Hon. Tony Loffreda: Honourable senators, my question is for the Government Representative in the Senate. Senator Gold, last week the Auditor General released four performance audit reports, one of which focused on access to benefits for hard-to-reach populations. Ms. Hogan found that the Canada Revenue Agency and Employment and Social Development Canada, or ESDC, had an incomplete picture of potentially eligible people who were not receiving benefits, and the departments did not know whether most of their targeted outreach activities had helped to increase benefit take-up rates for hard-to-reach populations.

Can you share with Canadians what the government is doing to increase the number of hard-to-reach individuals who are eligible for government-funded benefits? Although it’s only two years old, can you tell us if Service Canada’s Reaching All Canadians initiative is reaping any benefits and showing early signs of success?

Senator Loffreda: Thank you for the answer, Senator Gold. It’s reassuring.

As Ms. Hogan said, the government needs to find out what the barriers that prevent hard-to-reach populations from accessing these programs are and then tailor its outreach programs instead of repeating the same recipe over and over again in the hopes that it will generate more buy-in.

I know the government acknowledged the responsibility to help Canadians receive their benefits, and to that effect it allocated $18 million in 2021 to ESDC and CRA for targeted outreach activities. Is the government able to provide us with an update on how this money was spent, and how many Canadians it helped obtain benefits they otherwise would have likely not received or applied for?