Human Resources Committee on Oct. 29th, 2009

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Hold on one second.

Mr. Lessard, do you have a point of order?

[Yves Lessard, Bloc, Chambly—Borduas, QC]

I have a point of order, Mr. Chair.

You will perhaps not agree with me, but I cannot help but wonder if holding this sort of debate when we have witnesses here to speak about Bill C-241 is not a breach of our rules. We are imposing a discussion about the political choices of our respective parties on them.

Could we please stick to Bill C-241? With regard to the debate that my colleague wishes to have, I would be delighted to take part at a later time.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Thank you, Mr. Lessard. That wasn't a point of order. Your time is up, but I'm going to go back because there's a minute left.

Mr. Ouellet, did you have a comment?

[Christian Ouellet, Bloc, Brome—Missisquoi, QC]

I would like to thank Mr. Lessard, because that is exactly what I was going to say. We are not here to discuss Bill C-50 today; I came to discuss Bill C-241, and I have not even heard a question from him on Bill C-241.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Do you want to finish up, Mr. Lobb, with one question?

Hold on. I have another point of order.

[Maurice Vellacott, Conservative, Saskatoon—Wanuskewin, SK]

I think the member is quite right. This is fair game. You have general latitude when questioning witnesses on a bill like that, and he is just simply pointing out the hypocrisy, in French and English, of the BQ.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

I don't think either one was a point of order.

Mr. Lobb, you have about 30 seconds left.

[Ben Lobb, Conservative, Huron—Bruce, ON]

For the record, I've done nothing but reference Bill C-241. I may have referenced Bill C-50 to compare and contrast some things, in all due fairness. If the fact that we're actually getting things done for the unemployed hurts Mr. Lessard, my apologies. To date his voting record has supported zero. If that's hurtful, he has only himself to look at.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

We're almost out of time, but because we started late, we're going to go back to the Bloc for one last intervention.

Madame Beaudin, I believe, has the floor for five minutes.

[Yves Lessard, Bloc, Chambly—Borduas, QC]

Could I have the floor please, Mr. Chair?

Mr. Lobb is mistaken when he says that what he is saying hurts Mr. Lessard. His remarks do not hurt me; they hurt unemployed workers. They do not do me any harm.

We have to put Bill C-241 back in the context of political choices that are made here. As Mr. Céré said at the beginning, what we need is a comprehensive reform of the employment insurance system so that it is once again able to meet its primary objective of helping unemployed workers. It is worth remembering that more than 50% of unemployed workers currently do not receive benefits because the eligibility criteria have been tightened to such a degree that the majority of unemployed workers do not qualify.

I agree with Mr. Komarnicki on that point, even though he often has other things on his mind because he has another meeting at the same time as ours.

[Ben Lobb, Conservative, Huron—Bruce, ON]

I have a point of order. With regard to the advice Mr. Lessard gave to me about talking specifically about Bill C-241, I would offer the same advice back to him.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Thank you, Mr. Lobb. That's not a point of order.

The floor is yours again, Mr. Lessard.

[Yves Lessard, Bloc, Chambly—Borduas, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Indeed, I considered what you said earlier, namely, that this was not a point of order. This has enabled me to bring up the topic of comprehensive reform.

This situation, this political philosophy... Our two witnesses also brought up this political philosophy earlier. Currently, we have put so many restrictions on money coming into the fund that we now want to justify the fact that we are no longer able to pay for measures that, normally, should be included in the employment insurance program. Mr. Céré said it very well: it is not a matter of what the premiums cost, but a matter of how we use them.

During the past 13 years, $57 billion was taken from the employment insurance fund. This is money that belongs exclusively to workers and employers, since they are the ones who made the contributions. If the two successive governments had respected the primary purpose of this plan, we would not be where we are today. We would only be dealing with Bill C-241-- the wait time. That's where we would be today.

Why are we making such a big deal of this and finding it so expensive? Because we cannot take it in isolation. We are now saying--Mr. Ouellet pointed this out--that we are taking one measure. So we asked ourselves if there was one measure that could immediately benefit all the unemployed, that would not necessarily add two weeks to their benefits. And this is it.

The opposition, which is in the majority, did in fact recognize the relevance of this bill, and because of the philosophy that I described earlier, the Conservatives are grabbing on to measures that don't help the unemployed, quite the opposite.

As far as the concern raised by our two witnesses is concerned, I would also like to mention that I will be making a speech in the House in an hour and a half--and other colleagues will be doing so as well--on Bill C-308.

We are going in your direction, Mr. Lobb, because you spoke earlier about accessibility measures. In the summer, you formed a committee with the Liberals, a committee we called a phoney committee. I think that the Liberals believed in it and worked very hard. This did prove to be a phoney committee, however, but with respect to accessibility. Finally, you will have an opportunity to speak about accessibility, because you appear to be concerned about it. By next week, we should be able to give our thoughts on Bill C-308, at the second reading.

Mr. Chair, I do not necessarily have any questions for our two witnesses, but I would like them to use my comments--for the time remaining--to weigh in with their arguments, if they feel it appropriate.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

That's all the time we have, but I will allow a quick response for both.

[Pierre Céré]

The government and the political parties represented in Canada's Parliament are going to have to give very serious thought to the entire employment insurance system, and not on a piecemeal basis but in terms of in-depth reform. We need to create a simpler, better employment insurance system, one that meets the needs of Canadians.

To conclude, I would also like to say that democracy involves not only expressing points of view, but also listening to the other side. I have just spent an hour here, and I have not always had the impression that the members sitting on one side of this room have been listening to me. I find that quite distressing.

[Christian Ouellet, Bloc, Brome—Missisquoi, QC]

Mr. Chair, I would ask the members who perhaps have not had a chance to visit the employment insurance offices to go there and witness the dismay of those people who have lost their jobs and who will have to wait a month before receiving benefits.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Thank you.

I want to thank the witnesses for being here today. You are certainly welcome to stay. I know Mr. Ouellet will want to stay.

Mr. Céré, it's nice to see you again. We're glad to have you here today.

We're now going to go to clause-by-clause consideration.

[Maurice Vellacott, Conservative, Saskatoon—Wanuskewin, SK]

Mr. Chair?

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Yes, Mr. Vellacott.

[Maurice Vellacott, Conservative, Saskatoon—Wanuskewin, SK]

I have a modest suggestion, and I'll humbly make it here.

Is it possible to do clause-by-clause, once we get the first one out of the way, by then doing an application to expedite it and go from there?

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

If the committee supports that, by all means, yes, we can.

Mr. Lessard.

[Yves Lessard, Bloc, Chambly—Borduas, QC]

I agree with Mr. Vellacott's suggestion. We could proceed as we did for Bill C-50. We could begin with a recorded vote on the principle of clause 1, in order to determine whether or not we agree with the principle of eliminating the wait time. Then our votes could apply to each of the clauses that follow.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Thank you.

Okay, we'll do a roll call for clause 1.

(Clause 1 agreed to: yeas 6; nays 5)

Can we apply those votes to clauses 2 through 12 in the same way?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Okay.

(Clauses 2 to 12 inclusive agreed to: yeas 6; nays 5)

Thank you very much.

Yes, sir, Mr. Lessard.