Mr. Speaker, on March 3, I rose to ask the Minister of Human Resources and Skills Development a question regarding employment insurance. It was regarding the obstacles and delays in receiving cheques.
There are people in my riding who are waiting up to eight weeks to get their employment insurance cheques.
Some people wait up to eight weeks to receive their cheques, and that causes problems. Usually, they expect to receive it within two weeks. That is what they are told to expect.
When we ask Service Canada what is going on, the story is that Service Canada does not have enough resources to process the cheques fast enough. Where are the resources? Why are we not processing those cheques quicker? That is a real problem. Money is not getting to unemployed people to help them pay their rent, buy food for their families and get going again and being able to live their lives to the fullest after the blow of losing their jobs. That is what employment insurance is about. I was asking about the lack of resources at Service Canada which is causing delays in people getting their cheques.
In response, the parliamentary secretary said that employment insurance is designed to respond to regional interests. He gave a long answer describing what one region gets compared to another. The answer did not have anything to do with the question in the first place. I hope the information the parliamentary secretary received from the PMO today will answer the question that I have been asking.
Since I have more time, I want to talk a bit more about the re-announcement on EI. I will save the parliamentary secretary doing it but that is probably what he will talk about. On May 25 the Minister of Human Resources and Skills Development re-announced changes to the employment insurance system to help long-tenured workers upgrade their skills to help them find new jobs. That is fine; it was a re-announcement, but it does not help a lot of Canadians who have been left out in the cold.
That is not what my question was about. It was not about reintroducing programs and the five weeks' extension at the end of the period which the government talked about. This was about getting money to individuals when they need it most, which is after the two-week waiting period. It is about getting the money to them when promised. They should not have to wait eight weeks, which causes them to have to borrow money from relatives, from banks, if they can get it, and even causes people to be deprived of the essential resources they rely on to keep their families going.