Results at a glance

From: Employment and Social Development Canada

What funds were used?

In fiscal year 2017–18, Employment and Social Development Canada (ESDC) expenditures on programs and services totalled $125.6 billion, of which:

• $118.4 billion (94%) directly benefited Canadians through Employment Insurance (EI), the Canada Pension Plan (CPP), Old Age Security (OAS) and other statutory transfer payment programs.
• Departmental expenditures were $2.4 billion in voted grants and contributions and $2.2 billion for employment benefits and support measures.
• $1.1 billion in Canada Education Savings Grants and Canada Learning Bonds was paid into Registered Education Savings Plans to help Canadians save early for a child’s post-secondary education.

Who was involved?

As the fourth-largest department in the Government of Canada, our employees touched the lives of Canadians across the entire country. In fiscal year 2017 to 2018, of the total 23,106 FTEs

(full-time equivalents – see “Appendix: Definitions”):

• 18,992 FTEs (82%) were involved in the delivery of direct benefits to Canadians such as EI, the CPP, OAS, other statutory transfer payment programs and grants and contributions across Canada.
• 4,114 FTEs (18%) supported the delivery of departmental programs and services.

ESDC assisted millions of Canadians in fiscal year 2017–18

• There were 290 million visits to mobile friendly Canada.ca, where Canadians can locate detailed and general information on Government of Canada and ESDC programs and services. Employment and Social Development Canada is the principal publisher for Canada.ca.
• There were over 28.8 million logins to the My Service Canada Account (MSCA) secure portal, where clients can access their EI, CPP and OAS account and claim information.
• Over 7 million calls were answered by Service Canada’s specialized call centres (4.6 million EI, 2.4 million Pensions, and 480,000 Employer Contact Centre)
• The Passport Call Centre answered 1.6 million calls and 4.7 million passports were issued.
• Over 1.66 million calls were answered by 1 800 O-Canada agents.
• 16.5 million EI enquiries and 3.2 million CPP and OAS enquiries were resolved in the Interactive Voice Response system.
• There were 8.9 million in-person visits to Service Canada Centres and Scheduled Outreach sites.
• 2.8 million EI applications were processed (initial and renewal); 1.5 million CPP applications were processed (all new applications); 2.8 million OAS applications were processed (initial and renewal); and over 9.9 million changes were made to CPP and OAS client accounts.
• 22.3 million payments were issued for EI (initial and renewal); 68.1 million payments for the CPP; and 72.8 million payments for OAS.
• 710,000 full-time post-secondary students (of all ages) received federal student financial assistance, which includes students who received a Canada Student Loan, a Canada Student Grant and/or those who benefited from an in-study interest subsidy.
• $3.8 billion was withdrawn from Registered Education Savings Plans to help cover the costs of post-secondary education for 431,009 students.
• 94% of labour disputes in federally regulated workplaces were settled without a work stoppage as part of the collective bargaining process.

Budgetary Financial Resources (dollars)

	Fiscal Year 2017–18 Main Estimates*	Fiscal Year 2017–18 Planned Spending	Fiscal Year 2017–18 Total Authorities Available for Use	Fiscal Year 2017–18 Actual Spending (authorities used)	Difference (actual minus planned)**
Planned Gross Spending	59,304,801,498	128,345,390,246	125,760,438,759	125,628,936,421	(2,716,453,825)
Planned Spending in Specified Purpose Accounts	0	69,040,588,748	65,534,114,384	65,574,855,653	(3,465,733,095)
Planned Revenues netted against expenditures	1,881,945,883	1,881,945,883	2,151,812,778	2,082,833,146	200,887,263
Planned Net Spending	57,422,855,615	57,422,855,615	58,074,511,597	57,971,247,622	548,392,007

• * Employment Insurance and Canada Pension Plan benefits are excluded from the 2017–18 Main Estimates, while they are included in the 2017–18, 2018–19 and 2019–20 planned spending. The Employment Insurance Operating (EIO) Account and the Canada Pension Plan are Specified Purpose Accounts. The transactions of these accounts are to be accounted for separately.
• ** The Gross Spending difference is mainly due to actual spending of Part I EI benefits being lower than originally planned due to an improvement in the labour market conditions, which resulted in a decrease in regular benefit payments. It is also attributable to a lower than planned OAS pension and CPP benefits – as a result of lower than expected inflation - and higher than planned OAS benefit repayments. The fact that Planned spending at the time of the Departmental Plan did not include funding for Early Learning and Child Care (approved in spring 2017) offsets part of the effect of those overestimations. Other factors that offset the overestimations are: the expansion of eligibility thresholds for Canada Student Grants and introduction of a fixed student contribution to determine eligibility for grants having spent more than originally planned; loans that were written off by Employment and Social Development Canada under Vote 7c from the Appropriation Act No. 5, 2017–18 which were not part of planned spending; and more people taking advantage of the education savings incentives, particularly the Canada Learning Bond, due, in part, to various initiatives to increase awareness and take-up showing actual spending higher than originally planned.

Human Resources (full-time equivalents [FTEs]*)

Fiscal Year 2017–18 Planned	Fiscal Year 2017–18 Actual	Fiscal Year 2017–18 Difference (actual minus planned)
21,821	23,106	1,285

• * The variance is due mainly to additional resources for implementation and service delivery related to Budget 2017 EI measures such as changes to EI special benefits, to support the increase to call centre service standards, to process claims above the EI claims baseline, and for NHQ transformation. It also reflects additional investments in processing-related activities to ensure that seniors have timely access to the OAS benefits. Those resources were received after Planned FTEs were determined.

For more information on ESDC’s plans, priorities and results achieved, see the “Results: What we achieved” section of this report.