Government Operations Committee on Dec. 7th, 2023

[Marie-Chantal Girard]

I don't know if I would say “idea”. Is “obligation” the right term? I'm not sure.

As we were changing administrators, when it was made clear that it was Canada Life who had won, we knew there were privacy issues and personal information that could not be transferred from one person to another. There were 1.7 million.... Some have retired. Some were dependants who were now out of school and were no longer covered by the plan. Some are deceased, unfortunately. From all of that we had to make sure we had a clean slate and a clean base of information to implement the new plan. That's part of the reason pre-enrolment was done.

[Stephanie Kusie, Conservative, Calgary Midnapore, AB]

Was Canada Life able to have any consultations with Sun Life to ensure that the transition would be smooth for public servants?

[Marie-Chantal Girard]

To my knowledge, yes, they were. Sun Life and Canada Life were in touch. As part of the many committees during the implementation phase during the 18 months, both companies had interactions to ensure a smooth transition—which ended up not being so smooth.

[Stephanie Kusie, Conservative, Calgary Midnapore, AB]

Sure.

Were you aware of any breakdowns in communication that led to the numerous issues we've seen throughout the last five months?

[David Prest]

I would say there was no breakdown in communications that the Government of Canada is aware of. What we saw was an unanticipated volume of calls.

I think you'll hear from Canada Life as well that they had been anticipating call volumes that were similar to what Sun Life had faced. As of July 1, the volumes were many times that.

[Stephanie Kusie, Conservative, Calgary Midnapore, AB]

Thank you.

Is there a standard government practice to ensure that those who are receiving benefits are meant to be on the plan?

[Marie-Chantal Girard]

I'm sorry, Madam Kusie, but I'm not sure I understand your question.

[Stephanie Kusie, Conservative, Calgary Midnapore, AB]

That's no problem.

Relative to the implementation of the manual enrolment process, how do you ensure that those who are meant to receive benefits do in fact receive the benefits? Is there a way to bridge the gap or to ensure the gap is bridged?

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

You're going to have to provide that to us in writing, please.

Mr. Kusmierczyk, please go ahead.

[Irek Kusmierczyk, Liberal, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you so much for being here today on this important issue.

I have a question for Ms. Archambault.

It was mentioned that one of the benefits of retendering the contract is that doing so presents an opportunity to introduce new technology, new innovation or best practices. I'm not sure if I'm directing the question to the appropriate person, but would you be able to speak about some of the new technology innovation that this retendering process has introduced into the plan?

[Pascale Archambault]

I think Treasury Board would be better for that, but I can say that we did a lot of industry consultation when we were defining the requirement. They were all involved to help everybody define these requirements.

[David Prest]

Part of the retendering process was to improve the contract in the area of fraud detection, auditing and reporting, greening government and opportunities for indigenous Canadians under the new public service health care plan administrative contract as well.

[Irek Kusmierczyk, Liberal, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

Can you unpackage that for us a little bit? What does that mean? Maybe you can provide an example.

[David Prest]

Sure.

There were criteria, of course, under the former administrator to provide reporting and auditing. However, there was another level of fraud management from a digital perspective using artificial intelligence, for example, to identify cases of fraudulent claims.

It also involved the greening of government and moving our plan membership with 1.7 million individuals to mostly digital claims while still offering, of course, the opportunity for paper claims processing—especially for retired members, who seem to enjoy that—but really making it easier for our plan members to take advantage of the digital aspects.

[Irek Kusmierczyk, Liberal, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

This was definitely taking a digital leap with this new program, this new tender. Is that fair to say?

[David Prest]

Absolutely.

[Irek Kusmierczyk, Liberal, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

It's interesting. In another committee, we studied the impact of AI on workers, and I hadn't considered the impact that it might have on a public service health plan, so thank you very much for sharing that information.

What are some of the unique challenges, you would say, in operating this particular plan?

[David Prest]

This is an extremely complex plan. It's not only large in terms of membership, but also demographically spread out across Canada. We have a central national capital region where a number of our members reside, but they're across Canada in rural regions as well.

Access to medical professionals is not always equitable across the country. It's also an extremely complex benefit plan. This is why it's extremely important that we find a plan administrator who can adjudicate the claims and deal with a unique plan membership. It is complex, it's widespread, and it's the largest plan in Canada.

[Irek Kusmierczyk, Liberal, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

How many companies in Canada would you say—ballpark it—have the capacity to fulfill such a plan, the complexity of it, to the standards we expect? I'm just curious.

[Marie-Chantal Girard]

I wouldn't want to try to guess, but besides the largest known ones, there aren't that many that actually have the infrastructure and the capacity to deliver it. They do complement their service offer with the expertise of smaller companies, and that's why it gives opportunities now to indigenous companies that are specialized in different areas to work with them in the delivery.

It is usually quite large businesses that apply for those contracts.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

You have five seconds.

[Irek Kusmierczyk, Liberal, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

I will yield my time.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Wonderful.

Seeing as Mr. Kusmierczyk has yielded 10 seconds to me, do you mind if I ask you a couple of quick questions?

You mentioned that there are 50 added benefits. Would you be able to provide to the committee not only the added benefits, but also, perhaps, the drugs and the benefits taken away?

Also, there were a lot of items we left for you on which you will respond back to the committee. Our committee passed a motion requiring all those within three weeks from today. We appreciate it.

We will excuse you. Thanks very much for joining us today.

Colleagues, we have Canada Life on the line and all ready to go, so we're only going to suspend.

We will have bells at 5:15. I'm hoping we'll have agreement so that we can work through the bells to get in the full rounds with Canada Life, if that's okay.

Witnesses, you are excused.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Colleagues, we are back. Joining us, we have officials from Canada Life.

We're starting with Mr. Weiss.

I understand you have an opening statement for us. Go ahead, Mr. Weiss. You have five minutes.

[Ryan Weiss, Senior Vice-President, Group Benefits, Canada Life]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

My name is Ryan Weiss. I am the senior vice-president of group benefits at Canada Life. My portfolio includes the public service health care plan. I am joined today by Thi Vu, who is our regional vice-president within our group customer division in Quebec. We appreciate the opportunity to provide an update to the committee on implementation of the public service health care plan.

This plan provides benefits to thousands of Canadians who have dedicated their lives in the service of this country, and it is our honour to support them.

We know the transition has not been smooth for all members of the public service health care plan.

Before I pass it to my colleague Thi, let me just say to those who had a poor service experience in recent months, we are sorry.