Mr. Speaker, I would first like to thank the member for Hamilton Mountain for having moved this employment insurance motion. Secondly, I would like to thank my political party, the NDP, and its leader for having made employment insurance today's priority.
Everyone is focused on the economic crisis and how we can give money to employers so that they can maintain jobs. We also want employees to have the opportunity to keep their jobs. At the same time, others do not have that opportunity; they will not be lucky enough to keep their jobs.
I will not repeat everything that my colleague from Hamilton Mountain said in her motion because I agree with all of her statements.
As for eliminating the two week waiting period, my colleague from the Bloc Québécois mentioned that it would simply be enough to move the last two weeks of benefits to the start of the benefit period.
The government is bragging about making big changes to employment insurance in this budget by adding five weeks at the end of the benefit period. The Conservatives are bragging about this and asking us, the NDP members, who we are to lecture them and tell them this was not a good idea, when we voted against their bill and against the budget. Well, we voted against their budget because it was not a good budget. Their budget did not go far enough.
The minister herself has said that the two week waiting period is not two weeks of waiting, but two weeks of punishment, because claimants are not paid during that time. Claimants can wait 28 days, 40 days, 50 days, even 60 days. And the Conservatives have done nothing to help workers in this regard, absolutely nothing. Just the opposite.
For example, there are rumours going around my riding this week that 15 workers are going to be moved from Bathurst to Moncton. These are people who process employment insurance claims and make sure people can receive EI. They are going to be sent away from Bathurst to take up some jobs for which they are unqualified, while in Moncton, new people who know nothing about the process are going to be trained.
This week, the minister boasted and said she wanted to improve the employment insurance system. The idea behind paying people for the two week waiting period is not to allow them to stay home, it is to make sure that once they have lost their jobs and are no longer receiving cheques from their employer, they can feed their families and pay their electricity bills, especially in winter, when it is cold like it is today and electricity bills run $500 a month.
People who have been working and earning $1,500 a week receive EI benefits calculated at the rate of 55%. I do not know whether people are aware of this. I want to tell the people who are lucky enough never to have received employment insurance that it pays only 55% of $750. So people used to earning $1,500 a week end up with $430 or $450 a week.
Yet the minister has the nerve to insult workers by saying that if she paid them for the two week waiting period, they would be tempted to sit at home. And the Conservatives wonder why we voted against their budget. We voted against the budget because it is not good.
As for the additional five weeks of benefits at the end of the benefit period, the government says it wants these people to find a job and go to work. They will not be able to take advantage of those five weeks if they are lucky enough to find work. Why not help them when they are struggling?
Our motion refers to 360 hours. Only 32% of Canadian women qualify for employment insurance, and only 38% of Canadian men qualify. We are in an economic crisis. We are all worried about the people who lose their jobs, because when they become unemployed, they do not even qualify for employment insurance, even though they paid for the system themselves.
The Liberals can laugh at the other end of the House, but they are the ones who voted against this, who made the changes to employment insurance and who allowed $57 billion to be stolen from the employment insurance fund.
The Conservatives can laugh on their side of the House. They are the ones who sanctioned the theft from the EI fund on the backs of unemployed workers, on the backs of families and on the backs of those most vulnerable. They now stand here and brag that they can balance the budget, and eliminate the deficit—on the backs of the poor, the unemployed workers and people who work in factories, in the forestry and manufacturing sectors and the auto industry in Ontario.
The president of the Canadian Labour Congress—and I would just like to congratulate the CLC and thank it for everything it is doing for working men and women—asked for a meeting with the Minister of Human Resources and Skills Development, but so far she has refused. She is refusing to meet with the president—the representative—of Canada's largest union. If the president of General Motors asked for a meeting, would she not take his call? If Alberta oil companies asked for a meeting, would she not take their call? But does she have time to take a call from the man who represents workers? Of course not. Workers are a bunch of lazy good-for-nothings who do not want to work. They should be cut off from employment insurance. They do not deserve to get any money because they are a bunch of slackers. That is shameful, insulting and unacceptable.
On Monday when this comes to a vote in the House of Commons, we will see how many members support the NDP motion, how many people will stand up in this House, how many representatives of the people, of working men and women, of Canadians and Quebeckers, how many of those representatives will agree to use this program, which belongs to the working people, to help those very people.
In June 2005, we raised the 12 best weeks issue. My Liberal colleague stood up earlier to say that we never asked for help for people who wait a long time for their employment insurance benefits. We asked the government to use the 12 best weeks, but the Liberals voted against it. They voted against using workers' 12 best weeks. I remember that; I have a pretty good memory. I remember what they did, and I remember that they did not support workers.
I am thinking of self-employed workers. I am thinking of a woman who is self-employed and who told me that she could never take a sick day or even have a child because if ever she took a day off, she would have to close her company. She would lose her livelihood and there would be nobody to help her. What did the government do for self-employed workers? Nothing at all.
I will tell you about one of my constituents. Gina Miller, a hair stylist, became pregnant and asked for help because when she stops working there will be no one left and she will no longer have a source of income. She asked for assistance. There were no programs to help her. Today, the Conservatives have the gall to ask why we voted against the budget. It is because, in this time of economic crisis, they did not include anything in the budget to help workers. They boast that the five weeks they added at the end of 45 weeks of benefits will help solve these people's financial problems. It is shameful and they should not be boasting about it.
Whenever we introduced bills in this House, we included all the changes that were necessary. They said it would cost too much and that they could not vote for all these changes. The motions and the bills were discussed, one by one, but they voted against them because they do not believe in the workers. It is like a rabbit with a carrot. They seem to be saying that it is unfortunate if they are made to suffer, but the workers will be the employers' slaves. That is what they want: workers who do what they are told. As for the rest, there is nothing. There is absolutely nothing.
After applying for employment insurance, workers wait 40 days before being called by a representative and finding out whether or not they qualify. Forty days. How do these families survive?
Once again, I wish to thank the New Democratic Party, my party, for tabling in the House of Commons this most important motion especially in these times of economic uncertainty.