Bill C-280 (Historical)

An Act to amend the Employment Insurance Act (qualification for and entitlement to benefits)

This enactment
(a) by lowering the threshold for becoming a major attachment claimant to 360 hours, makes special benefits available to those with that level of insurable employment;
(b) sets the weekly benefit payable to 55% of the average weekly insurable earnings during the highest-paid 12 weeks in the 12-month period preceding the interruption of earnings; and
(c) reduces the qualifying period before receiving benefits and removes the distinctions made in the qualifying period on the basis of the regional unemployment rate.

Royal Recommendation and Ways and Means Motions

[The Deputy Speaker, Conservative, Andrew Scheer]

Before we begin private members' business today, I would like to make a brief statement regarding the issue of royal recommendation and ways and means motions with respect to private members' business

Just as individual items of private members' business continue their legislative progress from session to session, the Chair's rulings on those same items likewise survive prorogation.

Specifically there are nine bills on which the Chair either commented, ruled or has heard a point of order with regard to the issue of the royal recommendation. There was also one bill on which a point of order was raised regarding the requirement for a ways and means motion.

The purpose of this statement is to remind the House of those rulings and of the questions that remain to be dealt with.

Members will recall that, during the last session, some private members’ bills were found by the Chair to require a royal recommendation. At the time of prorogation, there were seven such bills on the order of precedence or in committee.

Let us review briefly the situation in each of these seven cases.

Three of these bills were awaiting report stage in the House at the time of prorogation, namely: Bill C-201, An Act to amend the Canadian Forces Superannuation Act and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police Superannuation Act (deletion of deduction from annuity), standing in the name of the member for Sackville—Eastern Shore;

Bill C-241, An Act to amend the Employment Insurance Act (removal of waiting period), standing in the name of the hon. member for Brome—Missisquoi;

Bill C-280, An Act to amend the Employment Insurance Act (qualification for and entitlement to benefits), standing in the name of the hon. member for Algoma—Manitoulin—Kapuskasing.

On May 12, 2009, the chair had ruled that Bill C-201, in its form at second reading, needed to be accompanied by a royal recommendation. In committee, all clauses of the bill were deleted. In its present eviscerated form, Bill C-201 need no longer be accompanied by a royal recommendation.

As for Bill C-241 and Bill C-280, the chair ruled on April 22, 2009 and on June 3, 2009 respectively, that these bills in their present forms required royal recommendation. The committee stage has not altered this finding.

The following four bills were at committee stage: Bill C-290, An Act to amend the Income Tax Act (tax credit for loss of retirement income), standing in the name of the hon. member for Richmond—Arthabaska was before the Standing Committee on Finance; Bill C-308, An Act to amend the Employment Insurance Act (improvement of the employment insurance system), standing in the name of the hon. member for Chambly—Borduas was before the Standing Committee on Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities;

Bill C-309, An Act establishing the Economic Development Agency of Canada for the Region of Northern Ontario, standing in the name of the hon. member for Nipissing—Timiskaming, was before the Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology;

finally, Bill C-395, An Act to amend the Employment Insurance Act (labour dispute), standing in the name of the hon. member for Berthier—Maskinongé was before the Standing Committee on Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities.

The Chair ruled that all these bills in their present forms needed to be accompanied by a royal recommendation. The rulings were given on October 23, 2009 for Bill C-290, on October 29, 2009 for Bill C-308, on June 16, 2009 for Bill C-309 and, more recently, on November 16, 2009 for Bill C-395.

Furthermore, points of order were raised by the hon. Parliamentary Secretary to the Government House Leader at the end of the last session with respect to the need for a royal recommendation for two bills. These are: Bill C-343, An Act to amend the Canada Labour Code and the Employment Insurance Act (family leave) standing in the name of the hon. member for Compton—Stanstead and Bill C-471, An Act respecting the implementation of the recommendations of the Pay Equity Task Force and amending another Act in consequence standing in the name of the hon. member for Etobicoke—Lakeshore. Both of these bills were at second reading.

Just as was done in the last session, the Chair invites other members who would like to make arguments regarding the need for a royal recommendation for those two bills or any of the other bills on the order of precedence to do so at an early opportunity in order for the Chair to come back to the House with a ruling as soon as possible.

Finally, a point of order was raised during the last session regarding Bill C-470, An Act to amend the Income Tax Act (revocation of registration), standing in the name of the hon. member for Mississauga East—Cooksville, arguing that it should have been proceeded by a ways and means motion. The Chair has taken the matter under consideration and a ruling will be delivered in the days to come.

I thank hon. members for their attention.

It being 1:35, the House will now proceed to the consideration of private members' business as listed on today's order paper.

Bill C-280, Employment Insurance Act—Speaker's Ruling

[The Speaker, Liberal, Peter Milliken]

I am now prepared to rule on the point of order raised on November 5, 2009, by the hon. Parliamentary Secretary to the Government House Leader. The point of order dealt with the admissibility of an amendment adopted by the Standing Committee on Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities in its consideration of Bill C-280, An Act to amend the Employment Insurance Act (qualification for and entitlement to benefits) and reported to the House on November 5.

I wish to thank the hon. Parliamentary Secretary for having raised this issue as well as the hon. members for Chambly—Borduas, Acadie—Bathurst and Montmorency—Charlevoix—Haute-Côte-Nord for presenting their arguments on the matter.

The parliamentary secretary reminded the House that Bill C-280 was identified by the Chair as requiring a royal recommendation in a ruling delivered on June 3, 2009. He argued that the amendment in question, which seeks to increase the weekly benefits payable to a claimant from 55% to 60% of the average weekly insurable earnings likewise infringes on the financial initiative of the Crown. He completed his presentation by referring to page 655 of House of Commons Procedure and Practice, first edition, which says:

An amendment must not offend the financial initiative of the Crown. An amendment is therefore inadmissible if it imposes a charge on the Public Treasury, or if it extends the objects or purposes or relaxes the conditions and qualifications as expressed in the Royal Recommendation.

In his intervention, the member for Chambly—Borduas insisted that the committee was well aware that certain provisions in the bill already contained proposals which would result in increased spending and that the amendment was consistent with those proposals. The member for Acadie—Bathurst added that in situations of private members’ bills requiring a Royal Recommendation, the Speaker is responsible for deciding the question only once the bill is returned to the House. Finally, the member for Montmorency—Charlevoix—Haute-Côte-Nord claimed that there had been no discussion of admissibility regarding this amendment at committee.

As the House knows, the Speaker does not intervene on matters upon which committees are competent to take decisions. However, in cases where a committee has exceeded its authority, particularly in relation to bills, the Speaker has been called upon to deal with such matters after the bill in question has been reported to the House. In doing so, the Chair is guided by Speaker Fraser's succinct explanation of April 28, 1992, at page 9,801 of the Debates.

It reads:

When a bill is referred to a standing or legislative committee of the House, that committee is only empowered to adopt, amend or negative the clauses found in that piece of legislation and to report the bill to the House with or without amendments. The committee is restricted in its examination in a number of ways. It cannot infringe on the financial initiative of the Crown, it cannot go beyond the scope of the bill as passed at second reading, and it cannot reach back to the parent act to make further amendments not contemplated in the bill no matter how tempting that may be.

Having examined the specific amendment at issue and reviewed the submissions of all hon. members, the Chair finds that the amendment in question does propose a charge on the public treasury and therefore infringes on the financial initiative of the Crown.

While the Chair can appreciate the difficulties that may arise when a committee must examine a bill which, upon its reference to committee, is flawed with respect to the royal recommendation, a committee must carry out its mandate without exceeding its powers. In my view, by adopting an amendment that infringes on the financial initiative of the Crown, even when it is directed at a clause itself needing a royal recommendation, a committee ventures beyond its mandate.

Consequently, I must order that the amendment to clause 5, adopted by the Standing Committee on Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities be declared null and void, and no longer form part of the bill as reported to the House.

In addition, I am ordering that a reprint of Bill C-280 be published with all possible haste for use by the House at report stage to replace the reprint ordered by the committee.

I thank the House for its attention.

Second Reading

[Glenn Thibeault, NDP, Sudbury, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am happy to speak today in support of the bill introduced by the member for Berthier—Maskinongé, which would amend the qualifying period for individuals during a labour dispute. As it stands now, workers who are involved in a strike or lockout that lasts 52 weeks will not receive EI premiums during this time and will not therefore qualify for extended EI benefits.

The whole point of workers contributing to the EI program is so that when a person loses his or her job, he or she can access these funds. However, as the system currently stands, far too many people cannot receive EI even though they have paid into the fund.

According to Human Resources and Skills Development Canada figures, more than half of unemployed workers do not have access to employment insurance because they do not qualify under the current rules. The NDP has put forward a number of bills to amend the current EI system to ensure that it offers proper support to everyone who has paid into the system.

For example, Bill C-242, introduced by the member for Acadie—Bathurst, would increase the percentage of income claimed through employment insurance to 60%. Bill C-244, introduced by the member for Nickel Belt, would remove the waiting period for EI benefits. Bill C-280, introduced by the member for Algoma—Manitoulin—Kapuskasing, would, among other things, lower the threshold for becoming a major attachment claimant to 360 hours.

However, I welcome the bill introduced by the member for Berthier—Maskinongé, which addresses another major flaw of the employment insurance system. The NDP is committed to working with other political parties to support legislation that strengthens social security policies in Canada, and I would like to congratulate the member for this bill. Why should workers who are involved in a strike or lockout not be covered by employed insurance?

The right to strike is an important one and, as it stands, people are penalized for exercising this right. Employers have the right to lock out workers and are not penalized by the government for doing so. Yet if a union votes to go on strike, it is penalized by the government through the flaws in the current EI system. In fact, as it stands, the government penalizes workers if they are locked out by their employer and it penalizes them if they go on strike. The government seems to support a lose-lose situation for workers.

In Sudbury, over 3,000 steelworkers at Vale Inco have been on strike since July 13. Today is the 126th day of that strike. Every day I speak to people affected by the strike: workers, their families and friends, small and local businesses in Sudbury. All these people want is a fair deal from Vale Inco.

Think of the consequences for Sudbury if this strike went on for a year and then these people were laid off. There would be over 3,000 people who would not only lose their jobs but also the employment insurance they paid into throughout their careers. There would be 3,000 families who would struggle to pay their bills and put food on the table. Think of the effect this would have on Sudbury's economy.

It is not just my riding of Sudbury that would be affected. Communities all across Canada are suffering. In Ontario alone, there are five more labour disputes currently taking place. At CEP Local 2003 in Toronto, 61 members were locked out in June by their employer, Cadillac Fairview, and then terminated one month later. At CEP Local 37 in Timmins, 95 members have been locked out by their employer, Grant Forest Products, since September 2006 and have walked the picket line for 39 months. At USW Local 271G in Erin and Cambridge, 44 members have continued to strike against Guardian Fibreglass Inc. since June 2007 for 29 months on the picket line. At USW Local 1-500 in Brantford, there have been 75 members on strike against ECP since August 2008, or 15 months on the picket line. At USW Local 9511, there have been 590 members on strike against DriveTest since August 2009, or four months on the picket line.

What is worse, as if the economic crisis had not brought enough hardship to these communities, is that many companies are using the situation for their own gain as to cause them to renege on agreements they made in the past. It is downright shameful. So many are using this economic crisis as a justification to roll back and renege on collective agreements. Workers should not be punished twice for standing up for the rights and benefits their brothers and sisters worked hard to obtain. This bill would fix that.

This bill would allow the extension of the EI qualifying period beyond the stated limit of 104 weeks for workers affected by a labour dispute, so that the extension of a qualifying period could equal the duration of the period of unemployment caused by the strike or the lockout.

This bill, if passed, would also be deemed to have come into force on January 1, 2008. This would mean that labour disputes which are affected by the current economic climate or brought on by companies exploiting the economic crisis for their own gain would be retroactively covered by this bill. It would also mean that members of the United Steelworkers Local 6500 in Sudbury would also be covered by this legislation.

This bill is not just about fairness for the workers on strike, it is about fairness for the communities they come from. One thing is certain, strikes do not just affect workers, they affect entire communities.

If 3,000 workers lose their salary and their EI benefits, it is not just 3,000 families that will suffer, it is the entire community; small businesses that rely on these workers and these families to spend their money; restaurants; and local charities. I will use the United Way in Sudbury as an example. It relies on the United Steelworkers in Sudbury for a significant portion of what it raises.

Entire cities will be affected. With a decreasing tax base, it means less revenue for cities, which is less funding for city infrastructure, services and so on. Families will break apart and parents will move to new areas to find work with no support networks.

As the representative of these workers and the citizens of Sudbury, a city that has been hurt deeply as a result of this strike, I am very proud and glad to voice my support, and will be voting in favour of this bill.

[Michael Savage, Liberal, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS]

Mr. Speaker, once again, I am pleased to speak to Bill C-395, the proposed changes to the Employment Insurance Act with respect to labour disputes.

This legislation addresses what I think is a bit of a gap in the EI system right now and in the Employment Insurance Act. The question is: what should be done if the qualifying period for somebody who has lost his or her job includes work lost because of a labour disruption? This bill is a reasonable attempt to address the gap. At the very least, it is worthy of further study at committee, so we can identify whether or not there is more that needs to be done. Also, to some extent, we could perhaps address the issue of what the cost might be. I see that the Speaker has ruled that a royal recommendation will be required.

Let me speak to the issue this bill addresses and how it proposes to solve it. Right now, somebody's qualification for employment insurance is determined by the qualifying period that precedes the loss of employment, and that is 52 weeks. There are allowances for certain instances such as sickness, but not for work time lost due to a labour disruption.

During a labour dispute, employees cannot draw EI. They can, in some cases, receive strike pay. Or they could, conceivably, go out and get another job, although it is a very difficult circumstance in which to look for a job when one is hoping to go back to a job that one currently holds. If one gets strike pay, of course, it is different from having insurable earnings for EI.

It is always difficult to determine costs when we are looking at employment insurance. It involves very complex calculations. This year, we had the issue of what it actually costs in another area of qualification, the 360-hour national qualifying standard. Just over a year ago, last spring, because of a request from the committee looking at a private member's bill, the HRSDC department had estimated that cost at somewhere around $600 million or $700 million. The exact figure does not come to me, but it was in that range.

Other people have estimated it will cost $1 billion to $1.5 billion a year. That would make sense, because there are more people unemployed now than there were last spring, and there has been a slight escalation in cost. As a result of a request from the employment insurance working group established by the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition, we had the outrageous guesstimate, we might call it, of over $4 billion. They came back and said this would cost over $4 billion.

That did not make any sense. Everybody knew that was nuts. In fact, the government itself came back a little bit later and said the cost was actually about $2.5 billion. We asked the Parliamentary Budget Officer and he came in with a cost of about $1.1 billion, which notionally makes sense and obviously was statistically backed up. But that is why we have issues with costs when we start looking at employment insurance.

We have the same thing when we look at two-week waiting periods. What is the cost of a two-week waiting period? It is not really a waiting period; it is an out-of-luck period for a person who loses his or her job. What is the cost of that? The estimates have varied a bit on that, as is the case with this bill.

This bill does indicate that if a job is lost following a labour disruption, allowances can be made. It is very difficult for people and families who are already suffering from being unemployed because of a labour disruption when, all of a sudden, they come back and within a short period of time they are laid off completely and find out that their qualification for EI has been affected.

In essence, this bill will simply extend the qualifying period by the length of time of the labour dispute. As I have indicated before, qualifying is a huge problem in this country. It has been identified as the number one problem with the EI system. Many solutions have been proposed over the last number of years, and specifically in the last year.

We have had private member's Bill C-269 and private member's Bill C-265 from the member for Acadie—Bathurst and the member for Chambly—Borduas. In this session, we have looked at Bill C-241, Bill C-280 and Bill C-304. These are serious attempts to have a look at what the gaps are in the EI system, particularly at a time of economic difficulty.

We are still in this; we are still seeing job losses. We saw the numbers that came out the other day. There are still people in Canada who are losing their jobs. The economy needs a little bit of help. Everybody talks about stimulus. From any reports I have seen, the best stimulus is to invest in people who have lost their jobs or are in economic difficulty, because they will in fact put the money back into the economy, which is what stimulus is supposed to be all about.

We have heard from many people, including all the premiers from Ontario to the west, who normally have not spoken out much on employment insurance. All of the premiers of varying political stripes have said that we need to look at the issue of accessibility. We need to have a look at these variable entrance requirements, particularly at a time of economic difficulty, to see if they still make sense, because they are hurting the provinces. We heard that from the Minister of Finance's wife, when she was running for the leadership of her party in Ontario. We heard it from Premier Stelmach and Premier Campbell, and every premier, including Premier Brad Wall in Saskatchewan.

We have heard it from social policy groups. We have heard it from economists. We have even heard it from organizations that one might not normally think would call for such a thing. TD Economics has called for it. The Chamber of Commerce urged that we have a look at a couple of things in its prebudget submission this year, including entrance rates, but also at the two-week waiting period. These are all things that can be done to improve the system right away.

We have to have a look at what has the government done for employment insurance, recognizing finally that we are in a period of economic distress. As the House will recall, last November when the United States was already looking at proposals to assist people who were unemployed, we had an economic update that offered nothing.

In January, when we came back after Parliament was prorogued, EI was addressed in a specific way by adding five weeks of eligibility, which was a step forward in my view. If we look at the private members' bills that we have seen in the House over the past few years, the extra five weeks was always a small piece of it.

Of course, there was nothing on the two-week waiting period, nothing on accessibility, and nothing on increasing the rate of payment from 55% to 60%, which is called for a lot. But the five weeks were helpful and they were particularly helpful because they affected all Canadian workers; they did not pick winners and losers.

That is why the five weeks was a good piece of public policy at the time, but they are nowhere near to being enough and did not address the issue of accessibility that the 360-hour national standard would address. But the five weeks were something for all workers in Canada.

This fall we had a couple of pieces of legislation, one of them being Bill C-50, which would extend benefits from 5 to 20 weeks, but only for a select few, the fortunate few, in this country.

In the spring the government was saying that it was going to offer extra benefits to everyone, and then in the fall it said it was going to go back to a small percentage of the unemployed. One may qualify for between 5 and 20 weeks, but if one has drawn on EI before, too bad. If one happened to be a seasonal worker in northern New Brunswick, or in the fishing industry or the tourism industry, or others like that, one did not qualify for the extra 5 weeks.

That kind of discriminatory approach flies in the face of what the government was proposing to do at the beginning of the year, which was to provide equality in the employment insurance system, at least on the extension of benefits, if not in actually going to the number one source of irritation for Canadians, for workers, public sector unions, social policy groups, economists, think tanks, premiers and the wife of the finance minister. They were all saying that the system is not fair and that we have to fix it.

The reason it is not fair is that accessibility requirements range too much. At a time of economic difficulty, we need to do something to assist all Canadians and we need to make sure that people who lose their jobs do not feel like the government has forgotten them.

I would remind members that earlier this year the Minister of Human Resources and Skills Development was quoted as saying she did not want to make EI too lucrative. I remind the House and the millions who are watching at home that average employment insurance benefits are somewhere in the range of $330 a week. There are not that many people in the House who would want to work for $330 a week, or would feel very excited about losing their job so they could get $330 a week. I think the maximum is $440 a week.

EI is far from being a lucrative proposal for anyone. We have to keep in mind as well that people cannot draw EI in Canada if they voluntarily quit their jobs. If they quit their jobs, they do not get EI. They are told that they do not qualify. They can appeal it and they might be able to make their case, but they cannot quit their jobs and get EI.

Therefore, for an individual to suggest that EI is lucrative and that anyone would deliberately try to qualify for it, the individual would have to suggest that the person find a way to lose his or her job without quitting it. That person would have to get the employer to let him or her go so he or she could make 55% of his or her previous earnings.

Bill C-395 is worthy of consideration. I congratulate my colleague who brought it forward. We think it addresses a gap in the system. We think that at a time of economic difficulty, this is when we need to invest in employment insurance, because employment insurance assists Canadians when they need it the most, through no fault of their own from a work stoppage. It should not be made harder because of a labour disruption in the previous qualifying period.

Bill C-280--Employment Insurance Act

[Tom Lukiwski, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, on June 3, 2009, the Deputy Speaker ruled on Bill C-280, An Act to amend the Employment Insurance Act (qualification for and entitlement to benefits), as follows:

Bill C-280...proposed changes to the employment insurance program that include lowering the threshold for becoming a major attachment claimant to 360 hours, setting benefits payable to 55% of the average weekly insurable earnings during the highest paid 12 weeks....

It is abundantly clear to the Chair that such changes to the employment insurance program...would have the effect of authorizing increased expenditures from the Consolidated Revenue Fund in a manner and for purposes not currently authorized.

On June 10, 2009, Bill C-280 was adopted at second reading and referred to the Standing Committee on Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities.

On November 3, 2009, during clause-by-clause consideration of the bill the member for Chambly—Borduas moved an amendment to clause 5 of Bill C-280 to increase the weekly benefits payable to a claimant from 55% of the average weekly insurable earnings to 60% of the average weekly insurable earnings.

A further increase to the benefits payable from 55% to 60% of the average weekly insurable earnings would require a royal recommendation and therefore is out of order.

That is why when the amendment was moved to the chair of the committee the committee chair stated:

[T]his...money...would normally require royal recommendation. This would be out of order but...we're going to vote on this anyway because it's come before us.

The amendment to clause 5 was adopted.

Page 655 of Marleau and Montpetit states that amendments requiring a royal recommendation are not admissible in committee.

In particular Marleau and Montpetit states:

An amendment must not offend the financial initiative of the Crown. An amendment is therefore inadmissible if it imposes a charge on the Public Treasury, or if it extends the objects or purposes or relaxes the conditions and qualifications as expressed in the Royal Recommendation.

Therefore, Mr. Speaker, I submit that the amendment should be struck from the report and the bill should be deemed to have been reported from committee without amendment.

Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities

[Dean Allison, Conservative, Niagara West—Glanbrook, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present, in both official languages, the fifth report of the Standing Committee on Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities in relation to Bill C-280, An Act to amend the Employment Insurance Act (qualification for and entitlement to benefits). The committee has decided to report the bill back to the House with an amendment.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

(Clauses 1 to 4 inclusive agreed to)

(On clause 5)

We now have the amendment that you see before you.

I'll put this in context. Because this is money, it would normally require royal recommendation and it would be out of order. The bill needs royal recommendation. The clause would need royal recommendation as well, but we're going to vote on it anyway because it has come before us and we'll do that.

The amendment is that Bill C-280 in clause 5 be amended by replacing line 27 on page 2 with the following: “to a claimant is 60% of the average of their”. That is the amendment.

Is there any discussion on the amendment?

Go ahead, Mr. Lessard.

[Ed Komarnicki, Conservative, Souris—Moose Mountain, SK]

I may stand to be corrected on that point, but the point of the matter was that benefits were reduced substantively, and that's why the accumulation was built. The benefits were not relevant to what was paid in, but that's not the main point.

The main point is that at this time they established the variable entrance requirement based on the unemployment rates in the various regions. As I understand Bill C-280, it would eliminate the existing regionally differentiated minimum qualification requirement, and you're talking about the 360. But it would retain the act's current benefit entitlement structure, which provides claimants residing in high unemployment regions with more weeks of benefits for a given number of hours of insurable employment.

What I'm saying is that you want to take away the regional differences on unemployment up front. Once you've qualified for the benefits, you would still retain the fact that those with the high unemployment rate would receive more benefits, or benefits for longer.

Am I correct in that or not? Perhaps Ms. Hughes can answer that.

[Carol Hughes, NDP, Algoma—Manitoulin—Kapuskasing, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I am glad to be here today and to see this part of the legislative process come about for Bill C-280.

This is my first time appearing before a committee as a witness, so I hope you will be patient with me.

As you are aware, Bill C-280 would change EI in a few ways that I believe would be of great assistance to a number of Canadians who are eligible to collect benefits or find themselves a little shy of the threshold for entry into the program as a claimant. Bill C-280 would remove regional distinctions for the number of hours required to become a claimant and set the minimum number of hours at 360. It would also see a sampling of the claimant's best paid 12 weeks over the previous year used to set the amount a claimant will receive.

Bill C-280 is the product of converging factors: the economic slowdown that became a recession and the high unemployment that accompanies this type of economic event.

In my constituency of Algoma—Manitoulin—Kapuskasing, we had a higher than average unemployment rate before the current crisis. This trend continues.

When considering EI, it is important to remember that this bill is not a cure-all, but set to rectify some of the inequities we are seeing more clearly now that more people require this assistance. I understand that this bill may require clarification in some areas, and hopefully we can move towards some of that today.

I recall last winter driving in my constituency from one town to another. Basically, I was on Manitoulin Island—if anybody has ever been there. It was a Saturday morning and I was listening to The House on CBC Radio. The guest that morning was Ian Lee, director of the MBA program at the Sprott School of Business at Carleton University.

He was being interviewed about a submission he made to our finance minister on the subject of stimulus spending. In his submission, Mr. Lee had provided a breakdown of typical stimulus solutions and gave the multiplier effect for each one. A multiplier is the value of a dollar spent by the government in terms of the fiscal return on stimulus, or, more simply put, bang for the buck. What surprised me the most was his conclusion that EI offered the government the very best multiplier, far outperforming tax cuts, even payroll tax cuts, which were the most efficient in the tax-cutting category. EI also outperformed infrastructure spending and transfers to the provinces, which in turn outperformed every type of tax cut in the bang-for-the-buck assessment.

The next week my office was in touch with Mr. Lee. He sent us both his submission and the testimony of the Moody's chief economist to the U.S. House, which he based his document upon. Mr. Lee was clear that he had his differences with plans being proposed by New Democrats at the time and that he would like to see EI be a tool controlled by the Minister of Finance. He was equally clear that no other traditional stimulus tool offered as much return to the Canadian economy as employment insurance.

With this in mind, I saw it as imperative that we do something that would help get EI to more Canadians. Difficult economic times seem to me a good time to remove regional distinctions. We had just embarked on spending billions of dollars to stimulate the economy, yet we were not using one of the best tools we had to its fullest. The regional distinctions that reflect a way to manage EI in better economic times now seemed like a hindrance, given the urgency of the economic crisis and the speed at which it was stripping our economy of jobs.

With more people able to collect benefits, we would be able to keep the core of our communities alive. We could help the mortgage payments continue and help the grocery stores stay open. There would be some continuity so that we could have the workforce available when the work returned.

An example of that is readily available in my constituency. Algoma—Manitoulin—Kapuskasing has a large forestry sector. If those laid-off workers migrate to the bigger centres where there could be some work, they may never return. The communities lose. In circumstances like that, communities atrophy. When the jobs come back, the experienced workers aren't there.

Another reason to have uniform and lower entry levels is the way it is difficult to get real-time snapshots of regional unemployment rates in a major economic event such as the one we are experiencing. By the time we recognize that a region is getting hit and go through the steps needed to change the entry level, the exodus in that community may already be well under way.

Finally, I would like to address the fear I have had relayed to me that making it easier to collect benefits will stop people from wanting to work. To me, this is absurd. People aren't that different from one another. Would any one of you want to collect a fraction of what you make now and sit at home? They can't be that different. People go to work for more reasons than just a paycheque. There is a sense of accomplishment and contribution, as well as many other motivating factors.

I believe the abuse of the system is a grossly overstated concern. We have to look at the big picture and not focus on worst-case scenarios; worst-case examples make poor guidelines. We don't think about those in our areas. Our fishery quotas are not based on what a poacher can do. Why are EI eligibility levels any different?

I understand there are some items to be worked out with respect to Bill C-280. I am mostly concerned with getting help to those who are in need, and perhaps staving off the worst effects of this recession.

Before I conclude, I just want to add that I was disappointed to see there is basically only one hour for witnesses and one hour for clause-by-clause. I would hope you would reconsider this and have more witnesses, because the ones we have are just a very small fraction of the witnesses who should be heard on this matter.

Thank you.

Employment Insurance Act

[Michael Savage, Liberal, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have this opportunity again to speak to Bill C-50 in the House. We spoke to it when it was introduced and we have dealt with it in committee.

We had a vote on an amendment yesterday that Liberals supported. One of our key concerns about this bill, shared even by those who have agreed to go along with this bill, is that it already disenfranchises so many workers. We did not want to see further workers disenfranchised because this bill has to work its way through Parliament.

It is impossible to look at Bill C-50 without considering the context, the situation that this country is in, what we have gone through in the last year and a half in Canada, and the economic crisis that the bill is supposed to address. The background, as we know, is that the crisis started last year. Questions were raised as far back as last spring in the House and outside the House about the potential for Canada facing some economic difficulties. Of course, the Minister of Finance, the Prime Minister and everybody else told us not to worry, but to be happy. They told us that the sky was not falling and that Canada was not in any kind of trouble.

I have an article here from the National Post, a great Liberal institution, dated May 30. The headline is “[Finance minister] denies Canada headed for recession”. He goes into his thing about the economic fundamentals being strong. He said that we should not worry and that Canada was not heading into a recession. He also told us not to worry and that Canada would never go into a deficit. We were doing great, living off the strong fiscal management of the Liberal Party. The finance minister told us that we did not have to worry and that we could not mess it up that badly.

On September 27, in the middle of a federal election, when Canadians were worried about what was happening with the economy in Canada, we already had action in the United States from then-President Bush and incoming, soon-to-be-elected President Barack Obama, who said that we needed some stimulus and activity.

On September 27, the headline in the paper said “[Prime Minister] says Canada not in deficit, despite opposition claims”. The Prime Minister said:

The opposition tries to tell people that we’re in deficit when we’re in surplus. Tries to tell people we’re in recession when our economy is still growing. Tries to tell people we are losing jobs when actually more people are working.

That was only a year ago. The Prime Minister assured the people of this country that they should not worry, that people were working, that we were not in deficit, that we were not going to go into deficit, that we were not in recession, and that we were just fine. Then, we came back after the election.

The Prime Minister used a strategy to address this issue with Canadians. First, it was to tell them that it was a buying opportunity when their stocks went down. Second, it was to bring in an economic update that did nothing except throw political tricks into an economic update. Third, it was to prorogue Parliament. Fourth, it was to conjure up separatist-socialist coalitions. Finally, in January, prodding by the Liberal Party made the government say that it will try to have a look at this. It finally brought forward the budget in January of this year.

There were some things in there. Nobody would suggest it was enough. In fact, if one were to look at the reports that came out from the Caledon Institute, the CCPA, Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, labour union groups and other social policy networks, they said that this would not be enough to help Canadians. However, at least there was that five extra weeks.

Everybody who was unemployed and had a claim was eligible. It did nothing to increase eligibility, which was and continues to be the number one issue with employment insurance, but at least it offered five weeks. It offered those five weeks to everybody. I have asked two members of the Conservative Party if they could explain the juxtaposition of the Minister of Human Resources who, in talking about those extra five weeks in her own estimates tabled here, said:

--including extending five extra weeks of benefits, which is now only available in some regions, to all Canadians.

That was one of the boasting factors that the Minister of Human Resources talked about from the January budget. She said that Canada has projects where people get an extra five weeks and that five extra weeks of benefits is something that was always part of private members' bills, initiatives and proposals put forward by other people. That is not a panacea, but she is saying that the government has taken it and given it to all Canadians. One would assume that she said that because she felt proud of it.

It is almost as if she believed in equality. It is almost as if she felt that everybody was equally deserving of assistance. Now, we are debating a bill that goes in exactly the opposite direction. It divides Canadians into those who are deserving and those who are not deserving. That is a very significant contradiction in view, expressed over a period of a few months.

We have had employment insurance bills in the House for some time that talked about reforming EI. In the last Parliament they were Bills C-265 and C-269. We looked at those bills. What did they ask for? They consistently asked for the elimination of the two week waiting period. As people know, when they get their employment insurance, it is not really a waiting period. My colleague from Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor would agree with me that people who lose their job do not wait two weeks; they wait a lot longer than two weeks. In some cases they wait two months. The standard for Service Canada is that 80% of people get their claim processed in 28 days. We brought that to this House of Commons 12 months ago and the minister denied there was a problem. Then in the spring, she admitted there was a problem and she spent $60 million hiring people, but eliminating the two week waiting period is a possibility.

Increasing the rate of benefits is a possibility. It is now 55%. A number of private members' motions, opposition motions, social policy groups have indicated that should be 60%. The way we calculate benefits, perhaps going to the best 12 weeks is another way of looking at this; increasing the maximum insurable earnings. If somebody is making $70,000 and loses their job and they qualify for EI, they do not get 55% of their salary of $70,000, they get 55% of the maximum insurable earnings, which is in the low forties.

There are a number of ways we can change EI if we are serious about reform. Who else was talking about that back in the spring, and what were they talking about? “To be locked into a system which has 58 separate employment insurance regions, where one Canadian gets treated dramatically different than another Canadian, it doesn't seem right to me”. That was British Columbia Premier Gordon Campbell, who supported the call of the Leader of the Opposition for a national 360 hour standard of eligibility during the period of the recession.

Saskatchewan Premier Brad Wall said, “Here is an example where the recession's impact in Canada has moved from east to west, and we are feeling the effects”. Brad Wall supported the call of Mr. Campbell for some kind of national standard for employment insurance eligibility.

Again, Premier Gordon Campbell on May 29 called on the federal government to have one employment insurance standard throughout Canada. The Premier of Ontario had a position that said we should have one national standard across Canada, and 360 hours made sense. That is what people called for. Maybe it is 420 hours, which is the lowest eligibility, but the point is, we should have some equality in the system.

Premier Campbell is quoted in the Globe and Mail as saying, “The federal government needs to overhaul a clearly discriminatory employment insurance system to help the swelling ranks of the jobless in western Canada”.

The Premier of Ontario called for a national standard of employment insurance. It was not just the premier. Christine Elliott, who was at the time I believe running to be the leader of the Ontario Progressive Conservative Party, had some pretty sharp words for the Minister of Finance, with whom she enjoys a particularly close relationship, saying, “Ideally, the federal government will quickly reform EI to better meet Ontario's needs. The federal EI program is unfair to Ontario”.

Premier Stelmach said, “Alberta has complained about varying eligibility rules”. Premier Stelmach weighed in as well, so every western province has indicated that there was a problem. This was not the Liberals, the NDP or the Bloc saying that there was a problem. These were Canadians from coast to coast to coast suggesting that there was a problem.

We had an opposition day motion on March 5 brought forward by the New Democrats which called for a number of changes: eliminating the two week waiting period; reducing the qualifying period to 360 hours; allowing self-employed workers to participate, and we will have a look at that in the next few days as the government unveils its plan; and raising the rate of benefits to 60% and basing those benefits on best 12 weeks. Those were all things that were mentioned.

I mentioned Bills C-265 and C-269 in the last Parliament. There is Bill C-280, which we have debated in this Parliament and which we will be looking at today or Thursday in the human resources committee. It calls for 360 hours, increasing the weekly benefit, and reducing the qualifying period.

The member for Brome—Missisquoi brought forward Bill C-241 that we looked at in committee last Thursday. It will be coming back to the House. It calls for the elimination of the two week waiting period. There was another bill brought forward by the NDP member for Welland, which referred to severance payments and how they are treated in EI.

There were a number of changes across the board, some of which are very standard, that people were calling for. Primarily, they wanted a national standard of 360 hours for EI eligibility and a two-week waiting period. They wanted to take a look at the rate of benefits, the maximum insurable earnings and how benefits are calculated. Those are all things we have talked about. I have not seen any academic, social policy expert, anybody, suggest that the answer to the crisis was to further provide benefits and then to limit those benefits to only a few people.

In the spring the leader of the Liberal Party made his point clear, that we would call for a national standard of 360 hours for employment insurance eligibility. That was the call of the Leader of the Opposition, supported by many people across the country.

Our proposal was that it would be temporary in nature during a difficult period of time. One thing that often gets lost in this debate is the importance of EI as a stimulative measure to the economy. Those people who get EI need EI. Those people who get EI spend that money on food and shelter, things that they need for themselves and their families. That money goes back into the economy. This is a country that went crazy for stimulus back in January and February. Everybody was calling for stimulus. Those who evaluate stimulus said that the best stimulus is to invest in social infrastructure, particularly EI because that means the money will go into the economy. The second best stimulus was in infrastructure. The third best stimulus was tax cuts, particularly tax cuts that do not disproportionately put money into the hands of those who need it the most, low-income and middle-income Canadians. It is a very important stimulative effect.

What was the government saying to all this at that point in time? It was discouraging.

The Minister of Human Resources was quoted as saying, at the end of January, after the Conservatives brought forward the budget and were being criticized for not having addressed the key issues of EI:

Our goal is to help people get back to work, and get back to work quickly in jobs that will last. We do not want to make it lucrative for them to stay home and get paid for it--

That quotation was never retracted. It raised the hackles of people across the country, particularly those who are on EI, not because they want to be on EI but because they have to be on EI.

There was a running smear campaign against people on EI, that it was a nine-week work year, as if people would find a way to get fired from their jobs. Members must keep in mind that people cannot collect EI if they quit their jobs. That is a change that was made. The minister's suggestion was that people would be rushing out, trying to find a way to get fired so that they could go on EI for a maximum of 55% of what they were earning in their job for a maximum of anywhere from 19 to 45 weeks, or 50 weeks with the extension, most of them at the low end of that. It does not make any sense. Who would do that? It is an insult to Canadians who lose their jobs.

She changed her tune a bit in June. The minister was quoted as saying, “There is no need to change the threshold for employment insurance eligibility because as the economy worsens, more and more Canadians will find it easier to qualify”. She also said, “If the unemployment rate goes up in a given region, then it gets easier for people there to access EI for a longer period of time, and most of the regions around Canada now have become easier to access”.

Let us think about that. The United States has Barack Obama's version of hope: equality for all; benefits for those who need them. Canada has the Conservative government's version of hope: “Don't worry. Things are getting worse. We are not doing anything to help you. But you will find it easier to get EI because more of your friends and neighbours will be unemployed and then the unemployment rate will go up in the region and it will be easier to qualify”. That is what passes for hope from the Conservative government, “Wait. Don't worry. Things are getting worse. It is good news for you, but bad news for your neighbours, bad news for your friends, bad news for Canadians”. That is what we heard from the government.

A very important report was released in June by the Standing Committee on the Status of Women. The committee held hearings specifically about how EI affects women. I do not think it is much of a secret that with the system as it currently exists fewer women qualify for EI benefits and they get less payments. That is an inherent problem with EI that needs to be fixed. It is a problem which the Leader of the Opposition addressed when he called for a 360-hour national standard. That would have helped women and part-time workers.

He also called for an overhaul of the EI system. That is what is needed. We cannot do it piecemeal. There are things that we should do in the time of a recession. We do need an overhaul of the employment insurance system.

Changes came in. People were hurt. The economy was different. We were coming out of a time of recession and into a period of a long sustained recovery under Liberal governments. We are now back into a Conservative recession. Things have changed. That is just a fact of life. The circumstances are different now than they were in the 1990s. I could debate with colleagues in this House about what happened in the 1990s to no effect, but what we can do is impact people today who need help at a difficult time.

The status of women committee heard from a number of people. Richard Shillington testified at the committee hearings. He said:

Think of EI as a series of hurdles. To be eligible for your benefit, you first of all have to have had paid employment.... You have to have a certain number of hours. You have to have left your job for the right reason--you can't be fired; it has to be a lay-off.

We heard in the spring that 80% of people who were eligible were getting EI. That is incorrect. There was testimony from another witness who indicated:

The government likes to argue that 80% of all currently employed workers would qualify for regular EI benefits if they were to lose their jobs. However, this ignores the fact that job loss particularly affects those with unstable patterns of work, such as workers on reduced hours before a layoff as well as part-time, temporary, and contract workers. It also ignores the fact that many unemployed workers qualify for EI for a shorter period of time but quickly exhaust their benefits.

Those people would not be helped by Bill C-50 in the least.

There were a number of recommendations, a whole host of them which I will not read but I recommend this to all members for their consideration. One of the recommendations is that Human Resources and Skills Development Canada implement a uniform 360-hour qualification requirement. There is another about increasing the maximum benefit entitlement. There is one about the two-week waiting period. There are some recommendations about self-employment which I think we will be looking at in the next few days to see if they meet the needs of those who are most in need.

We had the EI working group over the summer, in which I took part. I have talked about that in this House on many occasions. I do not want to belabour people with that process, or how I spent my summer vacation. It was a discouraging time.

The government came up with numbers that were patently false, indicating that a 360-hour national standard would cost $4.4 billion. A week later the government said that it had made a bit of a mistake, that it would cost $2.5 billion. The actual cost as verified by the Parliamentary Budget Officer was $1.2 billion, but there still are government members, including the Prime Minister, who stand in the House and use the $4.4 billion figure. Unbelievable. There was documentation given to the committee that was marked “not for distribution” which had already been given to the media. That documentation showed those false numbers.

That is what we dealt with over the summer. I have talked about that before. It was a frustrating time.

I believe Parliament can work. I believe Canadians want Parliament to work. I had hopes that if we got together away from question period and used the strong resources of the human resources department that we could have effected some change. We could have all taken a little bit of water in our wine and come up with something that would have helped Canadian workers, but that was not to be, which is too bad.

The government came back in the fall and introduced Bill C-50. That is the bill we are talking about today. The fundamental problem with Bill C-50 is that it is discriminatory. Even the government would have to acknowledge that it picks winners and losers. It determines who is deserving of benefits. The minister has used this terminology herself, even at committee, “helping the most deserved workers”.

It is a discriminatory bill. Imagine a government coming forward with a health care system and saying, “We have a great new health care system. The only hitch is that if you have ever used the health care system, you do not get that health care. It is only for the deserving ones who have never used health care in Canada”. What would the outcry be to that? The outcry would be that that is clearly unacceptable. That is not what governments do. Governments do not pick winners and losers. Governments are governments for all the people.

Bill C-50 does not meet the needs of most Canadians. It does not meet the needs of most unemployed Canadians. It does not even meet the needs of most characterized long-term unemployed Canadians. It is a bill that is flawed. It is a bill that does nothing to address the number one concern of Canadians, which is to increase access to employment insurance for those who need it.

The bill does nothing to help seasonal workers who through no fault of their own work in the fishery, the forestry industry, or the tourism business. It does nothing for part-time workers. It is not a bill that we can support.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Thank you very much.

I want to remind members that we're looking at Bill C-280 on Tuesday and Bill C-304 on Thursday. That's what we're doing next week.

The other thing I want to mention is that we have a number of witnesses, and I would like to suggest that members talk to the clerk about the witnesses they'd like to see while we're on the road. We're going to be in Vancouver, Edmonton, Winnipeg, Whitehorse, and Yellowknife, and if there are witnesses you'd like to see in particular from the list you submitted before, this would be a great opportunity, in the next little while, to submit the names to Georges.

I want to thank everybody.

The meeting is adjourned.

[Michael Savage, Liberal, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS]

Mr. Speaker, I am very happy to have the opportunity to debate, for the second time this week, a bill about employment insurance.

We have heard from the government a bit about the bill. We will hear from the opposition parties how they feel about it, but the sad, overarching fact about all of this which overrides the content, or the lack of content, of this bill is that this is not really about employment insurance at all. It is about politics and about political games.

The Conservative government does not particularly care much about the social infrastructure of this country. We know that and we knew that from the beginning. When it inherited the Liberal surplus, it still cut literacy, the court challenges program, women's groups and many other pieces of the social infrastructure of this country. That is when it was living off our surpluses.

No, this is not a bill about EI. This is about politics and using EI as a tool. To the Conservatives, this is all a parliamentary chess game with politics first and people second.

Let us take a moment to see how we got to this today.

Last year at about this time, the Prime Minister was denying that there was any recession coming down on Canadians. We then had the economic update, which ignored the problem, and a finance minister who referred to the recession as a technical recession.

In January we saw a flawed budget, but there were some investments in things such as EI, extension for benefits and money for training. We said that we did not think the budget was enough but that it was a start. We supported it. The other parties did not. It was qualified support. The day we announced we would support the budget, we said that we needed to see more to continue our support of the government.

Last spring, employment insurance was a big issue. It was needed across the country. Jobs were being shed in many parts of Canada, including many parts of this country that had not suffered job losses in previous recessions.

The Leader of the Opposition indicated the Liberal position, which was regional fairness and a national standard of 360 hours to qualify. He was not alone on that.

The premier of B.C., Gordon Campbell, said Canadian workers, whether they lived in the Maritimes, the north, or Ontario, should be treated the same way.

The premier of Saskatchewan said that instead of 50-plus different treatments for the number of qualifying hours, we needed to dramatically reduce that.

The premier of Alberta said that unemployed families, whether they lived in Nova Scotia, Quebec or Alberta were equally unemployed.

The TD bank said that the truth of the matter was that during an economic downturn, it was no easier to find a job in a region with a lower prevailing unemployment rate than in one with a higher unemployment rate.

Pierre Fortin from Quebec said of the Leader of the Opposition's proposal that 360 hours was no problem, that it was just and fair.

A number of organizations such as the Chamber of Commerce said that a measure to improve the equity of the EI system that would be consistent with longer-term, smart policy would be to immediately and permanently make the duration of and access to benefits the same.

Perhaps my favourite was from the Reform Party of Canada platform's statement of principles which said: “An unemployed worker is an unemployed worker and deserves to be treated the same, regardless of region of residence. We will urge the immediate elimination of discriminatory EI elements such as regional entrance requirements”. The author of that is now the Prime Minister of this country. That is what he said then. We see where he is now.

In the spring, EI was a big issue, a huge issue in this Parliament. There were a number of private members' bills brought forward which Liberals supported as a way of sending a message to the government that this was a serious issue, that we would not agree with everything that was in all these bills that our colleagues from other parties had put forward, but that we supported the principle of investing in people and in the social infrastructure of this country.

Bill C-241, from my friend from Brome—Missisquoi, called for the removal of the two-week waiting period.

Bill C-279, from the member for Welland, called for an enactment providing that pension benefits, vacation pay and severance were not to be included in earnings.

Bill C-280, from my NDP colleague from Algoma—Manitoulin—Kapuskasing, called for a lowering of the threshold for becoming a major attachment to 360 hours, the national standard, setting the weekly payable to 55% of the best 12 weeks and reducing the qualifying period for receiving benefits.

We had an opposition day motion brought forward by the member for Hamilton Mountain, and I am going to read the whole thing because it is interesting to juxtapose the view of the NDP on March 5 and the view of the NDP here in September. This motion said:

That, in the opinion of this House, the government must address the alarming growth in the number of unemployed Canadians and the increasing number of Employment Insurance claimants; confirm its commitment to a social safety net to help regular Canadians through tough times and bring forward reforms to Employment Insurance rules to expand eligibility and improve benefits, including: (a) eliminate the two-week waiting period; (b) reduce the qualifying period to a minimum of 360 hours of work, regardless of the regional rate of unemployment; (c) allow self-employed workers to participate in the plan; (d) raise the rate of benefits to 60% and base benefits on the best 12 weeks in the qualifying period; and (e) encourage training and re-training.

There is nothing in there about extending benefits further.

That was the discussion back in the spring. It was a very long discussion in the House that dominated many question periods. It was called for in private members' bills and in opposition day motions.

Outside of the House, we heard the premiers, economists and labour unions. We heard everyone saying that we had to do something. The first thing they always mentioned was the unfairness of the system, particularly in a difficult economic time, for people who simply were unable to qualify.

As recently as Monday, my colleague on the human resources committee, the member for Chambly—Borduas, brought forward a bill that called for many of those same things.

In June Parliament was paralyzed and the country was on the verge of having an election until the Leader of the Opposition and the Prime Minister said, “Let us try to make an effort. Let us try to take this out of question period and put it into a room where people can discuss ideas”. The two things that were going to be discussed were regional fairness, from the Liberals, and extending EI to the self-employed, from the Conservatives. Those were the two issues.

What happened? On June 17 this EI working group, called a blue ribbon panel, was formed to look at those two issues. I was announced, my colleague, the member for Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine was the other member along with Kevin Chan, a very distinguished member of the office of the Leader of the Opposition. We were the three members. The minister was announced by the Prime Minister.

Two weeks later the other two members of the Conservative Party were announced. That was two weeks after June 17, so we were already into the summer.

We had a tele-conference. The minister said, “I cannot meet for two weeks. I have a vacation”. We were going to meet the next week and the other member of the Conservative Party said, “I've got a vacation too”, so we had to delay it again.

We had our first full briefing on July 14 which was a technical briefing. The minister in the House just said that we only had one position and she had all kinds. The minister presented nothing. There still is not a Conservative proposal to that group. If there is, she knows where my office is. She can send it. We still have not seen a proposal from the Conservatives.

On that day, July 14, in Ottawa we asked a series of questions of the working group. We asked it to cost 360 hours on a temporary basis. We also said, “Give us the cost of going to 390 hours, give us the cost of going to 420 hours, give us the cost of eliminating the three month regional rate system which penalizes people who lose their jobs on the front end of an economic downturn”.

My colleague from Montreal said, “Maybe we should look at the extension of benefits. We could at least look at it. Look at what they are doing in the United States”. That was a Liberal idea on July 14. We have it in writing, Mr. Speaker. I would be happy to send it to your office because I know you are a learned man.

We also asked, “Where is the position on the self-employed, which is your position?”. The Conservatives even promised it in the last election. They said that the Conservative government would extend EI benefits for maternal parental benefits for self-employed people.

The Conservatives said that they could not give us that information. We asked, “You can't tell us what it will cost, you must have cost it for your platform”. They said they could not give us that because it belongs to the Conservative Party of Canada.

I said, “You've got a department and you've got all kinds of people”. Whenever the minister would come to the human resources committee, she would bring a whole boatload of good people in whom we have faith when they are properly directed. The Conservatives said that they cannot give us that information.

We still do not know what that would have cost, concerning the self-employed. That was the Conservative proposal. They said to the Leader of the Opposition, “We want to look at the self-employed based on what we promised in the last election”. We got nothing.

On July 23 we had our first full meeting of the EI working group. We had agreed before that there would be certain protocols followed. The Conservatives would give us documents in advance, we would look at them, and we would all come prepared to discuss them. They would table drafts and we got them at the meeting.

I talked to the minister four or five days before. She was king enough to call when she got back from vacation. She said, “Why don't we present on the self-employed and you present on regional fairness”.

We presented on regional fairness. We had a long discussion and all six members of the working group agreed that we should get information on a number of areas. I will come to the exciting part about that later, which is that we never got that information either. We agreed on protocols and we did not get it.

We had a full discussion. There was no proposal from the Conservatives on the self-employed. We agreed to have three meetings in August. That is what our group did.

The meeting on August 6 was a beauty. We arrived at the meeting. The Conservatives provided their costing of 360 hours. They brought it to the meeting, but they gave it to reporters beforehand. I can show members. I have it here. It indicates on the bottom that it is not for distribution. Maybe they meant they were not going to distribute it to wholesalers across the country or something like that, but they gave it to the media who did not take it seriously. The Conservatives said that the 360 hour costing would be four billion and some dollars. Everybody else said it would be $1.5 billion.

The Conservatives said it would be $4 billion. How did they get to that number? They would not show us the work. When I was in school, I was not great at math and I was always told to show the work. I was not very good at that. It made it harder for me to guess. The Conservatives did not show their work. It was not the department that did not want to show it. It was the minister who did not want to show it. No answers were given to our questions. They leaked a document that was not for distribution. We responded to that.

On August 13 there was another table drop of documents. They brought in new costing for the 360 hours, which again was inflated. They refused to separate the hard, static cost from what they referred to as the estimated potential labour market impact. They said that if EI was changed, there would be an impact on the labour market. There are a couple of problems with that. The Parliamentary Budget Officer picked that one out fairly easily.

The Conservatives said that back in the 1970s the changes made to liberalize EI increased the unemployment rate by 2%. They are saying it will happen again. Let us picture that. Somebody out there who has a job is just itching to leave that job in order to get, for a maximum of 36 weeks, 55% of what he or she was making. It is an insult to Canadians to suggest that is what Canadians would want to do. It is on a temporary basis, not something that goes on forever. In the 1970s people could quit a job and get EI, but that cannot be done now. There is a whole host of differences.

Again, there was nothing on the self-employed.

On August 20 we arrived at the meeting. Again, we were given documents. There was no information in advance. We said that we would have to go away and look at them. That was probably another time the Conservatives suggested to themselves that we would not come back. The Conservatives did not give us information. They were not treating us seriously. There were no proposals. We kept going back, and going back, and going back.

We looked at some points at issue. That meeting, very significantly, was when the minister confirmed that in spite of the protocols of the EI working group which was that we would all submit our questions, the questions would go to the department through a secretariat and the answers would come back, she said that she had told the department not to answer those questions. Why would she tell the department that? Well, we are not going there anyway. We all agreed, including the minister, that we would get questions answered. The minister decided by herself that she did not like that.

That is the EI working group. In 10 weeks there were no serious proposals. Protocols were overridden.

On many occasions we offered to meet more often. It was not just for the joy of the company of the member for Nepean—Carleton and the minister. We felt that this was something serious and we should meet.

We suggested that we meet all day on August 19 and 20, or at least meet in the morning starting at 9 o'clock on the Thursday so we could seriously get at this stuff. We did not meet.

On August 20 we said that if we were not going to get information, we wanted to know to whom we could go for an independent analysis of what is going on.

The Parliamentary Budget Officer is an independent officer of this Parliament. We sent him the information about our proposals. He sent a letter to the department asking if it could back up the information by a certain date. The department could not do that. He did his analysis, and I will quote from that now:

The Government's total cost estimate, including static and dynamic costs, presented to the EIWG on August 14 of $2.425 billion overstates the cost of the proposed 360-hour national standard of EI eligibility as--

The Parliamentary Budget Officer went on to say that he believes that the government's dynamic cost estimate is flawed. He said that only the static cost should be considered because the proposed change to the EI system is in effect for only one year and not longer. In the opinion of the Parliamentary Budget Officer, the $1.148 billion static cost estimate is a reasonable estimate of the costs of the proposed 360 hour national standard of eligibility. I repeat that the $1.148 billion static cost is a reasonable estimate.

The House resumed from June 3 consideration of the motion that Bill C-280, An Act to amend the Employment Insurance Act (qualification for and entitlement to benefits), be read the second time and referred to a committee.

[Bradley Trost, Conservative, Saskatoon—Humboldt, SK]

Madam Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to speak to Bill C-280.

In the current economic situation, our government is taking unprecedented action to help Canadians adjust to the changing economy and acquire the skills required for the jobs of tomorrow, as seen by our government's economic action plan.

One of the things we are doing to help and protect Canadians during the economic downturn is investing $8.3 billion to the Canadian skills and transition strategy. We are providing unprecedented support for workers to train and acquire new skills. Our plan will invest an additional $1 billion in funding over the next two years for training delivered under the EI program through existing labour market development agreements. This funding will help the provinces and the territories train an additional 100,000 EI eligible claimants.

To help Canadian workers who are not EI eligible, we are also providing $500 million to establish the strategic training and transition fund to support their training needs. To help workers while they are looking for work and who have been unemployed for longer periods, our plan provides nationally an extra five weeks of EI benefits. That was offered as part of a pilot project that had previously only been provided in regions with high unemployment. We have also increased the maximum duration of benefits available under the EI program by five weeks, raising it from 45 to 50 weeks.

This government is pursuing a broad-based labour market approach aimed at helping Canadians through this economic downturn. We are doing this by helping them upgrade their skills to get new jobs, while injecting significant economic stimulus into the economy.

With respect to the bill that we have before us today, there are, however, many problems. First, this legislation fails to consider how changes being proposed would impact the EI program as a whole. It fails to consider what the impact would be upon labour markets, and it fails to consider how much it would cost, a particularly important consideration during tough economic times.

Any responsible proposal that seeks to make permanent changes to the EI program needs to consider how the proposed changes would be paid for, who would pay for them and how these changes would help Canadians get back to work so they can provide for their families.

As mentioned earlier in remarks, our government is doing many things to help those in need, but what it will not do is implement the Liberal-NDP 360 hour, 45 work days a year idea. This is what this bill seeks to implement.

We are not the only ones who believe this bill is an ill-conceived idea. On April 3 of this year the Scarborough Mirror reported that the Liberal member for Scarborough—Guildwood said he was “hesitant” on the 360 hour threshold, saying that nine weeks of work seemed “low” Commenting on the impact that this legislation would have on the labour market, here is what Jack Mintz said in the National Post:

--shortening drastically the qualification period would encourage greater turnover of workers, result in a permanent rise in the unemployment rate and impose a high economic cost.

Mr. Mintz also addressed the opposition's position on EI, saying:

But, one should be careful not to come to quick conclusions about access to EI.

He then referred to a study by the Department of Human Resources and Skills Development that said:

...shows that eligibility is not a problem for many hardworking Canadians who have recently lost a long-term job.

The fact of the matter is hard-working people who have just lost a long-term job and who have paid EI for years are some of the people who are hurting most right now. This proposed legislation does absolutely nothing to help them.

Commenting on the Liberal-NDP 45 day work year proposal, this is what a Vancouver Sun columnist said:

The Liberal option not only seems illogical but it would raise the federal deficit--and probably taxes--while doing nothing to address the fact that many of the jobs that have been lost are not coming back. The Conservative government is right to reject it....

The federal government is on the right track with investment in skills training and transition programs...

The fact of the matter is that this proposal would result in a massive job-killing payroll tax that would hurt workers and businesses at a time when they can least afford it. It would do nothing to help workers get new skills and new jobs.

The hon. members of this place should understand that the people who will be most directly impacted by this payroll tax hike will be the working poor, people earning between $15,000 and $40,000 a year, people who work for minimum wage. Many members of this House have not worked for minimum wage month after month. I have. It is those people most of all, along with small businesses, who need to be protected from this cash-grab payroll tax hike the opposition is proposing.

It should also be noted that this bill will make the proposed changes permanent. There are no temporary measures here. Let us not be fooled in this regard. On one hand, they say that temporary changes are favoured, and on the other hand they say they support this bill that would make a 45-day work year permanent. The Liberals cannot keep their stories straight. Let us take a trip through some of their flip-flops.

The NDP sponsor of this bill, herself, said in the StarPhoenix on June 1, “A payroll tax increase may be necessary”. The Liberals, however, realized this back in October, and they said so. They said the NDP plan would result in an employment insurance premium hike. I guess this is one of the ways the Liberals will have to raise taxes. Now the Liberals will deny that they will need to raise EI taxes on lower income workers. Well, which is it?

I know the Liberal member for Dartmouth—Cole Harbour and the official opposition EI critic had much to say on this issue. He continues to ask why we are sticking with the regional rates and are not implementing this Liberal-NDP job-killing 45-day work year idea.

Well, I can tell members by using the words of the member for Dartmouth—Cole Harbour from April 1, 2008 in committee,

It's my view that if you get rid of the regional rates and there are changes forced on our EI system because of the economic circumstances, those in the regions will be hurt disproportionately.

He also said that the “cost is pretty significant” to do this 360-hour, 45-day work year idea. He said that we should, “keep the regional rates. This is to protect those people in high unemployment areas”. He said that barely a year ago.

On May 13, 2005, the former Liberal government also said in its response to the human resources committee:

--significantly reducing entrance requirements...is not likely to equate to substantially increased EI coverage, particularly for the long-term unemployed.

Now they do not seem to agree with themselves.

I am loath to quote Liberal members opposite who now seem bent on implementing irresponsible and ill-conceived policies, but I must say that on past occasions they did occasionally talk some common sense. But where has that sense gone?

If we are trying to help others, I think the Liberals, especially the member for Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, should try to help themselves. They should listen to what they themselves had to say in the past. They might learn a few things.

While the opposition continues to propose irresponsible and ill-conceived ideas that will only increase taxes by billions of dollars, Canadians can rest assured that our government has taken unprecedented and effective action to support workers to get through these difficult economic times.

This government will not raise payroll taxes on working Canadians, on low income Canadians. We will not target small business and the workers of this country.

The proposals in Bill C-280 would result in a massive increase in a job-killing payroll tax that would hurt workers and businesses at a time when they can least afford it. These proposals would also do nothing to help hard-working Canadians who have paid into EI for years and years, and have just lost their job.

It is for these reasons and the reasons I mentioned earlier that I cannot, and I will not, support Bill C-280.

[Wayne Marston, NDP, Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to speak today to Bill C-280, which was introduced by the NDP member for Algoma—Manitoulin—Kapuskasing. I want to thank her for putting this bill forward. There is some controversy around it, as we have heard from the Speaker, about the cost factor.

In the midst of this recession, where so many workers who have, through no fault of their own, found themselves unemployed and today quite desperate, Bill C-280 would begin the process of setting right those aspects of Canada's employment insurance system that have been shut down for so many Canadians since the 1990s, as we heard from the previous speaker.

On first examination, Bill C-280 appears to be relatively simple legislation, but I will remind members present that it has two significant objectives. The bill would create a uniform level entry for every person who made a claim for EI benefits by lowering the threshold hours for qualification to 360 hours for people in every region of Canada.

We hear from various media outlets that the Liberal leader is proposing the same 360 hours for qualification for EI benefits, but I would point out that the Liberal leader is in fact proposing only a temporary fix to the qualifying hours for just one year.

I want to be clear. This NDP member's bill, Bill C-280, proposes a permanent change to 360 hours for qualifying for benefits. In addition, Bill C-280 would ensure benefits to people based on their best 12 weeks of earnings in the year prior to their claim. You will know, Madam Speaker, that this would be a marked improvement over the current 14 weeks that are considered to set benefit levels today.

It appears from the comments of the Leader of the Opposition that current Liberals are actually interested in reforming employment insurance. We in the NDP have called for this for years. In fact, I would say the Liberals have a particular understanding of the current EI rules because much of what we need to repair today comes from the damage that they themselves inflicted on the system in the 1990s.

We will also recall it was during that period that the Liberal finance minister, later prime minister, the former member for LaSalle—Émard, not only changed the eligibility rules for employment insurance but the very name of unemployment insurance was changed to employment insurance. Those changes included a change of philosophical view regarding the contributions of workers and employers, that they now be viewed not as premiums for insurance but as being payroll taxes. The contribution/premiums acquired then could be directed to general revenues and debt reduction.

Turning EI into a tax on working people, fed Liberal surplus budgets and helped the Liberals justify implementing corporate tax breaks. Of course this was a passion shared by their friends of the day, the Progressive Conservatives. However, in fairness, I am pleased that the Liberals have done a 180° turn and now, apparently, at least as a temporary measure, share the our goal to see the threshold for benefits lowered to 360 hours.

Bill C-280 would put an end to the regional disparity in the qualifying period. This NDP bill would ensure the flow of EI dollars to more Canadians, who so desperately need them right now.

The existing EI rules set nine different sets of criteria in terms of hours worked for nine different ranges of regional unemployment rates. Workers in Canada may be required to have anywhere from 420 to 700 hours of eligible work to become a claimant for this benefit. This inequity is not suited for the kinds of job losses we see in Canada today. Regional unemployment rates are in flux and shift from day to day and week to week. EI must be better able to respond to this challenge. Common sense should dictate this, but I find common sense just is not common in the halls of the current government, or the preceding one, for that matter.

We are hearing support for changes to EI from some non-traditional places, such as the TD Bank and the Caledon Institute, both of which are saying that lowering the number of hours needed to qualify for employment insurance is the right thing to do to further combat the global recession.

These two particular groups clearly understand that EI not only serves the individual, but serves the communities' well-being and that of our nation as a whole. They understand very well that if we hang our workers and communities out to dry, it is not only bad for business but bad for the future of our country as a whole.

Across this country, Canadians will tell us very quickly there is much more to an economy than balance sheets and mathematical equations. For instance, Canadians know that the economy is only as secure as the lives of the people who make up our country.

The TD Bank and the Caledon Institute have taken a view of our economy that is both one for the long term, as well as for the short term. They recognize that one important economic measure that will help support a hurting economy in an almost immediate way is an employment insurance system that catches more people in a safety net, not fewer.

There will be those, and even some in this place, who will contend that we cannot afford to make employment insurance more accessible.

After years of building up a $54 billion EI surplus, the Conservative government wrote it off the books last year. The government owes Canadians the EI protection that they have paid into for years. Canadians have played by the rules, and now the federal government must set EI rules that protect them.

I can hear it now, like an echo in this place, how the government has already expanded the number of weeks a person can remain as a claimant. Yes, this is certainly true. However, those five weeks mean nothing to a person, to a family, when the person does not even qualify for benefits in the first place. And those extra weeks are only a temporary stopgap added to the end of a benefit period, where statistically people are even less likely to claim them.

The NDP has told the Conservative government repeatedly how it is critically important to remove the two-week waiting period for new claimants at the front end if we want to help a majority of claimants right now.

What is clear is that we have the opportunity to not only do the right thing at a time of national need, but we clearly cannot afford to miss this opportunity to fix a discriminatory and close to dysfunctional system.

The current Conservative government often looks to the U.S. to see its experience in any given matter. I offer the chief economist for Moody's credit rating service as an example. He testified before the U.S. House Committee on Small Business last July that apart from U.S. food stamps, the best bang for the government buck was to ensure that unemployed workers had access to employment insurance benefits.

To determine the effectiveness of differing stimulus measures, he compared their multipliers, an equation that gives a dollar amount to the economic activity created by a government dollar spent to stimulate the economy. His conclusions, for some, will be shocking.

A typical right-wing solution, such as a permanent tax cut, came in as a loss, a negative equation, that saw the dollar spent fizzle to half of its value. His opinion was that they were drains on the economy.

Infrastructure spending was quite good, with a multiplier of $1.59 for every dollar spent. In his view, again, the problem with infrastructure spending is in the amount of time it takes to have the money flow to the economy, which is exactly what we are living in Canada today.

His suggestion was that the better way to get money into the community immediately was through increases in spending on unemployment insurance. With a multiplier of $1.64, that would get the job done.

I will close by saying that our first best chance to help Canadians directly and in a tangible way is through Bill C-280. I ask members to join the NDP and support this bill.