Letter to Marie-Chantal Girard from Jennifer Carr on the PSHCP transition

Marie-Chantal Girard
Senior Assistant Deputy Minister
Employee Relations and Total Compensation Sector
Office of the Chief Human Resources Officer
Treasury Board Secretariat
By email: Marie-Chantal.Girard@tbs-sct.gc.ca

October 24, 2023

Dear Marie-Chantal,

I am writing today to express my complete frustration over the innumerable and seemingly unending issues faced by our members dealing with Canada Life since the Public Service Health Care Plan service provider transition on July 1, 2023.

Some four months after its implementation, thousands of PIPSC members, both active and retired, simply cannot obtain effective and timely support from Canada Life. While I recognize that any transition that affects over one and a half million customers would inevitably experience a limited number of technical or other problems, the sheer ineptitude demonstrated by Canada Life is completely unacceptable.

I find Canada Life’s “all is well” messages to Plan members most inappropriate in this regard and frankly offensive given the mess that has been created. At this point, I must question the performance data they are providing you that purports to show definite progress since July 1^st. We continue to receive numerous complaints from our members on a daily basis regarding wait times, call dropping and the need to keep trying again and again to get through to a Canada Life representative.

Particularly egregious is their claim that wait times have dropped from an hour to about 25 minutes - how are they calculating this? Our members are reporting wait times well beyond this figure and even being on hold for some 3 hours! Other metrics be put in place to truly gauge the scope of the disaster. For example, claims are backlogged for up to six weeks; some members are told they will receive a call back - but don’t; others are told they are covered by provincial programs - that either don’t exist or don’t apply. We are also informed that Canada Life is not respecting the name brand/catastrophic legacy protection clause. All these situations demonstrate that optimistically-reported wait times are simply not an accurate reflection of the very poor quality of service our members are receiving from Canada Life.

We have also heard reports of Canada Life's new out-of-country travel insurance partner, MHS, being woefully unprepared for the job. This includes a near-total lack of readily available information on travel benefits and policies, a dysfunctional website, and no functioning customer support. Seeing the provider had several months to prepare, we are shocked to learn that nearly nothing was in place for the handover. We know of members who cancelled travel or purchased unnecessary private travel insurance simply because MSH could not provide the most basic of information.

While the introduction of a phone number to help bargaining agents refer emergency situations to Canada Life can help in a few cases, it is plainly not enough to deal with the overwhelming number of requests for assistance. Bargaining agents can only do so much to help resolve this very serious issue given that the supplier reports directly to the Employer. I am sure you will agree that it is not our role to manage Canada Life, and understand why we are discussing this issue further with other union colleagues and retiree representatives who share our concerns.

The Treasury Board must immediately and vigorously step in at this point to get Canada Life back on track. Could I ask you to please advise me of the additional plans under development to address these matters on a permanent basis? In the meantime, we will continue to refer our members to the Administrative Authority, to their Member of Parliament, and to the National Joint Council Secretariat for support.

Sincerely,