Question Period Note: OAG report into Employment and Social Development Canada’s (ESDC’s) Benefits Delivery Modernization (BDM) Programme

On October 19, 2023, the Auditor General tabled an audit report on the Benefits Delivery Modernization Programme

ESDC welcomes the Auditor General’s report, and the successful delivery of BDM is a top Government of Canada priority.

Significant progress is being made. In June 2023, BDM’s first release of OAS went live to support over 600,000 foreign benefit recipients and is on track to onboard all remaining OAS benefit recipients by December 2024.

ESDC is working with the Treasury Board Secretariat to strengthen our costing approach to ensure the Programme will remain on track and successfully deliver our transformation commitments.

Continuing to improve the delivery of these programs and the overall client experience remains a critical objective.

The BDM Programme was originally announced in Budget 2017 for ESDC to develop modern approaches to service delivery for ESDC’s three statutory programs (OAS, EI, and CPP) by 2030. BDM will deliver modern benefits processing capable of responding to client expectations and a changing business, economic, and policy environment. As a principle, service delivery continuity is prioritized over service improvements; however, the Programme will transform business processes, introduce modern and responsive applications, and incorporate leading-edge technologies and methods to enable the delivery of OAS initially, followed by EI and then CPP. Implementation began in 2021 with the first OAS benefit onboarded onto BDM in June 2023; it is currently on track to onboard all OAS benefit recipients by December 2024.

“Today, the Office of the Auditor General tabled its report evaluating the Government of Canada’s delivery of the Benefits Delivery Modernization programme, or BDM.

Our mission with Benefits Delivery Modernization is clear: to simplify and improve how Canadians access vital government services.

While large IT projects like this can be intricate, our government is determined to get it right, and we’re on track.

I appreciate the thoroughness of the Auditor General’s audit. We accept their recommendations, and I’d like to thank their officials for all their work.”