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http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/story/2013/07/20/bc-ei-whistleblower-suspended.html

A federal fraud investigator has been suspended without pay, after she leaked documents showing that investigators had to cut people off their employment insurance benefits in order to meet quotas.

Sylvie Therrien told CBC News that she and other investigators were given a target to recover nearly $500,000 in EI benefits every year.

"It just was against my values, harassing claimants… trying to penalize them in order to save money for the government. We had quotas to meet every month," Therrien said.

Therrien leaked documents to the media anonymously in the spring showing investigators were ordered to find $485,000 in savings each year by denying claims.

The federal government denied that any quotas were in place, but the opposition hammered the Conservatives on the issue.

"Telling investigators that they each had to find half a million in fraud presumes that there is widespread fraud, that they're all a bunch of cheaters and criminals," said NDP Leader Thomas Mulcair in the House of Commons in February. EI investigators were then called in for questioning themselves to find out who leaked the document.

"Witchhunt terminology. It definitely describes what was happening," said Don Rogers, national president of the Canada Employment and Immigration Union.

"They were trying to find out who had told the media that there were targets to be achieved."

Therrien was questioned by investigators in May. She admitted she was the source of the leak and was suspended without pay.

"I knew my job was in peril. I knew that, but I couldn't continue. I couldn't sleep," she said.

"I was thinking just about those people… I was going to send them and their children into the street… and now here I am on the street."

Therrien suspects she will be fired, but hopes her union and lawyer will back her up in court.

Human Resources Canada would not give any details about Therrien's case. But in a statement, it says all Service Canada employees are bound by a declaration not to go public with government information.

Conservative ideology gone wild?

Citizen...all is fine.....unless we start rationing alcohol then we be in trouble.......

Oh, look. Exactly what everyone predicted would happen when the plan was announced last summer happend just as predicted.

Not being funny. Is this from Budget cuts?

So the government suspends her for leaking government documents demonstrating that they have quotas, and they then proceed to claim that they don't have quotas, thus eliminating the reason to suspend her without pay. Brilliant!

Jihadin wrote:Not being funny. Is this from Budget cuts?

The federal government passed a massive budget that included the elimination of many useful services in order to placate people who should not be placated, and basically took a Welfare Queen page out of Reagan's book.

Appeasing one group of the mobs over another group of mob. Crap going to come around and bite off a left ass cheek

Um... Seems a little odd.

When I worked for local government our Fraud investigators had targets, and there job was to assume that everyone could be up to something, and find out if they were... Not by harassing claimants, but by looking for suspicions activity and investigating. This is rather like the police complaining that they have to be on the lookout for crime.

Assuming there there is fraud and looking for it is not the same as being told to make it up. Surely if the claim is correct then you can't find fraud... You work to set laws and rules and the claim is either valid or not.

If they are refusing valid claims then there is a problem, but that is not what she is saying, just that she had targets for the amount of fraud she had to find. That seems logical to me. How else do you measure performance if you don't have a metric?

I would suggest she was not suited to the job of a fraud investigator if the did not like looking for fraud...

 Steve steveson wrote:
Um... Seems a little odd.

When I worked for local government our Fraud investigators had targets, and there job was to assume that everyone could be up to something, and find out if they were... Not by harassing claimants, but by looking for suspicions activity and investigating. This is rather like the police complaining that they have to be on the lookout for crime.

It's more like telling traffic police they have to meet their target number of infringements each week. Which is something that happens, and predictably has the same effect as this quota for detecting fraud - under pressure to meet their targets police will start stop using discretion in marginal cases, and instead just write the ticket.

Assuming there there is fraud and looking for it is not the same as being told to make it up. Surely if the claim is correct then you can't find fraud... You work to set laws and rules and the claim is either valid or not.

Except those rules are being applied to the real world, which is very complex and requires a great deal of judgement and intelligence. That's why case workers and not robots are employed to do the job.

If they are refusing valid claims then there is a problem, but that is not what she is saying, just that she had targets for the amount of fraud she had to find. That seems logical to me. How else do you measure performance if you don't have a metric?

The idea that everything is better when its measured is a really corrosive piece of stupidity that spread across the business world in the last few decades. In many cases measuring just produces a perverse incentive, and instead of people just doing their jobs as professional, competent people, you produce game playing.

 sebster wrote:

Except those rules are being applied to the real world, which is very complex and requires a great deal of judgement and intelligence. That's why case workers and not robots are employed to do the job.

I am fully aware of this. As I said I used to work in local government. I did benefit recovery. I didn't deal with fraud, but with recovery of money overpaid in error. Fraud was dealt with by a specialist fraud investigation team. I worked quite closely with them as we would have to pass over anything that we came across that looked "wrong" and we the post conviction recovery for them.

However, that dose not change the fact that someone either is or is not committing fraud. Yes, the rules and laws can be very complex (I asume that Canada is much the same as the UK in benefit laws being a complex mess of rules and interactions), however, that effects errors and incorrect claims, not fraud. Fraud is quit simple. The complex bit is finding it as people are very good at hiding it.

The idea that everything is better when its measured is a really corrosive piece of stupidity that spread across the business world in the last few decades. In many cases measuring just produces a perverse incentive, and instead of people just doing their jobs as professional, competent people, you produce game playing.

There have been some stupid target setting, but you need some form of metric or measure to tell if people are doing there jobs, especially when you are looking at a non profit or product generating activity, and specialists that may be managed by non specialists.. As anyone who has been a manager will tell you you cannot just "let people get on with it". You need some way of telling if they are doing there job or not.

It becomes a problem when it is poorly implemented. The poor implementation normally comes in what you do when people fail to meet targets or by poorly set targets. If they feel pressured to meet them no matter what, or if targets are set in a way that fails to take in to account other factors, then you can run in to problems. Good targets measure performance and support the business. Setting good targets and goals, and managing them correctly, is a vital part of good management.

Yeah, Steve, here's the two most grievous problems:

1. setting a target quota implies that there is fraud; this is akin to telling the police that the suspect is guilty and they should prove it. That assumption taints the investigation.

2. setting a quota creates a conflict of interest between the investigator and the case. The investigator now has an obligation to decline X number of cases, or else face penalty.

In the past I've worked well above ground-level in an industry that is virtually defined by metrics, and I can tell you this: they create a corrosive environment of fear and gaming the system. They are fantastic tools to use in the short-term and to help base general policies, but the combination of metrics and micromanagement go together like cocaine and heroin: some people just love that combo and can't get enough, but sooner or later it'll wreck everything.

 azazel the cat wrote:
Yeah, Steve, here's the two most grievous problems:

1. setting a target quota implies that there is fraud; this is akin to telling the police that the suspect is guilty and they should prove it. That assumption taints the investigation.

2. setting a quota creates a conflict of interest between the investigator and the case. The investigator now has an obligation to decline X number of cases, or else face penalty.

In the past I've worked well above ground-level in an industry that is virtually defined by metrics, and I can tell you this: they create a corrosive environment of fear and gaming the system. They are fantastic tools to use in the short-term and to help base general policies, but the combination of metrics and micromanagement go together like cocaine and heroin: some people just love that combo and can't get enough, but sooner or later it'll wreck everything.

That's what's happening to American Healthcare industry...

*whembly waves at Azazel, then runs like the roadrunner that his is...

Now I'm so confused. I can't tell which is a joke anymore. :(

 Steve steveson wrote:
However, that dose not change the fact that someone either is or is not committing fraud. Yes, the rules and laws can be very complex (I asume that Canada is much the same as the UK in benefit laws being a complex mess of rules and interactions), however, that effects errors and incorrect claims, not fraud. Fraud is quit simple. The complex bit is finding it as people are very good at hiding it.

That's right, someone is or isn't committing fraud. And an investigator operating in an objective manner has no control over each case as he comes across it, he just processes it, or at least should process it, according to the facts of the issue.

And so consider a hard working case worker, there at work 7:00 every morning, doesn't leave for home until 9:30 at night, because they're just passionate about the job. For reasons of plain and simple luck, they come across just a handful of cases of corruption during the month, and so fail to meet their target quota. They process more cases than anyone else in the department... but get a poor score for the month.

Then consider some other guy, who gets through about half the cases in a month, due to getting in late, leaving early, and just generally screwing around all the time. But he meets his target... either because in this month he got lucky, or because he's inclined to call corruption on cases just to meet his quota.

I mean, here you have all kinds of simple metrics that could be measured. You could look at the total cases processed, if you wanted to make sure people are actually working. And you could then add a QA check that measures how many processed cases are approved by supervisors

Or you could do what government did, and apply a metric that is driven largely by an external factor that the employee can only influence by compromising their professional judgement.

There have been some stupid target setting, but you need some form of metric or measure to tell if people are doing there jobs, especially when you are looking at a non profit or product generating activity, and specialists that may be managed by non specialists.. As anyone who has been a manager will tell you you cannot just "let people get on with it". You need some way of telling if they are doing there job or not.

Yeah, that's the reasoning that's produced death by metrics. As a guy who manages staff, and works on a daily basis with producing metrics to track business performance, I can tell you that metrics can be a tremendous tool if they're applied well and appropriate for the task at hand, but elsewhere they can be utterly corrosive. And about eight times out of ten, when they're a total clusterfeth its because the thing being measured just shouldn't be measured.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 azazel the cat wrote:
In the past I've worked well above ground-level in an industry that is virtually defined by metrics, and I can tell you this: they create a corrosive environment of fear and gaming the system. They are fantastic tools to use in the short-term and to help base general policies, but the combination of metrics and micromanagement go together like cocaine and heroin: some people just love that combo and can't get enough, but sooner or later it'll wreck everything.

Yeah, I think its important to remember metrics evolved in manufacturing, and its in industries like that that metrics are ideally used. Tracking simple, repetitive tasks, where the driving factors of each task are almost entirely in the control of the company (process time, waste, QA approved units etc), and cost control is the primary driver of competitiveness.

The more you move away from that, the weaker and weaker metrics become. And the weaker the metrics become, then as you say you get fear and you get gaming the system, especially when you hardwire employee approval scores and raises/bonuses to that system.

Numbers games create more numbers games. I couldn't agree more with that.

As a Canadian I've been fortunate enough never to apply for EI however I've been paying into it for a while. I'm happy to know that it's there if I should ever need it.

The concept of assuming each worker can find $495,000.00 in fraud is insane and is a product of our currently in charge and scandal ridden conservative party. The amount one is eligible to collect from EI can vary drastically, just as the amount of time one can expect to remain unemployed can vary drastically as well depending on their particular skill set and field. The conservatives have been playing semantics over this whole thing, "they're not quotas...they're..uhh...targets, yeah targets".

This whistleblower, she should get a fething medal, instead she may lose her job and is considered persona non grata and an "insider threat" by the conservative party.

 daedalus wrote:
Now I'm so confused. I can't tell which is a joke anymore. :(

We're living in an age where Poe's Law is dead, and The Onion has begun reporting news without alteration, because they simply cannot keep up with the raw, undiluted shenanigans reality is throwing their way.

Is does not bode well for our species.

 Crablezworth wrote:
Numbers games create more numbers games. I couldn't agree more with that.

As a Canadian I've been fortunate enough never to apply for EI however I've been paying into it for a while. I'm happy to know that it's there if I should ever need it.

The concept of assuming each worker can find $495,000.00 in fraud is insane and is a product of our currently in charge and scandal ridden conservative party. The amount one is eligible to collect from EI can vary drastically, just as the amount of time one can expect to remain unemployed can vary drastically as well depending on their particular skill set and field. The conservatives have been playing semantics over this whole thing, "they're not quotas...they're..uhh...targets, yeah targets".

This whistleblower, she should get a fething medal, instead she may lose her job and is considered persona non grata and an "insider threat" by the conservative party.

In all fairness, considering how the Harper government has been running things these last few years, you should be expecting this by now.

Good, too many EI bums leeching off the system, too many abuses going on for far too long.

Get a job, or save up for inbetween jobs,

Im sick of paying for other peoples entitlements.

EI is such an abused system, there are far too many people abusing it. If people are so worried about being unemployed they can buy private employment insurance instead of having other people pay into EI for 50+ years just so they can make 30k from a seasonal job and live off EI the rest of the year.

Welfare lite, and whenever people get cross examined for their free money they whine like its some nazi ideal to audit the money the welfare, err EI, users are getting.


Oh boo hoo, its my job to make sure we dont give free money to the wrong people, and I am measured on how well I do that.

more CBC conservative hate mongering

(this is coming from someone who has only ever voted liberal FYI)

 easysauce wrote:
Good, too many EI bums leeching off the system, too many abuses going on for far too long.

Get a job, or save up for inbetween jobs,

Im sick of paying for other peoples entitlements.

EI is such an abused system, there are far too many people abusing it. If people are so worried about being unemployed they can buy private employment insurance instead of having other people pay into EI for 50+ years just so they can make 30k from a seasonal job and live off EI the rest of the year.

Welfare lite, and whenever people get cross examined for their free money they whine like its some nazi ideal to audit the money the welfare, err EI, users are getting.


Oh boo hoo, its my job to make sure we dont give free money to the wrong people, and I am measured on how well I do that.

more CBC conservative hate mongering

(this is coming from someone who has only ever voted liberal FYI)

I don't think you understand how EI works. Just gonna put that out there.

 easysauce wrote:
Good, too many EI bums leeching off the system, too many abuses going on for far too long.

Get a job, or save up for inbetween jobs,

Im sick of paying for other peoples entitlements.

EI is such an abused system, there are far too many people abusing it. If people are so worried about being unemployed they can buy private employment insurance instead of having other people pay into EI for 50+ years just so they can make 30k from a seasonal job and live off EI the rest of the year.

Welfare lite, and whenever people get cross examined for their free money they whine like its some nazi ideal to audit the money the welfare, err EI, users are getting.


Oh boo hoo, its my job to make sure we dont give free money to the wrong people, and I am measured on how well I do that.

more CBC conservative hate mongering

(this is coming from someone who has only ever voted liberal FYI)

Finally, someone said it.

If it's anything similar to Unemployment in the US, it's a broken system. Anything you can do to encourage leeches to find jobs and release the government nipple is a good thing.

 NuggzTheNinja wrote:

 easysauce wrote:
Good, too many EI bums leeching off the system, too many abuses going on for far too long.

Get a job, or save up for inbetween jobs,

Im sick of paying for other peoples entitlements.

EI is such an abused system, there are far too many people abusing it. If people are so worried about being unemployed they can buy private employment insurance instead of having other people pay into EI for 50+ years just so they can make 30k from a seasonal job and live off EI the rest of the year.

Welfare lite, and whenever people get cross examined for their free money they whine like its some nazi ideal to audit the money the welfare, err EI, users are getting.


Oh boo hoo, its my job to make sure we dont give free money to the wrong people, and I am measured on how well I do that.

more CBC conservative hate mongering

(this is coming from someone who has only ever voted liberal FYI)

Finally, someone said it.

If it's anything similar to Unemployment in the US, it's a broken system. Anything you can do to encourage leeches to find jobs and release the government nipple is a good thing.

"I, also, misunderstand how unemployment works."

 Crablezworth wrote:

I don't think you understand how EI works. Just gonna put that out there.

right, sorry EI is too complex for little old me, here I thought all those people who go on it every single year after working the bare minimum were milking the system.


OBS that is how its "supposed" to work.

this is just one of MANY examples, from ONE province, of long standing (20years+) abuse of the system.

you should at least be PRO regulation of EI to get all the scammers out, and let the people who actually need it and dont get it now get it at least.

from Canada Customs and Revenue Agency (CCRA) and Human Resources Development Canada (HRDC) - Dealing with Suspected Abuse and Fraud in the Employment Insurance Program

This matter came to our attention by way of a complaint alleging extensive abuse and fraud in the Employment Insurance Programs by several industries in British Columbia's lower mainland. Employers in several industries were issuing false Record of Employment forms to individuals so that these individuals could obtain EI benefits fraudulently. The complainant further alleged that HRDC and CCRA have been aware of this situation for over 20 years and have not taken appropriate action to stop it.

We found substantial delays in the processing and completion of suspected abusive and fraudulent EI claims. These delays were averaging in excess of two years and most were unresolved at the time of our audit.

CCRA has never prosecuted employers or claimants who may have made deceptive statements. We also found that HRDC in B.C. has never prosecuted employers during the period we reviewed, though it had levied some administrative penalties.

Our review has confirmed that HRDC and CCRA officials have known for many years of these suspected abusive and fraudulent practices in British Columbia, and little was done to stop it.

Really? so even when people are caught red handed, with even the EMPLOYER falsifying documents so that people who do not qualify can go on EI, are not even punished?

wow that sounds like a totally non broken system alright!

systematic practice involving collusion between employers and employees

Human Resources and Skills Development Canada recorded a loss of $147.9 million on fraudulent claims for EI benefits in 2007-08.

you mean only 147 MILLION dollars is stolen from tax payers each year?
The problem is merely systemic, involving empoyers/employees colluding to scam the system?

well I guess I am proven wrong, EI works as intended.

And rather than a specific fraud investigation by provincial or federal authorities into the organizations accused of issuing false ROE's a blanket $495,000 fraud quota targetting individual claims makes more sense how?

The blanket assumption that anyone on or claiming EI is gaming the system is absurd. Fraud certainly can and does occur, making a blanket assumption of how much is occuring is moronic, let these people do their jobs wihout a numbers game. The conservatives still can't account for 3 billion but we apparently need be incredibly concerned about 147 million because you know, poor people are bad and the termporarily unemployed ar just as bad apparently.

Bottom line is you need to have been employed to get unemployment, often there are issues with people or areas that are rife with underemployment or a large amount of seasonal work. To lump those who are underemployed or temporarily unemployed in with individuals that are chronically unemployed or have even stopped looking for work all together is not productive, it might also be worth looking at the individuals in context of their situation. It's far too easy and simplistic to look and the problems of unemployment in north america and simply say "they're all lazy and entitled fraudsters".

And as far as numbers games and paying for stats, see how well that works for policing. Rather than deal with systemic issues you pay for stats to keep whoever is currently in power sated because they can show arrests are up regardless of the quality, validity or whether or not prosecution is succesful and the politicians can look like they're tough on crime regardless of actually affecting any meaningful change.

The whistleblower was essentially being told to "juke the stats" (to quote the wire) so the conservatives can then say "look at all the money we're saving ya" regardless of how much actual fraud is being detected.




And just a side note touching on points made by sebster. Here's an example of an incredibly stupid numbers game. At costco, cashiers are rated on MPH, members per hour. The theory is the more members whose sale you process per hour, the better the cashier(productivity). However, this mph doesn't factor in the amount of products being scanned per customer. So really it doesn't take context into it at all. Some people have really large orders at costco, a large family with a big freezer or the owner of a restaurant could tie up a cashier for quite a while (while shopping I've regularly seen 2-5 cart fulls in one order). If you don't take into account context (amount of goods being scanned) and just look at two different cashiers MPH numbers a manager or superivsor can give them all sorts of crap for their apparent lack of effeciency even though the entire metric is moronic from the get go.

In the past I've worked quite a bit in sales and some companies have a faily common sense way of producing a sales target for a store or individual(usually based on that day a year prior), others simply pull a number out of their ass and say "we'd love to make this much money this day/week/month" and regardless of literally no store even getting close to said goals in the best of times (xmas season) they just keep the target that high year round regardless of context so that they can gak on anyone at any time and make it seem like they're underperfoming regardless of the context.

I create systems with managers and then audit the health of those systems.

You have to reward the result and method you want.

To set a target to investigate X number of "suspicious claims" as per some outlined criteria would allow proper policing of the system.
It would reward completed investigations regardless of outcome as long as it followed procedure (subject to audit of all outcomes).

To set a bounty for a dollar value to be met can only lead to bias for denial of the claims.
You could go one step further and ONLY audit claims that were granted.

These are human systems so every last person who gets a refusal should raise a stink with their representatives and ask for where are the grounds for refusal found.
You would be surprised how few people do not know the full elements of their job.
I have caught many people on fundamental rules being misunderstood and some who treat their job like a dictator to change at whim, love lighting those guys on fire.

There are distinct policies for "whistle blowers" and it is interesting that the witch hunt was allowed and not finding who required the targets to be met.

Find those who hand down the evil rules contrary to public policy and fire them and publicly humiliate them, find victims of their lack of empathy and accuse publicly. Ensure they are never put in a position of power over others ever again.

Simple.

you are not even reading the post, I am not making a blanket statement that everyone on EI is abusing the system, nor does this have anything to do with the conservatives, I love how you assume I support them despite voting liberal.

Nor am I saying that people get Ei without ever working, so stop putting words in my mouth.

I am saying that people routinly, as a matter of choice, work the minimum, or collude with employers to fake work hours, just so that they can repeatedly keep going back onto EI. As I referenced before, this has been happening for over 20 years, with nothing being done about it, despite it being a systemic, widespread issue.

I am stating that abuse of EI is rampart, that nothing is being done, and that ENFORCING the rules in place is all the targets (quotas) are doing.

Heaven forbid you are measured on how well you do your job of auditing. They know they have 150 million a year they are supposed to recover from illigitmate claims, can you 100% say that that doesnt work out to ~500k per auditor per year?

see the difference?

people who dont abuse the system are not the problem, but there is so much abuse of EI that less then HALF of the unemployed can get it, and its STILL bleeding money.

get the abusers out, and to do that there needs to be audits (which have targets/quotas) so the legitmate users can get in at least,

or have private empoyment insurance so its not just a free-money welfare program ripe for the abuse.

 Jihadin wrote:
Citizen...all is fine.....unless we start rationing alcohol then we be in trouble.......

You obviously haven't been in Canada much, we do ration Alcohol in the form of various Liquor Control Boards. The LCB of Ontario is the #1 purchaser of Alcoholic products in the world as all alcohol sold in Ontario has to go through them. This leads to ridiculous price inflations, such as not being able to buy a 24 of anything for lower than 29 dollars. A 26er is anywhere from 23 dollars and up for the cheap stuff. My cousins from California are generally aghast at Canadian prices. Our only saving grace is you can get 60's of beer for around 10 dollars.

@easysauce:
The method determines the outcome for these "assessments" for UI claimants.
A dollar value of money to be reclaimed is given as the target.
The goal of the employee is to get that money.
Meeting goal is more important (keep your job) than the well being of of the claimant.

Bottom line:
A "fair" system was described to the public and an "exception" was quietly added that skewed the entire process.
Duplicity in government must be brought to public scrutiny and punished severely.

A little investigative system work is amazing for finding those who set up their little kingdoms, light them on fire, catch the rats trying to escape.

 Ratbarf wrote:

 Jihadin wrote:
Citizen...all is fine.....unless we start rationing alcohol then we be in trouble.......

You obviously haven't been in Canada much, we do ration Alcohol in the form of various Liquor Control Boards. The LCB of Ontario is the #1 purchaser of Alcoholic products in the world as all alcohol sold in Ontario has to go through them. This leads to ridiculous price inflations, such as not being able to buy a 24 of anything for lower than 29 dollars. A 26er is anywhere from 23 dollars and up for the cheap stuff. My cousins from California are generally aghast at Canadian prices. Our only saving grace is you can get 60's of beer for around 10 dollars.

OHMYGAWD you have to pay over 1.00$ per beers! Quick, let's gather a mob and storm those blood-sucking politicos! Someone has to remind them that alchool is a right, and not a luxury.

It does help the situation that our beer is actually... you know... beer.

 Fafnir wrote:
It does help the situation that our beer is actually... you know... beer.

Hey! First off, Labatt Blue. Second off, and for the record, we have had a recent uprising of microbeers dark enough to blow your mind.