Status of Women Committee on March 5th, 2009

[Irene Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

Thank you.

Mr. Battle, Richard Shillington was here last week, I believe, and he had the same complaint you have in regard to access to data. He had to pay money. And we asked StatsCan about that. StatsCan was very candid that their budget had been reduced in the mid-nineties and they were compelled to recover costs by fee-for-service.

In terms of those statistics you couldn't find or you have difficulty finding, if data on women were collected during this recession—because it probably is going to be more difficult for women who are part-time and experiencing low income—would those be helpful statistics to have? Secondly, would data on aboriginal, disabled, and immigrant women also be something that would help you in terms of your advocacy?

[Ken Battle]

I'll make my answer really quick. Yes, absolutely, I agree with everything you just said.

[Irene Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

So we need to—

[Ken Battle]

I'm not an obsessive researcher—data, data, data—but when you don't know the average benefits of EI over time for men versus women.... We're talking about absolutely basic things, and, as Barbara was saying, about being able to drill down. There are limitations, but it would be nice. It's not only a matter of women versus men, but people of colour versus non-colour, and so on. That would certainly help.

God knows there are enough bureaucrats, with computers and stuff, who could improve.... I don't want to be Machiavellian about it, but I don't think the lack of data is just a cost issue or just happened that way.

[Irene Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

You think it serves another purpose.

[Ken Battle]

Yes.

[Irene Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

A rather useful purpose.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Ms. Mathyssen, you have 30 seconds left.

[Irene Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

You talked about policy by stealth in regard to the shrinking of EI benefits, and Ms. Byers did too. Was it purely cost-saving? It costs more to raise kids and have a home now than it did in 1996. Is it just purely cost-saving on the part of the government?

[Ken Battle]

Yes, it was.

There is an argument. The maximum weekly insurable earnings should be around the average earnings, same as for the Canada and Quebec Pension Plan. The level had actually gone over the average earnings--it got higher--so the government said it was going to freeze it until it comes back down to average earnings and then index it to the increase in wages, which they did a couple of years ago. But it was ten years. Even with low inflation, it's 2% or 3% or 4% a year. So that's the reason for the decline.

But yes, there was a cost. We mentioned at the beginning that a lot of the reforms to EI over the years, in the 1990s and so on, were driven by cost. Absolutely.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Sorry, the time is up, Mrs. Mathyssen.

Ms. McLeod.

[Cathy McLeod, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I would also like to thank the speakers for coming and presenting. There's been some very interesting information.

Certainly in this case, Ms. Mathyssen and I absolutely agree around data. Data informs decisions. In this computer age, it should be relatively simple. If nothing else comes out of this, to have fair and reasonable indicators on which to make decisions is not a bad outcome in terms of going forward.

I have to say a few things. I was a voluntary part-time mother. I would hate to say that I wanted a full-time job, because I didn't. But we need data to tell us that information clearly and truly.

There's another comment I really can't let go by, because I've had so much positive feedback. With respect to people with stable incomes taking advantage of the home renovation tax credit--because that was a comment, and again, I can't let it go by--the builders are coming into my office and saying this has kept them going in their slowest month. They don't want to be laying off workers and they're doing lots of things. So I would be very careful about following that initiative through and not being immediately dismissive of that in terms of it being a very positive benefit for many, many people.

I guess I should get to my question; otherwise the chair will be after me.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

You're doing well.

[Cathy McLeod, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

I can appreciate the issues around people who pay in, but I really struggle with where we go with the self-employed. This is not about maternity benefits; this is about our unemployed denominator. I know the Canadian Federation of Independent Business doesn't want to be paying into this kind of system. They clearly said—was it Corinne Pohlmann?—they would rather be using that money in other ways.

With respect to self-employed people who clearly are indicating they don't want to participate in the system, I struggle with including them in our statistics and including that whole piece around self-employed.

I'd appreciate comments in that area.

[Barbara Byers]

I'm not saying that the home renovation tax credit isn't going to be useful in some sectors. I'm saying that what could be done in terms of increasing to 50 weeks is less than one-sixth of what's going to be spent on the home renovation grants. So the unemployed are paying for other sorts of programs.

I was going to say earlier that the unemployed paid for the deficit to come down. We have documentation from Paul Martin, when he was the finance minister, to the City of Prince Albert saying they had to use the money from UI to pay down the deficit. Well, as someone said earlier, that's not what you paid in for.

In terms of CFIB, I guess you'd have to know whether they're speaking on behalf of their members. The reality is that you have to have a system where people pay into it as a group. If you said why should I pay into UI if I'm not going to have children or those sorts of things--that individual choice--you take out the equality. If they don't want to pay into it, then CFIB had better deal with their members about whether they think it's useful. It's either all in or not.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Mr. Battle.

[Ken Battle]

I agree with that. You can't have a voluntary social insurance program. We have insurance for that: regular insurance, not social insurance. That makes it a very tough problem politically for any government that wants to add the self-employed. As you're saying, the self-employed who don't want it would be angry. It's a tough one politically.

My guess is that more self-employed people would be interested in that kind of thing. The number of self-employed has increased a lot. But I wouldn't hold my breath on that one.

[Cathy McLeod, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

Perhaps you would agree that the change we created in terms of the EI--protecting it and keeping it at arm's length from the general coffers--is a good decision, and the opening up of the training to all people, EI or not, is a good decision.

[Ken Battle]

The second one is extremely important. We see this in other kinds of social programs, too. You want to de-link services from income. It's very important, so they're delivered separately and we don't get into these kinds of inequities where you only get a service if you qualify for a certain income program like EI. That causes real unfairness with working poor people, for example.

[Barbara Byers]

We would disagree, though, that the money that's in there is not enough. There's $55 billion, so $53 billion is still owed into the Canada Employment Insurance Financing Board.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

We have five minutes left, and I don't think we can do another round. Perhaps the chair could ask a question.

Could somebody tell me if anyone has ever used a charter challenge against the regional disparities or the regional discrimination, as Mr. Battle called it, of EI? Has anyone ever done that?

If you don't have that answer, the other question is on the issue of the unemployed, and I think Ms. McLeod and others touched on it. There are businesses that make a fairly large amount of money that fit into the self-employed category, the small and medium business groups. But there are also women whose only way to work with a lack of child care is to work at home and be self-employed. We know these women are making $19,000, $20,000 a year. If, for some reason, they can no longer work, they have no source of income whatsoever and they are forced to go on welfare. As Madame Dépatie said, welfare is not something that most people would like to have. They'd like to work.

With regard to bringing the self-employed into this, which I think is a good idea, the argument has always been that people would just collect it as self-employed, and because they don't lay themselves off, they can't say, well, there's a layoff and I've lost my job. There would be abuse of that system. Can you answer that question?

[Barbara Byers]

You can't finance the system if you're going to have those sorts of situations. As Mr. Battle has already said, you can't have a voluntary social insurance system.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

How would you guard against that? I'm just saying that has been an argument for people. How would you guard against abuses?

[Barbara Byers]

It's the same thing as we've talked about with workers generally. Those people who are self-employed are no more inclined to abuse the system than anybody here sitting in this room. Mr. Battle may know the more recent statistics, but when I was doing social work the statistics were at about 3%, in any kind of a social system, for what might be considered abuse, whether it was EI, health care, or somebody coming in late to work, whatever it may be. So the same thing applies with the self-employed.

[Ken Battle]

It does raise certain issues that don't apply to employees, and therefore I think the government would have to do due diligence in how it designed and implemented that kind of program. Those things could be done. I don't think it's impossible.