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

Government Operations committee  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.

Government Operations committee  Yes.

Government Operations committee  Do you mean before the negotiation of the plan, not the contract part?

Government Operations committee  I will start, and my colleague will complete my answer if need be. There's a partners committee, with the support of the administration authority. That's how we receive information on an ongoing basis on how the plan is doing. For example, for years we heard about how many appeals we had received.

Government Operations committee  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.

Government Operations committee  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.

Government Operations committee  That is right, according to the information I have.

Government Operations committee  I think so. It's also worth noting that, for a week and a half now, Canada Life has been posting performance data on its website, so that information is available to you. I will still provide the dashboard.

Government Operations committee  Thank you. Several of the questions that you ask are really directed towards Canada Life and their management practices, so perhaps open up those questions to them. I will say that we also noted the need for more communications and adaptive communications. We have communicated extensively, but still we know that practices are changing and habits are changing.

Government Operations committee  As the employer, the terms and conditions of employment that we offer to our employees include their salaries, of course, but also a pension and benefits. There are several benefit plans. There are plans in different organizations, but for the core public administration, we have health, dental and disability benefits.

Government Operations committee  Absolutely. We have seen an evolution in the nature of the issues, and that has allowed us to monitor progress. Many things have been done. First, Canada Life has more than doubled the staff that they put [Technical difficulty—Editor] call centres, but also for the treatment of claims themselves.

Government Operations committee  I'm going to look at the weekly dashboard we get from Canada Life. According to the information provided by Canada Life—again, its representatives will be appearing after us—the company had processed 13,000 claims as of November 29. Much of the backlog had been cleared and the average processing time was 2.2 days.

Government Operations committee  The plan is managed as part of governance, or part of the policy. Therefore, what the plan covers is indeed negotiated under the purview of the partners committee of the PSHCP. It includes representatives from bargaining agents, the NAFR—the national retiree federation—and the employer.

Government Operations committee  First, I believe that Sun Life had to, during the extensive period that it delivered this, update its information and its enrolment information of the members.