QUESTION PERIOD — Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship
Call Centre Performance
May 13, 2019
My question is for the Leader of the Government in the Senate.
In addition to the Auditor General’s examination of the processing of asylum claims, the recent report also looked at call centre performance across several government departments. The Auditor General found that the callers to the Department of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada had a wait time of 32 minutes to speak with an agent, the longest wait by far of any of the other organizations covered in the report. The Auditor General also found that 1.2 million calls were prevented from reaching an agent, about 70 per cent of the total number of calls to the immigration department’s call centre.
Senator Harder, I hope you would agree that these statistics are not acceptable. I would like to know what specifically the government is doing to improve services for Canadians, foreign nationals and permanent residents seeking information from the immigration department’s call centre.
I thank the honourable senator for her question. I can assure her that I and, more broadly, the government believe that call centre performance standards must be improved. Service standards must be respected. That is why this government has enhanced the resources available to call centres to make improvements. That is why the government has accepted the recommendations of the Auditor General. In fact, before the Auditor General deposited his report, steps were already undertaken to implement measures to improve the capacity of call centres. Indeed, in recent years, some $200 million have been allocated to upgrade call centre capacity.
This is a significant challenge, obviously, but it does show that Canadians are increasing their use of call centres and, therefore, putting additional stress and expectations that will have to be met by enhanced performance and greater capacity building.
Senator Harder, the report also noted that the department’s call centre has no service standards in place. As the Auditor General noted:
Without service standards, callers could not know what level of service they could expect from call centres, and the departments had no public commitments to meet.
The report also notes that the department plans to establish standards for client support services sometime in 2019.
Senator Harder, I would like to know whether the government has instructed the immigration department to set a firm deadline for the implementation of service standards? If so, can we know the date, please?
Senator, I would be happy to bring your specific question to the attention of the minister concerned. I do know from speaking with the minister that he is personally seized of this matter and determined to ensure that service standards are put in place.
