A A

Canada hasn’t seen unemployment rates higher than 20 per cent since the darkest days of the Great Depression. Yet, at the end of the first day of eligibility for the new emergency aid benefit, three and half million Canadians had applied for Employment Insurance or the new benefit.

Nearly one quarter of the Canadian labour force is currently out of work – and we’re not done yet.

By Monday evening, the number of EI claims made since March 16 was 2.72 million. There were 788,000 Canada Emergency Response Benefit applications made on Monday alone.

These are staggering numbers and it is a testimony to the unsung heroes in the public service that 2.38 million of the EI applications have already been processed. The money to buy groceries or pay rent for more than two million hard-pressed families is either in their bank accounts, or will be in the next day or two.

That satisfactory outcome was by no means guaranteed, according to senior government officials.

At the daily senior management meeting in the department of Employment and Social Development, EI claims are rarely discussed. They typically range between 7-9,000 a day, and apart from seasonal cycles, tend not to swing around wildly.

But at the meeting on the morning of Tuesday, March 17, it was reported that the previous day’s claims had hit 71,000. This grabbed the attention of those sitting around the table since the worst day of the Great Recession had seen 38,000 applications.

There were immediate concerns that the surge in demand might crater the 46-year-old computer system, based on COBOL, an ancient programming language.

There were also worries about human resources – 3,500 people across the country apply the Byzantine rules that govern the Employment Insurance system (checking the applicant’s record of employment, unemployment rate in claimant’s area and so on). Those people normally process about 40,000 claims a week. When the number of applications for Tuesday, March 17 revealed a further 88,000 claims, there were grave doubts about the ability of the system to cope. By Friday, March 20, claims hit 214,000 for that day alone.

“Before COVID, that would have been a really bad six months for us. It was unbelievable. On the same day the year before, we’d had 7,100 claims,” said one official.

Governments and technology have had a chequered history in recent times

Over the course of the next two weeks, the department mobilized more processing staff, moving people from government agencies that slowed down in the crisis like Passport Canada. Officials said retired former EI processors even volunteered their services free of charge.

Those efforts were hampered by the need to close down processing centres across the country, forcing management to find laptops so staff could work from home and quickly ensure that remote access to the network was secure, given the amount of sensitive personal information being handled.

By Tuesday, March 31, the department had received 2.23 million claims in two weeks, of which it had processed 560,000. Even with twice as many people processing applications, it was clear that it was going to take some time before money started flowing to all claimants.

An avenue out of the crisis opened up when the government started talking about a flat rate payment for people not covered by Employment Insurance. If the EI applications process could be fully automated to go straight to payment of a flat sum, there was the prospect that the growing backlog could be cleared.

Governments and technology have had a chequered history in recent times, notably the Phoenix payroll processing system. In a more leisurely era, departments would take nine to 12 months to make potentially disastrous system changes – and even then, as Phoenix proved, things can still go horribly wrong.

In this instance, the department’s tech team tricked the antiquated system into thinking claims had already been processed, allowing them to move from input straight to payment.

By Wednesday, April 1, the department was ready to flick the switch on its technological fix and move all claims over to the automated system at the new flat rate – the same $2,000 a month payment that Canada Emergency Response Benefit applicants were eligible to start applying for this week.

At her press conference, employment minister Carla Qualtrough told reporters she’d authorized the new system to go ahead, that she believed it could process 400,000 claims a day and that she was confident the department would be able to clear all claims by April 6.

Her senior officials collectively inhaled and crossed their fingers. An initial test of 100 claims had proven successful. But hundreds of thousands of processed claims a day was a challenge of a different magnitude.

In the event, the new system exceeded expectations, clearing 500,000 claims in the first 24 hours.

By Monday, April 6, 2.24 million claims had been processed, meaning electronic or paper cheques were in the mail. The dispatch with which the whole process has been carried out does raise the question of why it takes 28 days under normal circumstances. But at this early stage, the system seems to have responded admirably, getting money into the hands of those that need it.

It is not likely to be perfect.

What they did here was unbelievable

Officials freely admit there is a higher risk of fraud under a system that does not have tight controls at the front end. But the government is in the process of putting in checks at the back-end, after money has been claimed, to cut down on graft. For example, anyone who double-dips and receives both EI and the new CERB will be identified through an after-the-fact reconciliation of the two systems at tax time next year.

One veteran public servant who experienced 9/11 and the 2008 financial crisis said he is in awe of the ingenuity and dedication of the employment department’s computer technicians and claims processors. “These are not people who are in the limelight. They are not in sexy jobs. But what they did here was unbelievable,” he said.

This column and this newspaper have often been critical of the federal bureaucracy when it has failed Canadians. In this case, it appears that many public servants have gone above and beyond the call of duty to ensure their fellow citizens can afford food and shelter. Ladies and gentlemen, we salute you.

• Email: jivison@postmedia.com | Twitter: IvisonJ

Copyright Postmedia Network Inc., 2020