Malcolm Allen

[Questions Passed as Orders for Returns, September 28th, 2009]

What is the total amount of government funding, since fiscal year 2004-2005 up to and including the current fiscal year, allocated within the constituency of Welland, listing each department or agency, initiative, and amount?

[Point of Order, September 18th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order to correct the record.

Yesterday, the hon. member for Cambridge asserted during debate on Bill C-50 that I had never come to him to ask for help to get funds for projects in the Welland riding while he also stated that others surrounding my riding had done so. He was mistaken.

I repeatedly asked him and his government for money to help the Welland riding and I am therefore asking for unanimous consent to table letters sent by me to him on January 19 and April 3 of this year, plus his response to me dated April 7 of this year. These letters deal with funding requests important to Welland riding projects, which deserve government support.

[Employment Insurance Act, September 17th, 2009]

Thank you, Madam Speaker, for allowing me the 30 seconds.

Clearly we are talking about employment insurance and how to make the system correct. A hodgepodge fix of this and that to cobble together a system that is broken and needs to be fixed will not work.

What will work is revamping the system and making it work for Canadians. They expect no less of us. That is exactly what we are saying. To layer the system with more inconsistencies, to put one piece on top of the other in a broken system will not fix it.

[Employment Insurance Act, September 17th, 2009]

Madam Speaker, my hon. colleague is absolutely correct to ask who took money and where it went.

Regarding part-time workers and seasonal workers, this primarily has affected women. When we look across the board, it is women in the economy who have suffered the greatest with the new changes.

I have heard the government complain time and time again that it was the Liberals who gave us the system. I say to my friends across the way to fix it. It is pretty simple. If they got a bad system from the guys across from them, then fix it. It is that simple. It is not that hard. All they have to do is enact the changes. The changes are before them. Take them to committee. In fact some of them are there. The Conservatives opposed the ones I proposed around severance and vacation pay, as did some of the my friends in the Liberal Party. They turned them down.

Vacation pay, which is earned in the year in which people work, is not new money. It is earned in the previous year, the year they were actually working, and it was taken away from them. Why? It is because you have not thought about the unemployed. What you have thought about is collecting the money, and that is not what the employment insurance is about. Employment--

[Employment Insurance Act, September 17th, 2009]

Madam Speaker, I will be splitting my time with my colleague from Sault Ste. Marie.

It is time for leadership. It is time to help unemployed Canadians before they are literally left out in the cold. Presently, 1.6 million Canadians are unemployed and this winter that number will grow and many will run out of EI and risk ending up on welfare. We have a responsibility to help.

New Democrats have long called for improvements to the EI system, particularly during the time of this economic recession, and we are pleased that the government has finally moved forward. These changes will help workers now and New Democrats are more interested in helping the unemployed than we are in provoking an election. Make no mistake, New Democrats are supporting this EI proposal, not the Conservative government.

The NDP plan for EI of reducing the hours needed to qualify to 360, including the self-employed, eliminating the waiting period and raising benefit rates has been passed by the House, and until now largely ignored by the Conservative government. The changes proposed in this legislation are a step in the right direction, but there is much more to do.

New Democrats believe that the best way to effectively use the balance of power Canadians have given to us is not to force another election but to rather force more changes to EI that would see the government work to enact the New Democratic Party plan. It is the responsible thing to do.

I have heard Liberals and Conservatives talk about their economic management and what they think is good. They toss it back and forth like a tennis ball. One party feels it is a better economic manager than the other.

Canadian workers are good economic managers because they contributed to the EI plan for a rainy day. They learned that from their parents. They learned to save for a rainy day. Their savings plan was the EI account and they contributed willingly and dutifully. They thought it would be there for them when the rain came. The rain has come, not as a sprinkle, not as a downpour, but as a torrent.

Where do we find 40% of those Canadians who contributed to the rainy day fund? They are standing in the rain, shivering, freezing, destitute, and without the rainy day fund that they pledged their money to because it was absconded with. Fifty-seven billion dollars would have looked after this torrent.

Canadian workers are asking where that money went. The unemployed are asking what happened to the money they saved. The response, of course, is that someone spent it and unemployed workers want to know what it was spent on. Was it spent on unemployed workers before them? Of course, the answer is no.

Under the changes of Brian Mulroney in the late eighties, continued on by the Liberals in the nineties, the system was gutted so that most folks did not get employment insurance. They simply had to do without.

As that money simply amassed, someone had the bright idea to spend it, and it was spent. First the Liberals spent the bulk of it and the Conservatives spent the rest. The Conservatives are saying they really cannot afford to look after the unemployed because they are running a deficit.

The last number that the finance minister threw out just last week was $56 billion. If the Conservatives had kept the rainy day fund, they would have a balanced budget and that would be good financial management. Neither one of those parties has been a good financial manager. Workers figured out how to actually be good financial managers because they are the ones who saved.

We owe those workers that money. It was not ours to keep. It was not ours to spend on the things that the Liberal government and the Conservative government thought they could spend it on. The pledge to the workers was to collect it for employment insurance to make sure that when they were unemployed they were protected, that they would receive what was due to them. The pledge was not to have it absconded by someone else who simply spent it on whatever. Unfortunately, that is where we find ourselves.

We should not be debating who is the best financial manager because clearly neither the Liberals nor the Conservatives are good at it. We ought to be debating how we intend to protect those workers who, for no fault of their own, find themselves in this torrent, this huge downpour, standing out there freezing in the rain, looking to us for help. The money might only be needed for a while because workers intend to get back on their feet. These individuals have worked for a long period of time and this money will help some.

However, as my hon. colleague from the Liberals said earlier about the loggers, let me point out what happened to auto workers who got laid off last October for seven weeks and then got laid off again permanently in February. They do not have enough hours between the layoff periods to get a new claim in February. They must go back to October 2008. They have worked for 25 years and have never been laid off before. The government plan does not qualify them.

The government's plan says they had to be laid off and have a claim as of January 2009. Their claim will be October 2008. Yet, they are long-tenured workers. They have worked 25, 30 years at a workplace and never collected a dime from the old UI system, which is what it should still be called, unemployment insurance, because it is about insurance for the unemployed, not insurance for the employed.

What it really should be about is making sure that long-tenured workers are covered. The government is not going to ensure that they are covered. Those people are going to go without simply because a temporary layoff happened in 2008 just prior to a permanent layoff in 2009, for which they will not qualify.

What will it say to long-tenured workers, I ask the government, when it looks them in the eye and says, “We made a program for you. Yes, we know you never collected before. I'm sorry, we put the wrong date. Should we have reconsidered the dates”?

I heard my hon. colleague, the parliamentary secretary, talk about taking the bill to committee to perhaps amend it and look for ways to do some things that can improve it. Indeed, we are going to have to do that because as much as it is well intentioned, it falls short. It falls short for long-tenured workers who indeed fit the scenario I have just laid out. There are other cases, as well, that will fall short of what has been set up.

We need to look at all of those things because clearly workers are looking at us and asking, “Why aren't you helping us? That is your role, is it not, as parliamentarians? Is that not what you told us you would do when you collected our money”? We have an obligation to them. We have a debt to them. We ought to repay that debt. That is the solemn promise we made to them when we collected their money.

I hear the idea that we cannot do 360 hours because they have only paid for a short period of time. I can hear the car insurance companies rubbing their hands with glee saying, “If you buy a new car, you pay your first premium and you crack the car up the following week, sorry, your car insurance does not cover it because you have only paid one premium”.

I wonder how many people have had the great pleasure of having teenage drivers in their households who happened to have a fender-bender and find out, indeed, that their insurance would not cover them because they only paid one premium. Insurance is insurance for a reason. It is there to protect people when they need it. It is not there to deny them because they fell on hard times.

The rules are clear in the EI system. I hear the government incessantly saying, “We are not going to give money to folks who don't want to work. If you quit, you don't get anything”. It is clear. The legislation has been clear for years. If people quit their jobs, they do not collect. If they get laid off, that is not their choice. They do not choose to get laid off because if they did, they would be quitting. When people get laid off, they should collect. That is what insurance protects them against. It protects them from being unemployed.

It is there to bridge the gap and make sure they can get from that period of unemployment to a period of employment because that is what the vast majority of Canadians do. When Canadians are asked if they want employment insurance or to go to work, they say they want to go to work.

Let me explain what the benefit level is. Even if people are making minimum wage in the province of Ontario, let us say $10 an hour at 40 hours a week, that is $400. If they go on employment insurance, they do not get $400. Why would they stay home to get 55%, basically $225 or so a week, rather than $400 if they are working? Clearly, no one goes home for less just because they can collect a cheque. People want to work, they will continue to work, and Canadians are proud to go to work. It is our obligation to make sure we see them through these hard times.

We expect this to pass with some changes and we expect the government to bring forward more EI changes that are going to benefit the laid off workers who are waiting and looking to the government to say when it will bring it forward. They need it, they need it now. Let us get on with the job of doing it.

[Questions Passed as Orders for Returns, September 14th, 2009]

What is the total amount of government funding, since fiscal year 2005-2006 up to and including the current fiscal year, allocated within the constituency of British Columbia Southern Interior, listing each department or agency, initiative, and amount?

[Questions Passed as Orders for Returns, June 19th, 2009]

With respect to investing in research and innovation, specifically regarding Brock University in St. Catharine's, Ontario: (a) what is the government's plan to ensure that Canadian research and development remain an example to the rest of the world; (b) what is the government prepared to do to ensure that the best and brightest remain in Canada; (c) what research grants will the government be making available this year, both at Brock University and across Canada; (d) what new programs will the government undertake to assist students; (e) what will the government's response be to the issue of rising tuition; (f) what specific steps will the government take to invest in research and development, to improve the lives of Canadians, and to partner to help Canadian industries grow in these difficult economic times; and (g) what future investments is the government planning for Brock University specifically as well as the colleges and universities across Canada?

[Questions Passed as Orders for Returns, June 19th, 2009]

With respect to investing in retraining and apprenticeships: (a) what is the government's plan to ensure that apprenticeships are being taken up by the industry during this economic downturn; (b) what new programs will the government undertake to assist unemployed Canadians to retrain for new opportunities; (c) what will the government's response be to the issue of rising tuition and costs incurred to complete apprenticeships; (d) what specific agreements have been signed with the provinces for the transfer of funds for retraining and apprenticeships, to improve the lives of Canadians, and to partner to help Canadian industries grow in these difficult economic times; and (e) what future investments is the government planning for the technical colleges and institutes across Canada?

[Employment Insurance Act, June 9th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleagues on this side of the House for their kind words in this debate on EI and what we need to do to fix a system that has been broken for a number of years.

My colleague from the Bloc made reference to the fact that there was a point in time when severance pay did not delay receiving employment insurance and vacation pay was seen differently from how it is seen today by the Canada Revenue Agency.

If someone is paid vacation pay on a weekly basis, in other words, if a person is entitled to $50 of vacation pay and it is paid weekly, it has no effect on the person's EI if the person is laid off at a subsequent point in time. However, if the vacation pay is paid on an anniversary date, that delays the person's EI. As my colleague from Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor said, that delay is pushing people into poverty.

We just heard my colleague reference a young woman named Shannon who told her story to a room full of strangers. In a sense she was telling the story of an extended family across the country at this time in our history when people are suffering.

On this side of the House we are trying to let the government know by relaying these stories that the suffering could at least be mitigated. The end to the suffering will come when we come out of the recession and people have jobs again, but at the very least we should help those in the country who are suffering.

This bill would help them. After all, it is their money. The money they are entitled to claim through EI is money they themselves have paid into the fund. One can debate what happened to the other money that was there and should have been kept in abeyance for just this time in history. I will concentrate more on the issue of looking after all of those in society who, through no fault of their own, at this moment in time find themselves in hardship. Those people who walk away from a job, do not qualify for EI. This bill does not talk about that. This bill concerns people who are unemployed through no fault of their own.

My colleague from Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor is hearing from the AbitibiBowater workers. I am hearing from the John Deere workers who will be out of work in a month. Some 800 workers in the riding of Welland, specifically the city of Welland, will be laid off through no fault of their own. That profitable company decided to leave and go to Mexico and threw those workers onto the employment lines. Most of them have worked all their lives, so they are finding out for the first time in their lives that their severance pay will preclude them from collecting employment insurance when they are laid off. It could in some cases be for over a year.

The government has taken a half step, maybe a quarter step, and said that if people use their severance pay to pay for their own retraining, the government will let them qualify for EI. The government ought to be a little more generous than that. The government ought to be fully compassionate and allow them to keep their severance. The government should retrain them for the jobs of tomorrow, and let them collect EI. It is their money. They paid into the fund. They are entitled to it. That is exactly what they should be allowed to do. It should not be about people spending some money and maybe the government will give them some money. The government cannot give what is not the government's to give. Those people are entitled to collect EI because it truly belongs to them. They are the ones who paid into the fund.

We on this side of the House have an understanding of the hardships, an understanding of the needs of those who have found themselves unemployed. We see on the other side of the House a sense of pushing people away, “Let us not bother with them at the moment. They can come back and see us later and perhaps we will let them qualify then”.

That is not what a compassionate country is about. That is not what the system was meant to do. The system is meant to take care of people in their most desperate hour of need. That is not happening. It is a real shame, that for all of those years that those people have worked, somehow they should not be entitled to EI as others are entitled. The entitlement should be the same. It should always be about equality. The way to make the system equal so that one is the same as the other is to allow them to keep that money.

I hope all members of this House will support the bill.

[Petitions, June 1st, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, it is my honour to present a petition signed by numerous Canadians from across the country regarding the Canada-Colombia free trade agreement. They suggest in the strongest possible terms that the government revisit what it is doing with the Canada-Colombia free trade agreement. There have been numerous petitions presented by members of this House to which I add one more. It is incumbent upon the government to hear what Canadians are saying from coast to coast to coast about this trade agreement. In light of what we have heard today in the debate on another agreement, one ought to pay close attention to that.