Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank you for allowing me to share my time with my colleague from Winnipeg Centre. He once was a blue collar worker and is certainly familiar with the problems faced by construction workers and will be able to speak to this issue constructively.
It is a pleasure to address Bill C-2, not that I am pleased with Bill C-2 because it really does not go far enough. The standing committee on human resources development heard witnesses from all over Canada and more than 60 of them came here to Ottawa. I want to thank those who travelled to Ottawa to express their views on Bill C-2 concerning employment insurance.
None of these witnesses said that Bill C-2 went far enough. They focused more on what was not in the bill. That is what was worrying them. I want to thank them for coming to parliament and speaking on behalf of Canadian workers and even management.
We might look at the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, which I have accused of not representing the chambers of commerce throughout the country. Its representatives were saying that employment insurance should not be changed and that it would not encourage people to relocate.
The Prince Edward Island Chamber of Commerce testified before the committee and said that it did not agree with the Canadian Chamber of Commerce. It does not want people to relocate, it wants them to stay home. There are seasonal jobs in Prince Edward Island, in New Brunswick, in Newfoundland and in Nova Scotia. There are also some in the Gaspé peninsula, in Quebec, in northern Ontario and in northern Manitoba. I am sure my colleague from Winnipeg Centre will be able to tell me about it.
The situation is the same in Saskatchewan, in Alberta and in British Columbia. I have travelled to all the provinces. I also went to Whitehorse in the Yukon. Everywhere I went, unemployment was a problem. Employment insurance was created to take care of the unemployed. This system belonged to employers and employees.
When the employment insurance reform happened in 1996, it was all fine and well at the time for employers to say “This is what we must do. We must encourage people to work”. They quickly realized that in small and medium size businesses in Canada, where up to 74% of jobs are to be found in an area like mine—in just one riding—we are losing $69 million in benefits every year. This means that small and medium size businesses lost all these benefits.
Those who receive EI benefits do not have any money left once they have bought food and paid their debts. Who gets the money? The grocery stores and the banks where the car payments and the mortgage payments were made. They are the ones who get all the money.
People soon realized that it was small and medium size businesses that lost the $35 billion that was taken away from workers. With all due respect, EI recipients are not likely to have two bank accounts with millions in them. Many of them do not have any money in their bank account.
The Prince Edward Island Chamber of Commerce did well in representing seasonal workers when it appeared before the committee. Its representatives told us that they did not want the government to make any more cuts in the EI plan, that they wanted to see the plan restored.
Bill C-2 abolishes the intensity rule. As the member for Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup—Témiscouata—Les Basques said, this bill does not go far enough. Coverage should be increased to 60%. I would even push it further and say it should be increased to 66%. It should be two-thirds of the salary.
We must accept the fact that there are seasonal jobs in our country. We do not have seasonal workers. There is no such thing as a seasonal worker. Workers are not the ones who decide on a Friday that they will no longer have a job the following week. It is not the construction worker who decides. He does not decide if there will be construction work for him tomorrow or next week. It is not up to him. It depends on the health of the economy.
I have said it many times before. They took the cart and put it before the horses. The horse has never been able to learn to push the cart. That is the problem. They have taken money away from the economy to help everybody. That is what the employment insurance plan was for in the 1940s. That is what it had been created to do, to help those who lost their job.
It is criminal to take income away from people in the middle of winter. It is criminal to keep a lumberjack who works hard in the woods to make a living from getting employment insurance benefits to help provide for his family because his work is seasonal. That is unacceptable.
It is unacceptable that people working in a fish plant cannot provide for their families because the Liberals decided to cut EI in 1996.
These same Liberals were saying back in 1992 that if they were elected they would eliminate the cuts made by Brian Mulroney. That is what they were saying in 1992. We have press cuttings to prove that. What they have done to workers and Canadian men and women is unacceptable.
Let us have a look at the clawback clause. It is unfortunate that Canadian Alliance members keep saying that we are always on the side of workers who are constantly on EI. The unemployment insurance plan does not belong to the government or to a political party. It belongs to Canadian workers. It belongs to them and not to politicians. This money is not ours. It belongs to workers and employers who have contributed.
It is unacceptable that workers in the construction or automotive industry are laid off for two months, as is currently the case in Ontario, while their plant is being retooled to produce a new model, for example. It is unacceptable, in this day and age, that they do not have an income to meet the needs of their family during that time.
When members of parliament leave the House of Commons in June and come back in September, they keep their salary. Why should the salary of a construction worker be cut? Why should the salary of a worker in the automotive industry be cut? Why should we not treat these people as we would want to be treated? It is unacceptable.
However, we know one thing. After I was elected I said that I would support any change to employment insurance which would go in the right direction. As far as I am concerned, abolishing the intensity rule is a first step; it is better than reducing it to 45%. I support that.
Regarding the clawback rule, I support abolishing it and increasing the limit from $39,000 to $48,000. It is unfortunate, however, that the government changed its mind and decided to include clause 9 in Bill C-2. I will explain why. In so doing, it has made people wonder what the government has to do in an area where decisions were normally taken by the commission.
I said it right from the start, in 1997, and I have repeated on several occasions in this House “The government stole the money anyway”. This will not stop me today from supporting the changes to the intensity rule and this will be my recommendation to my caucus.
I wish to ask for one thing from the government. With respect to the promises the government made during the election campaign—and this is not only about Bill C-2, because even the public works minister bragged about putting other measures on the table, in Quebec—I hope and ask that, as voted in committee, we will be able to make recommendations to the minister between now and June 1, and that she and the Prime Minister of Canada will show an open mind and that they will not do so for electoral purposes only. Real changes need to be made for the well-being of Canadian workers.