Government Operations Committee on Feb. 26th, 2024

[Julie Vignola, Bloc, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

Yes.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Bachrach, go ahead, please, sir.

[Taylor Bachrach, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I note Mr. Sousa's remarks on universal pharmacare, which I very much welcome. I am delighted that we were able to drag his party kicking and screaming to the place where they're expected to table legislation in the House this week. It's going to be a tremendous win for all Canadians, and we're going to continue to push until that legislation is passed into law so that Canadians can access the kinds of benefits we're talking about today.

I have only two and a half minutes. I'm not going to accept an interruption, but I will note that all three of the stories shared with us today about members of the PSAC who have gone through really difficult circumstances involved the medications they needed to live healthy lives.

My question on that note would be this: What should the government learn from this experience with Canada Life as it moves towards, hopefully, the timely implementation of universal pharmacare in Canada? What should it learn from the problems we've experienced with this company?

[Seth Sazant]

Clearly the provision of benefits in this case has been a major problem. Whatever systems are in place here will obviously need to be refined, and we need a better understanding of where to go from there.

I think it's interesting that the public service health care plan is the largest private plan that exists, with over 1.5 million members plus many other dependants who are covered under the plan. Scale is obviously something that will have to be considered very closely going forward.

[Taylor Bachrach, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Could you elaborate on scale? It's scale in what sense?

[Seth Sazant]

My point is that, when we're talking about the provision of benefits for large numbers of people, there are going to have to be systems in place that will respond to that. Again, I believe that, obviously, the system would be different for whatever public plan will be in place, but that's something that will have to be considered quite closely.

[Taylor Bachrach, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Ensuring that they're prepared for the enrolment process and the rollout of the services under a public plan, I think that's very well taken.

Mr. Sousa, in his previous remarks, indicated that the government is working to make things better, and you've acknowledged some improvement over recent months. However, it doesn't necessarily address the first question that you brought to us, which is how we make people whole who have been negatively affected by Canada Life's treatment of their cases and their requests.

Does that remain an outstanding piece in your mind despite the improvements that we've seen?

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

We're past our time. Could you offer a short answer?

[Seth Sazant]

Yes, that absolutely does, and that's something my colleague Ms. Hart has referred to numerous times here. That is something we'll absolutely be pursuing going forward.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Thank you, Mr. Bachrach.

Mrs. Block, go ahead, please.

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek, SK]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I believe that the devil is always in the details. While we have members from two parties here patting each other on the back for something that I think could end up being another boondoggle, I will just point out that you pointed out that you were not given the contract as the representative of the public servants who are the members of this plan.

What reasons have you been given for not being provided a copy of the contract between the government and Canada Life?

[Seth Sazant]

We've simply been told that we're not entitled to that information.

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek, SK]

That's very interesting.

We have often heard the government's excuses regarding the withholding of documents, and we share in the frustration of having important information withheld. They have refused to disclose the EV contracts, though they claim that they are amazing for Canadians. They have withheld documents across all departments in regard to our McKinsey study and are being accused of withholding information regarding our ArriveCAN study.

I'll ask you if you are at least aware of any actions the federal government has taken to date to ensure that Canada Life is at least complying with its contract?

[Seth Sazant]

We're, in fact, not provided with that information either. It's something that we've requested. We will continue to request that, but since that six-month grace period expired as of the start of this calendar year, we're still not aware of whether or not they're in compliance with their contract at this point.

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek, SK]

It's really hard to ensure that they are when you don't know what's in the contract and you're not being given any updates as to whether or not they are complying.

I'm going to turn the rest of my time over to my colleague Mrs. Kusie.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

You have three minutes, Mrs. Kusie.

[Stephanie Kusie, Conservative, Calgary Midnapore, AB]

Thank you very much.

I talked before about the security clearances, as was brought up by the Auditor General.

In light of the two recent breaches, one including a Canada Life subcontractor, MSH, which was previously brought up by my colleague, are you concerned that subcontractors are not properly vetted?

[Seth Sazant]

That's significantly outside of my area of expertise.

[Stephanie Kusie, Conservative, Calgary Midnapore, AB]

Okay.

My colleague also touched on this, but I'll continue on this.

Was your organization consulted on the decision to implement a manual enrolment process instead of the standard automatic enrolment process for public servants? This was brought up as a significant choke point in the initial meeting.

[Seth Sazant]

You're testing my memory quite well here.

We had numerous discussions over the last three years or so, where there were discussions about a number of issues prior to moving benefit providers. That included the negotiations, which I believe took well over two years to conclude, from start to finish.

I'm sure there was some discussion at some point about a positive enrolment process. I won't say that we were not consulted, but I will also be very clear to say that this isn't something that sticks out very strongly in my mind.

[Stephanie Kusie, Conservative, Calgary Midnapore, AB]

That's interesting because it was a major point in our first meeting.

My next question was going to be relative to the stress on your membership relative to this process and the additional strain of the transition. Would you have any further comments on that?

[Seth Sazant]

Again, our overriding interest here is ensuring that members are able to access their benefits in a reasonable and timely way.

We've seen over the last eight months now some serious problems with that. Even as improvements happen, we have significant concerns with where this is going. We still see some major barriers out there. Our interest is in ensuring that this all gets resolved and that members are made whole.

[Stephanie Kusie, Conservative, Calgary Midnapore, AB]

I'm going back to procurement, which we've discussed here somewhat today. The Treasury Board recently released a new standard for procurement called the “Manager's Guide: Key Considerations When Procuring Professional Services”.

Has this question booklet helped the public service reduce its reliance on contractors and provided any clarity to public servants?

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Give a short answer, please.

[Seth Sazant]

Again, this is significantly outside my area of expertise.