by hand.

One Canada Employment Centre in the area, which was serving from 4,000 to 5,000 claimants, has been closed. Most of those are now going to the nearest Canada Employment Centre. It's causing a lot of frustration and a lot of hardship for a lot of people. Contact with people in Canada Employment Centres is very difficult.

As I was saying previously, out of those 4,000 to 5,000 people who were being served at the Bouctouche Canada Employment Centre, most of them could call the office and it wasn't even long distance. Now they're using the 1-800 number, which is in Bathurst. Bathurst takes a message, calls Richibucto, and then they call back the claimant. I don't think the service has gotten better at all.

I'm wondering, since that Canada Employment Centre has closed, has there been any type of monitoring to really see the impact of closing such a centre and adding so much workload? Having worked in the now existing Canada Employment Centre in 1989-91, and having had at that time to work overtime at this time of year, I can't even imagine what type of overtime they're being asked to do with the same number of employees. Is there some type of monitoring happening there?

Mr. Doug Matheson: It seems to me that you've raised at least two or three different questions among your observations, and although they have a generality, you couched them in terms of the specifics of the part of New Brunswick you are from.

If I could start with a generality, if we go back before this round of legislation, but also before the program review in 1995, where the big reductions to the department were announced, and look at our performance on insurance and how we did at that time, in 1993-94 only about 70% of claimants actually received their first cheque on their first legal date of payment. So although we thought at the time that was reasonable performance, the public told us in our surveys that that was not very good service and that they disliked that.

At that point in time also we only answered about...30% to 35% of the inquiries were answered by the computer, and the balance were handled by attendants. We may have thought those were the good old days, but if we go back in fact and look at those good old days we'll find that we had many, many complaints from the public that the phones weren't answered very well and that there were a lot of difficulties.

If we come forward in time, and I'm talking now on a national basis, we do routinely pay people on the first point of payment more than 90% of the time across the country. In fact, last week it was 95% of the time. And we do answer the telephones—with the help of the computer, mind you, but we answer the telephones. And we have reduced by 5,000 staff.

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If we take the situation in rural New Brunswick—Bouctouche I'm talking about as being rural, now—and we look also at the national scene, how is that done? The reductions in staff caused us to make some changes, there was no question about that. And to maintain the level of service to the public, the way those changes were done was through a rationalization of the delivery network, a centralization of the claims processing activity, not because an agent can adjudicate a claim faster in a centralized setting than they can in a decentralized setting but because decentralization in and of itself tends to reduce the amount of overhead required. We had a reduction in the number of supervisors. We had a reduction in the number of other kinds of staff specialists. We didn't really have a reduction in the number of agents. So the number of agents who are on hand to do the work is still proportionate to the amount of work to be done.

There are, obviously, good offices and there are bad offices. I'm not going to provide a list of the good ones and the bad ones here, but on the national scene we did survey clients this past year. A firm that specializes in those surveys was engaged to talk to the public who were claimants and to ask them questions about our service, and also to ask those claimants, many of whom were claimants in the past, for their opinion of how the service had gone. The vast majority of those claimants indicated service was better now than it was in the past, in their memory, when they dealt with us.

The closure of specific offices and the rationalization of the delivery network was based on a number of factors. We had to meet the program review. We had to improve our service delivery to the public. We had to provide service to the public in various channels. We had to give the public some choice.

In providing that choice to the public, the minister took the view that 90% of the public in each province should have access to an in-person service. We made recommendations on how that number could be achieved, and obviously that led to some closures of various offices. In the view of our staff in New Brunswick, the recommendation was made that Bouctouche should be one of the offices that would close as part of achieving the program review targets.

All of those particular closures and centralizations were reviewed by members of Parliament. There was an extensive discussion with all members and briefings of all caucuses back in 1995. It led to a cabinet decision, and it led to an announcement by the minister, publicly, about the direction that would be taken and the specific offices which would be closed or would remain.

The situation you're referring to now, in the Moncton office, the instances you cite.... I'm sure there are some claimants who have some specific difficulties in dealing with Moncton and who reside in Bouctouche. That a claimant would call Bathurst and have the call referred back to Bouctouche or back to Richibucto for response happens in a very, very small percentage of the cases.

The only time that happens is when a claimant calls a telecentre with a specific problem about their adjudication and where the local office has to respond. In other words, if a claimant calls the telecentre and says he doesn't agree with the decision on his claim and asks why we're disentitling him and why we're doing this to him, that question has to be referred back to the local office and the agent who is making the decision has to deal with the member of the public. The other kinds of inquiries are not referred back and would be responded to from Bathurst, either by the computer system, where a claimant has a touch-tone phone, or, in the case of an attendant, where the claimant is using a rotary phone or has a very complex kind of inquiry. On a national basis—and Bathurst is in line with the numbers here—less than 10%, something like 8%, of all calls are referred back to the local office for return.

Ms. Angela Vautour: I just find it interesting that your argument on this is totally opposite to all the phone calls I'm getting in my office. I really believe if a survey were done in certain regions in this country—and I'm saying New Brunswick, but there are other rural communities across this country—the outcome would be different.

I'm a little concerned about the preliminary assessment report, because it looks as if it's going to be very, very preliminary, and I'm wondering why it's so preliminary when we have so much information out about where it's working and where it's not working. I'm a little concerned that there's not going to be a whole lot of information in that report. I wonder how you're getting your assessment, what you're using to assess, who is assessing, who is being assessed. Certainly our office didn't get a phone call to see if we are getting any complaints. I wonder how that process is happening in order to get this report out and make sure that everybody is being represented.

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Ms. Diane Carroll: The main source of data we use in terms of doing the analysis of how the reform is impacting is through our administrative file.

It generally takes three to five months from the time a claim is ended for us to get the information on the file. Currently we have information up until the end of June 1997, so we have it for a fairly limited period of time. Because the reforms also came in at different points in time—for example, the hour system and the family income supplement and certain things only came in place in January—to this point in time they've had only limited impact.

For example, anybody entering the system now in the early part of 1997 would only be partially impacted by the hours, because some people would be entering with both weeks from 1996 and hours from 1997. To fully assess the impact of the hour system, you really won't know that until into 1998 because that's the only time people would be fully impacted by the hour system.

Other things like the intensity rule and the clawback are things we'll know only out into the future. We have a sense so far of how many people are being impacted by the intensity rule, but it's quite small at this point in time because anybody starting in July 1996 started with a clean slate, so your history for the intensity rule and the clawback only began at that point in time.

If you think of things like the duration, for people entering the system now, you won't know until some time in the future how their actual duration has been affected. For people entering the system this fall, you're not going to know how long they're actually going to collect until some time in 1998. So it's just the nature of the claims.

There are certain things we can say. We can talk about how many people are entering the system, what the average benefit is, and so on. But there are really certain things that you do not know about until the future.

Ms. Angela Vautour: So really, your assessment is a monetary assessment and not the humane assessment of how many people are really going without from the changes, how many are really taking in less today than they were two years ago, and how much less the duration is now compared to two or five or six years ago. Obviously this type of assessment is not happening, only the monetary assessment of it.

Ms. Diane Carroll: No, we are looking at sort of how many people are affected by different.... What we are primarily doing is looking at the period from June 1995 to July 1996, comparing that to July 1996 to June 1997, and looking at what has happened differently. That's one year prior to the reform versus the one year the reform has been in place that we have information for. So to the degree to which we have information on how people have been affected, we are doing that.

Also, 14 communities across the country have been selected for detailed analysis, so there have been focus group sessions in those communities among unemployed people, employers, and service deliverers in those communities. Also, there's a special survey that has been done. At this time it's really just setting out a profile of those communities, because the idea is to look at those 14 communities in terms of the adjustment that is occurring. The first report is just sketching out the profile of those communities, and over the next four or five years we will track what's going on in those communities.

So there are a number of different tools. The main issue we have at this point in time is that the information we have is still very preliminary, because of the people who started their claim from the beginning of the reform, some people are just completing them and others are still in the midst of those claims. So we know certain things about them. We know things like average benefit and those types of things. But you won't know until another year or so exactly how people have actually been impacted.

Ms. Angela Vautour: I have a last question. I again don't disagree, because I hear from the people exactly how this reform is affecting people, so I certainly have a good handle on really the impact of it.

• 1615

You mentioned also the backlog in Revenue Canada, and my confrère here has mentioned the small businesses. It is a big concern, because we know small businesses are the major job creation factor in this country, but there is really some type of campaign going on in small businesses. In our region, where you have a small business most of the time a father is going to hire his brother or his brother-in-law or his wife or his sister, etc. You're not going to hire a stranger, because there are not enough jobs to go around.

What is happening with this is that you can have a claim that was sent to Revenue Canada last year on a small business and it comes back insurable, but then this September they file again and that same claim is sent again to Revenue Canada. They keep doing that until they finally get an uninsurability ruling. That's pretty well the way it works.

I see a problem with this. I can see that when you have a claim in front of you, you could be suspicious of it so you send it to Revenue Canada for an insurability ruling, but when it's year after year, I certainly see a problem with that. I see it discouraging our small businesses. I see it creating a lot of problems, because sometimes that ruling goes back three years and these people have all this money to pay back.

It's not right when you're talking about areas like ours and a lot of other areas across this country, not only my area. I speak about my area because that's where I live, but there are a lot of communities across this country that are suffering the same way. I think that should be looked into and I'm just wondering why this is happening.

Ms. Norine Smith: I'll let Mr. McWhinnie talk to you about the work we're doing with Revenue Canada to streamline and reduce the number of insurability rulings.

I wanted to take advantage of your question to go back to something Mr. Crête mentioned regarding fraud penalties and small business. I don't have a big business and small business breakdown, but altogether there are only 300 penalties imposed on employers from coast to coast. Frankly, in the area of fraud penalties our work with employers is relatively modest.

Mr. John McWhinnie (Director General, Insurance Policy, Department of Human Resources Development): This question came up the last time we met and we did send in some information, which may get to that. I think it's worth noting that we have had some concerns ourselves in terms of backlogs being generated at Revenue Canada in determining rulings, but also in our own capability of sending rulings where maybe we're not assessing them as well as we could have ourselves.

We have launched a fairly major initiative with Revenue Canada in looking at particular industries and particular types of rulings that tend to come up. What we've prepared in concert with them are what we call communiqués or templates that help them in being consistent in looking at ruling insurability in certain situations and also for our own staff.

We've done training with both Revenue Canada and our own staff together, and what we've been able to do from this is reduce significantly over the course of this year the number of requests we sent to Revenue Canada. We have a better understanding ourselves of the sort of checklist you can go through in terms of getting consistency to get away from what you're saying, where if we're not sure, we just send it off to Revenue Canada.

In fact, we've reduced by 12% the number of rulings we are requesting. We are making some progress with Revenue Canada in getting their backlogs down and improving their speed of service. These templates or communiqués, as we call them, are proving quite successful in doing that, in getting a consistent determination on that.

I would submit that we have a ways to go in terms of our work with them, but we're putting a lot of energy into that. We're using our own BTV training, with which we can train all of our offices at the same time through a television network. We have the Revenue Canada people come to our offices and assist in that training at the same time.

Ms. Angela Vautour: My last comment would be that I find there seems to be a “let's try to get as many people as possible to not qualify” attitude. I'm not sure if that's true or not, but the arm's-length clause is being used a lot. A lot of employees are being disqualified because of that. I really see it increasing to the point where it is causing a problem. Again, I think people, even though they are related, can have a contract of work and it should be insurable. And I think that clause is being abused in a lot of cases by Revenue Canada, using that to disqualify people. It's increasing all the time and it is certainly a problem.

• 1620

The Chairman: Thank you, Ms. Vautour. Obviously association with this committee has had a very positive effect on the length of your questions.

Mr. Anders.

Mr. Rob Anders (Calgary West, Alberta, Ref.): Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

I direct my question to Norine Smith, but if others have information that pertains to this I encourage them to respond as well.

I'm wondering whether or not you've seen or heard of calculations, particularly departmental calculations, with regard to self-sustaining rates for the EI premiums. In other words, we've seen a cut from $2.90 to $2.70. The Canadian Federation of Independent Business estimates that self-sustenance would be about $2. I'm wondering whether you've seen calculations as to what would be a self-sustaining premium rate level. If you haven't seen calculations, what would be your expert knowledge of this based on your involvement with the department? In terms of the surplus in the account, how many billions of dollars should it be—not just a reference to the premium rate, but how much money should be in the account?

Ms. Norine Smith: That was a question addressed in some length in the actuarial report, and I think Mr. Crête gave us the quote earlier on. It was on page 13. Let me just find my copy of the report in here for you.

Mr. Rob Anders: Is that the only thing you've seen on that matter?

Ms. Norine Smith: The actuary is the program expert in this business, so he would be the authority. No, I'm aware that, as you mentioned, the Canadian Federation of Independent Business has been commenting on this issue. Many organizations have been commenting on it, but the most authoritative figures would be those in the actuary's report.

Mr. Rob Anders: I see. Do you have an expert opinion, an expert knowledge, as to what that rate should be?

Ms. Norine Smith: As the actuary explains in his report, there is quite a number of factors that need to be taken into consideration. He describes a number of those factors: views about how the business cycle will unfold, about how the labour market may or may not change, about whether there would be—

Mr. Rob Anders: I find it hard to believe that the actuary is the only person in the entire department who actually considers these things and talks about them.

Ms. Norine Smith: He's not, that is for sure. In fact, as you are aware, the decision-making itself is a decision of the commission, so it was discussed at some length by the commission when they reached their decision on the premium rate.

Mr. Rob Anders: So you've discussed these matters as well. It's not just a matter of the actuary. You've discussed these matters as well, have you not?

Ms. Norine Smith: Yes, I have.

Mr. Rob Anders: And what is your best estimate then? I'm asking for yours, not the actuary's.

Ms. Norine Smith: You are asking for my commentary on a decision that has been recently made by the commission and by the government, and I'm not sure it would be appropriate for me to go into my personal opinions on the matter.

Mr. Rob Anders: It's not a personal opinion, really. These are pretty straightforward numbers. I'm just asking for a number.

The Chairman: I will intervene. There is a protocol here, Rob. I appreciate what you are trying to get at, and I think it's a useful line of inquiry. I think, though, those questions are better directed to the minister, given that that decision has been basically made. It's not really fair to place someone who has a line relationship to the minister in a position of commenting on a decision that has been made by him. And that's a fairly consistent protocol.

You might want to direct that question to the minister—or I note the parliamentary secretary for the minister is here.

Mr. Rob Anders: I'll ask this final question on that. I've asked questions of the minister and others in the House with regard to this premium rate and what self-sustainability should be, and I'm going to ask you whether or not it would be sustainable at a level below $2.70 and whether $2, according to the CFIB, is a good rough and approximate measure of what a self-sustaining rate would be.

• 1625

Ms. Norine Smith: The two-dollar figure, if my memory serves me correctly, is about what it would cost just to cover program costs in this particular year.

I think that you're rather coming at the same question in a different way. There are very many variables that affect how much of a cushion is required in order to provide the kind of security and to ensure the sort of premium rate stability that the government would like to see in the future.

To give you an example of some of the variability of different ways of looking at this question—and I'll also be quoting from the actuary's report—in the United States it's recommended that state programs maintain reserves between 100% and 150% of recession-level costs. Recession-level costs in our context would be perhaps an $18 billion or $19 billion program. The American approach would therefore lead to potentially $18 billion or $19 billion or up to $24 billion or $25 billion—something like that.

Also, at the start of the Canadian UI system in the 1940s and 1950s, it was felt proper to establish substantial reserves and those reserves stood at about ten times the annual pay-out in 1946 and were four times the annual pay-out ten years later. So that would have been in the mid-1950s.

This question is one where facts and figures can take you so far and can provide you some guidance. In the final analysis, one needs to look at the facts and bring one's judgment to bear about what kind of position one would like the account to be in. That's the decision that the government has recently made.

Mr. Rob Anders: All right. Let me restate that and make sure I understood what you said.

You've quoted sources saying that basically we're looking at in the order of $20 billion. Is that right?

Ms. Norine Smith: I'm saying that the American system—

Mr. Rob Anders: That's right. You're quoting sources saying that we should have about $20 billion. Is that right?

Ms. Norine Smith: No, I'm saying that's what the American system does. I'm not making any value judgments about whether it should be for us or not. I'm just saying there are different ways of looking at this issue and you can find historical precedents, you can find international precedents that have a perspective that is interesting to note.

Mr. Rob Anders: If you were to take 120% of depression costs.... Is that right?

Ms. Norine Smith: Yes, 100% to 150% is what the American recommendation was.

Mr. Rob Anders: If you were to take 150% of Canadian depression costs, what would that be?

Ms. Norine Smith: In a recession, the program would probably be costing in the range of $18 billion to $20 billion. So 150% would be $27 billion, if you wanted to apply that rule.

Mr. Rob Anders: Yes.

You also mentioned ten times the annual pay-out. Is that right?

Ms. Norine Smith: That was the level of reserves when the program first started in the 1940s.

Mr. Rob Anders: So that's also used as a potential benchmark. Is that right?

Ms. Norine Smith: I didn't phrase it in that way, no. I just said that's a historical precedent.

Mr. Rob Anders: What would that work out to be?

Ms. Norine Smith: $120 billion.

Mr. Robert Nault (Kenora—Rainy River, Lib.): Let's see if we can get away from this kind of badgering of the witness.

First of all, Mr. Anders was here when the minister was here. He could have asked those questions to him. He chose not to. The questions he asked were somewhat minor in detail, as I recall.

There's no sense in trying to get officials to answer political questions. You can ask those in the House or you can ask them when the minister is here. Because they're well trained, the officials will not, of course, answer those political questions. It's simply not their role.

Mr. Chairman, we should get on with asking some questions they can answer, instead of trying to weasel around some sort of way to try to get an answer that they can't answer.

The Chairman: Thank you, Mr. Nault. I suggest to Mr. Anders that he could question you, as the parliamentary secretary, further.

Mr. Robert Nault: Any time he wants to.

Mr. Rob Anders: Mr. Nault, do you feel that—

Mr. Robert Nault: I'll give him a political answer.

Mr. Rob Anders: Do you feel that $27 billion or $120 billion as a surplus in the EI account is appropriate, Mr. Nault?

The Chairman: Thank you, Mr. Anders. We now have a rejoinder for the term “weasel”.

Mr. Robert Nault: Whenever you ask me in the House, I'll answer you.

• 1630

The Chairman: Let us go on with the discussion here. I believe it is on the employment insurance program, is it not?

Mr. Crête.

[Translation]

Mr. Paul Crête: My question concerns what Mr. McWhinnie said earlier. With respect to what is called a series of interpretation sections and interpretation bulletins, I have learned that Revenue Canada and Human Resources Development Canada had prepared some, that they were preparing to distribute them to the public and that they contained everything needed to make a prevention effort with the people who would receive them. I was told they had been on hold for a number of months and that no one knew exactly why they were not going out. Can you give me some clarification about this situation?

And to complete my question, I have a small suggestion to make. It is my ardent hope that, in the report it makes, the Commission will consider the themes that we have addressed in the bills we tabled yesterday. That will help facilitate the debate on them.

My last remark is perhaps for my Reform Party colleague more particularly. I think we would all do well to read the actuary's report, not only the parties, because there are some very interesting things in the report. Moreover, we could discuss it here for three days.

It's a very good thing that we had to do this, but it's hard to address just one part. Personally, I have enough arguments to last for weeks.

The question focuses solely on the interpretation clauses.

[English]

Mr. John McWhinnie: The first point to make is that we've been working on these for the past year, but they do take a lot of time and consultation with industry groups and labour groups.

We do have two that are already published and in process, one for fishers and another one for forestry workers. Those were prompted because we had a lot of difficulty. We've really had very positive feedback on how that is working. From being able to go out and give community seminars and then use them ourselves, we've really reduced the number of complaints, concerns, and appeals we've had around those.

Another 30 are in process, and we've been working on them at various stages, with the commitment that those will all be finished by the end of the fiscal year. But we'll start seeing some of those come out early in the new year.

It's probably worth mentioning that another seven are in development but are tricky, so we're putting a lot of time into them. Those are ones that came up in the last discussion we had with this committee. It's around those semi-self-employed kinds of situations, such as taxi drivers, hair dressers, barbers, truckers, and construction workers. So those are the ones where we're putting a renewed effort on seven new developmental ones. But we'll see about 30 of those coming out over the course of the next three months.

[Translation]

Mr. Paul Crête: That could make for a very nice announcement for the Minister in February or March.

[English]

The Chairman: The minister makes many big announcements throughout the day.

Mr. Paul Crête: But a good one.

Some hon. members: Oh, oh!

The Chairman: Madame Gagnon, did you have a question? No?

Angela.

Ms. Angela Vautour: My only comment is that when those guidelines are done, I would like to see the MPs' offices get those guidelines. We get calls to calculate claims on a daily basis, so it would be good if we had them.

Mr. John McWhinnie: That's an excellent suggestion.

The Chairman: Thank you, Angela.

Mr. Anders, do you have any further questions of the witnesses before we talk about the questions of—?

Mr. Rob Anders: Not unless Mr. Nault's going to comment on—

The Chairman: Thank you, Mr. Anders. I suspect that Mr. Nault is more than willing to engage in that debate; however, this may not be the time or the place.

Ms. Bennett.

Ms. Carolyn Bennett (St. Paul's, Lib.): I'd like to ask, when it comes to the time of maternity leave, parental leave, or adoption leave, how do we come up with the number, and do you think we could be doing more with new parents? We're quite restrictive compared to other countries. I also wonder whether easing people back to work might be something we could consider, with people not necessarily going back to work full-time, as new parents.

• 1635

Ms. Norine Smith: Provisions laid out quite specifically in the act cover maternity and parental benefits. A woman would qualify for parental benefits on the basis of 700 hours of work and would be eligible for 15 weeks of maternity benefits and 10 weeks of parental benefits.

International comparisons are pretty well all over the map. There are certainly some countries, and Sweden is the one that obviously comes to mind in this context, which provide much, much more substantial support to mothers and to families generally. But there are other countries which provide virtually no support, or nothing comparable to our program.

So the question of whether we could be doing more within the context of the insurance program is very much one a question of policy trade-offs, of how that might fit into a more global picture of how Canadians would like to see families supported by their governments. It's a very broad question.

Ms. Carolyn Bennett: Where did we come up with the number of 15 weeks?

Ms. Norine Smith: That really predates my connections with the insurance program by probably a couple of decades. Frankly, I'm not too sure where the original 15 week reference came from.

Ms. Diane Carroll: I think especially for maternity benefits it was designed to provide the amount of time that was generally required by a variety of different women, depending on the nature of their pregnancy and the nature of the birth. It's really designed to cover all scenarios, because they can take the maternity benefits up to eight weeks before giving birth and up to 17 weeks after.

It's seen as a period that's required for the physiological needs of the mother. That's what maternity benefits are for. They are not for child care. They are designed to cover all scenarios, either people who have difficulties towards the end of their pregnancy or people who may have more difficulty after giving birth. The range is seen as meeting the medical needs that are associated with pregnancy and childbirth. I think that has been fairly recognized in a number of court decisions which have been recently issued: it gives a reasonable amount of coverage to a variety of types of pregnancies and childbirth situations.

Ms. Carolyn Bennett: However, I guess as a family physician who has filled out hundreds of these forms I feel it's one size fits all. Some people have frightful pregnancies, frightful labours and delivery, and really shouldn't be expected to go back to work at that time, having had major surgery and tiny babies—all of that. I guess I just would love to see some sort of flexibility in this.

Ms. Diane Carroll: I think there is some flexibility. I don't think it's seen as one size fits all. Somebody who has a difficult birth could potentially, if they do not take their leave until right at the time of the birth, have up to 17 weeks. Then they have another 10 weeks for parental.

There is also some flexibility around the parental benefits. If the child is still in hospital, the person can actually delay their parental benefits until the child comes to the home. So there is some flexibility around the timing of it.

I don't think it's seen as one rule fits all. It's designed to give some flexibility to different circumstances.

The Chairman: I think that brings to a conclusion all the questions we have for our final meeting of the year 1997. Thank you very much. I appreciate the time you've spent here.

Ms. Carolyn Bennett: After the witnesses, I'm just wondering if there's any.... Well, we don't have a quorum to deal with my happy little motion giving the Minister of Justice some direction.

• 1640

The Chairman: I will make a ruling from the chair that the clerk of this committee be directed by the chair of this committee to instruct Mrs. Bennett in the correct procedure for bringing motions before the committee.

Ms. Carolyn Bennett: We did have the motion at the committee last week. That was viewed to be the 48-hour notice.

The Chairman: I don't recall the motion appearing in the hands of the clerk in written form 24 hours prior to the steering committee meeting, as is called for in the operational rules and regulations of this committee.

Ms. Carolyn Bennett: That's my misunderstanding. I felt that because I had presented it at the meeting it was in effect given to the clerk during the last meeting. I viewed that Mr. Anders' comment meant he would take that as having 48-hour notice before today's meeting.

The Chairman: I don't mean to take it lightly, but there is a procedure we follow. I apologize if you were not instructed in it appropriately. We'll see that is done.

[Translation]

Mr. Paul Crête: Mr. Chairman, could we agree to it if we had unanimous consent?

[English]

The Chairman: There was a concern expressed at the briefing with the disabled that the committee express itself relative to mercy killings.

[Translation]

Mr. Paul Crête: I missed the end. What did he say at the end?

[English]

The Chairman: We don't have a quorum to make it an official meeting.

[Translation]

Mr. Paul Crête: So we don't have the quorum to do it.

[English]

The Chairman: Paul, we already tried for consensus.

Mr. Paul Crête: Yes, okay.

The Chairman: Thank you.

Ms. Carolyn Bennett: I guess I would like some direction from Mr. Crête as to whether he would be more comfortable if we divided it into two motions. Obviously he has problems with instructing the Attorney General of Saskatchewan, but we could give direction to our minister here. Maybe I should think about doing two different resolutions so we could have unanimous support.

[Translation]

Mr. Paul Crête: I have no opinion on that.

[English]

The Chairman: Your critic at the time objected to proceeding at that point. I don't think she was necessarily opposed to the intention. We should have a conversation about how to move this forward and we will bring it forward at our earliest convenience.

We are adjourned.