Mahsi, Mr. Chairman. I feel the frustration of the Member and I do get those requests as well. As you know, we are going through some changes and recommendations being brought forward from the office of the Auditor General. That gives us an opportunity to improve our programs. As you know, these are regulations that we follow. It’s part of the Auditor’s report that we have to be stringent and follow our policies in place. There are some areas that we can be somewhat flexible and I’ve instructed my department, when it comes to professionalism, we need to treat everybody with respect.
We’ve conducted, I believe, a couple of workshops and training for CSOs, client service officers. We know it’s a high-demand position. We know it’s a very stressful position to be in. We provide support as best as we can as a department. There are times where one individual is working on a caseload of 30 or 40 at times. It’s a high demand, high stress area. Sometimes they lose their cool but at the same time we remind them they have to be courteous, they have to be professional in the work environment. Due to that, there has been some improvement to ensure those are consistently followed through.
Members have shared their concerns with me and I did follow through with my department to provide training. We’ll continue to do that. This is an area that I am fully familiar with, and again, working within the office of the Auditor General, they reviewed our income support file, as well, and that will be before us soon.