Thanks very much. Merci beaucoup.
The Canadian Labour Congress welcomes and urges all parties to support this important bill. The bill would modestly increase EI benefits to 55% of earnings--as now--but calculated on the basis of the best 12 weeks over the previous year. We welcome the proposed move to the best 12 weeks, but we continue to urge a benefit rate of at least 60%. Members should recognize that the average benefit today is a very low $348 per week, barely enough to support even a single person above the poverty line. The maximum benefit today is $150 less, per week, than it was in the last recession. The bill would expand access to regular and special benefits to 360 hours. As members are aware, the CLC has long called for such a uniform entrance requirement of 360 across the country.
The current serious recession has amounted to a stress test for the current EI system, the first test of fast-rising unemployment since the new hours-based system was introduced in the mid-1990s. At one level the EI system has responded to the crisis. The number of regular EI claimants rose by almost 500,000 between July 2008 and July 2009, as unemployment soared. The proportion of unemployed workers collecting benefits has risen modestly over that period from 41% to 45%. That is because the system does become a bit easier to access, with a lag as the unemployment rate rises in a region. The duration of benefits also increases in line with rising unemployment. Yet the fact is that many workers, especially women and young workers, have fallen through the cracks. Between July 2008 and 2009 the number of unemployed workers who were unemployed but not collecting regular EI benefits rose by 220,000 or by 32%. The proportion of unemployed workers collecting benefits has jumped for men but has barely increased for women. The proportion of unemployed workers collecting benefits remains very low in many parts of the country, and in July of this year it was below 50% in the three western provinces, and also in Ontario, where it stood at just 40%. Again, as has already been pointed out, part of the reason is that it is difficult to gain access when jobs suddenly disappear in what used to be a low unemployment region.
Entrance requirements in terms of hours worked continue to exclude many unemployed workers from benefits. HRSDC research shows that about 10% of all unemployed workers in recent years worked before becoming unemployed but didn't have enough hours to qualify for benefits. That amounts to about 160,000 unemployed workers in any given month today and a much higher number over the course of a year. HRSDC and Parliamentary Budget Office costing of proposals to temporarily drop the entrance requirement to 360 hours from the current range of 420 hours to 700 hours shows that this change would bring in almost 200,000 more workers into the system over a year, at a cost of about $1.1 billion. This is surely an affordable change on a permanent basis since the cost would fall as unemployment falls. The change would provide limited but still important benefits for a limited time period to many vulnerable workers, again, especially women and young workers. If implemented today, it would be an effective form of stimulus and support for hard-hit communities. The CLC believes that the 360-hour threshold should also replace the 910-hour requirement, or about six months of full-time work, imposed on new labour force entrants and re-entrants. This serves to exclude many recent immigrants and may account for why so many unemployed workers in Toronto and Vancouver are ineligible for benefits.
We welcome the fact that the 360-hour requirement in this bill would apply to maternity and parental benefits. We have long supported a more generous and inclusive program that recognizes new realities in the job market and in society as a whole. Maternity and parental benefits allow parents, especially women, to better balance the demands of work and family care, helping to promote equality in the job market while also contributing in a central way to the well-being of very young children.
Changing the entrance requirement from the current 600 hours to 360 hours would bring more workers, especially mothers, into the system. In recent years, about 20% of mothers with paid jobs in the year before the birth of a child have not received maternity or parental benefits. We note that the current 600 hours is higher than the regular EI entrance requirement in those regions with over 8% unemployment, and it certainly excludes many women who paid into the system and deserve to benefit.
In conclusion, we urge your support for an important and progressive piece of legislation that will benefit many unemployed workers from coast to coast to coast.
Thank you.