Shared Services Canada and Employment and Social Development Canada are employing new emergency measures amid the COVID-19 outbreak to contend with “significantly increased” demand from Canadians wanting to access crucial supports, such as employment insurance and pension and old age benefit payments.

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Shared Services, the federal agency responsible for the federal bureaucracy’s IT services, has activated a “heightened awareness window” that will allow technical teams to “respond quickly in the event of any incident effecting mission-critical services,” the organization told iPolitics.

While Shared Services maintains that its “current capacity is sufficient to support essential services and employees” across the government, the agency acknowledges it’s currently working to further enhance “network readiness.” It’s doing so, in part, by asking employees to work at different times or on rotational shifts, and reducing their access to “non-essential activities and blocking non-essential social media sites.”

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Wednesday unveiled an $82-billion economic assistance package that includes $27.4 billion to provide direct support to workers and businesses, topping up the Canada Child Benefit and new financial supports for those feeling the effects of the virus pandemic. Last week, Ottawa also cut back on the one-week waiting period for EI benefits as well as waiving the medical note requirement for those going into quarantine or self-isolation.

Wednesday’s measures will also support caregivers, those on low incomes, students and Indigenous communities.

But, as the CBC reported, there were several intermittent crashes overnight Wednesday on the government’s website that allows people to apply for EI.

The crashes raise questions about how the government is bracing for the surge in demand by Canadians, especially after the implementation of a new Treasury Board directive calling on departments and agencies to allow employees to work remotely to help blunt the spread of the virus.

Employment and Social Development Canada (ESDC) acknowledged in an emailed statement to iPolitics that the department is “receiving significantly increased numbers of applications for EI.” And while maintaining that processing systems are properly functioning, ESDC said EI claimants “may expect delays in processing of claims due to volume,” although it stressed the delays “will not affect payment amounts.”

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In response to increased volume, ESDC said it’s “redeploying its workforce to provide added support to these critical services” and is also in the process of “hiring additional staff” to help in this work.

“To address this significant increase in applications, ESDC is prioritizing capacity to ensure critical service delivery requirements, such as Employment Insurance, Canada Pension Plan and Old Age Security are met with a particular focus on ensuring clients can apply and receive benefits to which they are entitled and continue to be paid,” the department added.

Debi Daviau, president of the Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada, one of the largest federal public sector unions, warned earlier this week that there’s simply “not enough capacity or VPN [virtual private network] connections” to allow all eligible public servants to work remotely, estimating the infrastructure in place could only handle “a quarter to a third” of employees.

While there are some workarounds that could enable more staff to work virtually, such as logging in to secured VPNs only to download necessary documents and using enabled mobile devices to access email, Daviau said these measures are realistically “only going to…keep the lights on.”

However, she credited the government for “doing the right thing” by “triaging critical services” and making sure employees that provide those essential services still have telework access, while telling others they “should not be coming to the workplace.”

Treasury Board President Jean-Yves Duclos told reporters on Thursday that the government is “very confident” that Service Canada and Canada Revenue Agency personnel, which are managing the delivery of enhanced EI and the special coronavirus benefits, will be able to do their jobs on a remote basis.

When asked by iPolitics on Wednesday about the level of readiness to meet increase demand, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said his government has been seized with ensuring public servants are capable of delivering these programs and benefits.

“Our capacity to do this is something that we have spent a lot of time over the past days ensuring, because we know that that can make the difference not just between one family facing tougher times or not but it could make a difference on the health of all Canadians,” he said.

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“People need to be able to self-isolate, need to be able to stay home, need to be able to care for their families when their ordinary sources of revenue dry up.”

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