Published on Nov 27, 2013

In July 2013 Sylvie Therrien was suspended without pay for revealing that she, like other Employment Insurance investigators, was subject to a quota: to achieve savings of nearly $500,000 per year by denying EI benefits to applicants. In order to achieve these quotas, many deserving EI claimants were being harassed and improperly penalized, she said.

Therrien felt that she could not 'send people to the street' in order to meet these arbitrary targets, but was soon perilously close to the street herself. The government fired her for cause, which means that she would receive no EI assistance, and stripped her of her security clearance, rendering her unemployable in the public service. Unable to afford her rent, she found shelter sleeping on a friend's couch.

source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1j9n6ZE3P_w

EI fraud investigator axed for leaking “quota” details

The federal fraud investigator who leaked documents exposing a Conservative crackdown on those receiving EI has been fired from her job.

Sylvie Therrien, 53, who worked out of a Vancouver office, learned Tuesday that she has been terminated from her position.

The letter, sent on behalf of an executive with what is now called Employment and Social Development Canada, informed Therrien that her “reliability status’’ had been revoked, and therefore she no longer met the conditions for her job.

In May she was suspended without pay after leaking documents to the media in February. The documents showed that EI investigators had been told by the government to crack down on about $485,000 in EI fraud each year.

In July Therrien told the Star the “fraud quotas’’ were just one aspect of a culture in her office that encouraged cutting benefits from as many recipients as possible to save money.

She says she was penalized for not meeting her monthly quota. She claimed she was encouraged by managers to interpret facts in a way that would trim EI benefits.

She says that she had complained to her supervisors about what was happening, but then was “targeted’’ and became viewed as “the enemy.’’

The Conservative government says the dollar amounts aren’t quotas, but rather targets.

“I hoped (the firing) wouldn’t happen, that they would do what is right and realize what I did was OK. But they obviously decided otherwise,’’ Therrien said in an interview Thursday, referring to her now ex-employers.

She has run out of money to support herself, and is living with a friend. Her own EI — which she was forced to go on after her suspension — ran out Oct. 19. She’s hoping to land some occasional work with a school board. She intends to fight to get her job back through the grievance procedure.

In response yesterday, James Gilbert, an assistant deputy minister with Service Canada, a part of Employment and Social Development Canada, reiterated Ottawa’s position that if Therrien wanted to express her opinion or raise concerns regarding her work, she had many appropriate avenues available to her.

“Instead, Ms. Therrien went directly to the press and provided documents that were not authorized for public disclosure,’’ Gilbert said in a statement to the Star.

“Service Canada’s public servants work hard to ensure that EI payments are calculated and paid correctly and that the system is used as intended. Service Canada employees do not face consequences for missing so-called quotas,” Gilbert added.

He went on to say that as most organizations do, Service Canada sets “objectives’’ to help determine how to allocate employees and resources.

“Contrary to Ms. Therrien’s claims, the objective-setting process for EI integrity has been in place for decades and has not changed,’’ Gilbert added.

source: http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2013/10/24/ei_fraud_investigator_axed_for_leaking_quota_details.html