Mr. Speaker, on every paycheque, Canadians contribute to safety nets that are supposed to help them make ends meet when they need it most, like employment insurance and CPP. Canadians expect that these services will be there for them should they run into hard times. However, under this Conservative government, more Canadians see their claims denied, and too many are waiting too long to have their appeals heard. The Social Security Tribunal created by the Conservative government to hear appeals is a complete mess. Canadians are waiting a year or more to appeal decisions on employment insurance, old age security and Canadian pension plan claims. Unlike the old system, which was not problem-free, by the way, there is no guarantee to a fair hearing in a reasonable amount, and recently we learned that the Social Security Tribunal does not intend to eliminate the backlog of cases until 2017 at the earliest. Seniors, Canadians living with a disability and those who are out of work cannot afford to live for months and years without any income. Why is the government leaving vulnerable Canadians to pay the price for its incompetence? The government even set out with a specific goal of reducing the number of hearings by 25%. The new tribunal has more than delivered on that goal. I would like the minister to tell us why the Conservative government refuses to fully staff the tribunal or to develop service standards for Canadians. I would like him to tell us why he is not collecting or releasing statistics. I would also like to take this opportunity to mention that I have received several letters from people who have been so completely discouraged by the bureaucratic nightmare the government has created that they have actually given up on their cases and they are living in poverty. Sometimes I wonder if that is not part of the strategy to make a system so incredibly discouraging that people actually give up on their claims. On September 18, I introduced a motion that would see this House agree that the government should (a) hear the entire backlog of cases in no longer than 365 days; (b) hire more staff so that appeals do not continue to backlog; (c) track wait times for appeals; and (d) resume tracking the success and failure rates of all appeals. In addition to my motion, I also have a motion on notice before HUMA, asking that the committee studies this badly broken program so that ailing and out-of-work Canadians do not continue to wait to have their cases heard. I hope that the cases get heard as quickly as possible so that Canadians are not left suffering. We cannot have unemployed Canadians denied employment insurance, Canada pension plan or old age security benefits. This is from someone on the inside, someone who has seen firsthand how badly broken this current system really is, and how much that is hurting people. It is that former member who also emphasized that under the current system she felt rushed, and that there was a possibility to feel resentful under the workload expectations caused by understaffing. She talks about fairness to the client and fairness of the process in past tense, suggesting instead that the current process is only about production and getting cases out of the way. We need to have a serious look at this tribunal and we need to see it fixed.

• published: 30 Sep 2014
• views: 85