Yves Lessard

[Fairness for Military Families (Employment Insurance) Act, May 6th, 2010]

Madam Speaker, the question posed by my hon. colleague from Acadie—Bathurst is extremely pertinent. I would also like to congratulate him on his perseverance in leading the fight to overhaul the employment insurance program.

His question is especially pertinent because CF members pay into the EI system. Considering the flaws that now exist in the system because it was ravaged, we see that they too are penalized and are disqualified. For instance, they are entitled to benefits equal to only 55% of their income, which is very little, because military personnel do not make a lot of money. The number of weeks has also been reduced over the years. Today that number is 50 weeks, but again, it is only a temporary measure.

What is more important, however, is access to benefits and eligibility. This is where I come back to the 360 hours. Consider, for example, a CF member who does not have enough hours because of the way things played out in his military service and who therefore does not qualify. We need to consider these things from now on, as we try to overhaul the employment insurance program.

I know that my hon. colleague is just as shocked as we are by the misappropriation of nearly $60 billion from the employment insurance system, yet the government is about to help itself to another $19 billion between 2012 and 2015. This is a serious economic crime against the people who cannot access employment insurance even though the money is there and it is their money. It is the same kind of misappropriation of funds committed by people like Earl Jones and Vincent Lacroix. Of course the government did not do so for personal use or for any particular individuals; it did so for the general public. But that does not make it any less devastating for the people who cannot receive EI benefits. That is what makes it a serious economic crime: these people have been deprived of something they are entitled to and this, in many cases, leaves them destitute.

[Fairness for Military Families (Employment Insurance) Act, May 6th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak to this bill. Whenever we have a bill or a measure before us that helps people and is constructive, we are all for it. We are in favour of Bill C-13 because it corrects a flaw, an injustice actually, towards Canadian Forces members who take parental leave.

As we know, when Canadian Forces members return from a mission and go on parental leave, they are sometimes forced to leave home again because of an operational imperative to return to duty. These people are being treated badly. They should be compensated for this time and allowed to take the full period of parental leave.

First off, I would say there is a flaw in this bill that needs to be fixed in committee. I believe that my colleagues from the three other parties will agree on this since we spoke about it briefly. We must make this bill retroactive. I hope we can correct this flaw during the debate or in committee.

We would like the bill to be retroactive, not indefinitely of course, but at least by 52 weeks, to the previous year. This would cover military staff who were on parental leave during that period and who could have been penalized if they had to return to military duty abroad because they were not covered by this bill. They should be allowed to use the rest of their parental leave upon their return.

The Bloc Québécois will support this bill because we must recognize that members of the military participate in dangerous and exceptional missions that can also lead, at the same time, to injustice with respect to their rights under the employment insurance system. One of those rights is the ability to use all the parental leave to which they are entitled.

This bill is necessary. The Minister of National Defence, who just spoke, will agree that the Conservatives' measures are not always exactly right because they are one-time measures. They are piecemeal attempts to respond to a specific need, in this case, that of the military.

The same thing happens with all workers subject to employment insurance. It is a poor practice because when you implement a measure to correct an injustice for one segment of society, in this case the military, you neglect to implement similar measures for other segments of society, who are also penalized by the application of the Employment Insurance Act, in particular. I will come back to the overhaul of employment insurance, which was raised earlier by my colleague for Dartmouth—Cole Harbour.

We do not give enough recognition to the contribution of the Canadian Forces to Canada and to each part of our country, in our case, Quebec. Many Quebeckers are currently serving in the armed forces.

These soldiers come home in fragile condition as a result of the missions they were sent on. They are physically fragile because of injuries, but they are also psychologically fragile. They do not receive any assistance, or very little, to reintegrate into society. The family unit is the basic building block of society. They often come back overwhelmed and severely affected by their mission. When they return to their families, they are in shock, because what they have just seen and experienced has changed them.

Bill C-13 provides an opportunity to recognize that the assistance we must give our soldiers should not be limited to a single measure, such as parental leave, which is not nothing. It is an important measure, and that is why we will vote in favour of Bill C-13.

This debate must serve as a reminder that there are other dimensions to the distress and injustices the soldiers are exposed to. There is a lack of psychological and financial support. In our role as parliamentarians in our respective ridings, we meet people from nearly all walks of life, including veterans and soldiers who were sent on missions and who, even if they were not fighting on the front line, witnessed situations that were traumatizing. Upon their return, it is clear that they have changed. Even those who did not know them well before their departure say that they are not the same. The majority of these soldiers are men, and their behaviour is often inconsistent. They are having difficulties and there are few or no resources to help them.

In many cases, they are abandoned by the armed forces. That needs to be said here, in the House. We must implement measures to supplement the lack of resources available to them when they return from their missions.

Earlier, I talked about the financial aspect. In 2005, the government of the day proposed and the House passed a measure to give returning veterans a lump sum to replace the monthly payments they had been receiving. The idea was that returning veterans would be better off getting a lump sum to help them rebuild their working lives quickly by starting a business or retraining, for example.

Experience taught us that this measure was not the wisest approach under the circumstances, mainly because of the situation I described earlier, the shock soldiers experience when transitioning from a mission or a combat zone back into society. Some people remain traumatized or shattered, while some recover and adapt. Many go on living with their problems and do not talk about them.

However, the government realized that many individuals spent their lump sum payments on things that may not have been good for their families or for themselves. In most cases, people squandered their lump sum payments. The measure we took was not appropriate under the circumstances and did not help soldiers or their families. On the contrary, it hurt families.

That has to change. What we are proposing is reinstating monthly payments. Of course, there will have to be a certain amount paid up front to help people reintegrate, but we need to bring back monthly payments so that people can reintegrate gradually and, most importantly, be guaranteed an income in the medium and long terms. We think that this would be a wiser approach, and that is what we have to work toward now.

As such, the Standing Committee on National Defence supported 34 recommendations that raise the issue I just mentioned, among other things. We circulated a petition to ensure a lifelong monthly pension for soldiers. As I said earlier, most soldiers are pretty messed up when they come back home.

I would like to come back to the instrument that we want to use to assure our military personnel that Bill C-13 will give them all of the parental leave provided for in the employment insurance system. Over the years, the employment insurance fund has been used for other things. In order to be able to use it for other things, the two successive governments ensured that as many people as possible would not be eligible to receive employment insurance benefits. More than 50%, 54% to be exact, are ineligible. How did they do it? The government put all sorts of stringent measures in place in order to accumulate the biggest surplus it could. We are talking about $57 billion. Of course, the government and the two parties that formed the successive governments want us to stop talking about it. It is disturbing that the government pillaged $57 billion from the employment insurance fund. And it did it on the backs of those who lost their jobs.

What happened? Access to employment insurance was restricted to the max. One thing is for sure, we need to keep working to overhaul the employment insurance system. That is what the Bloc Québécois is doing. We have introduced various bills in order to amend the number of hours needed to qualify. During the election campaign, virtually everyone said that 360 would be an appropriate number of hours. However, once they were elected, we saw what happened. Félix Leclerc, a Quebec poet and songwriter, had a song about this. The day before the election, they called you their best buddy and the next morning, they could not remember your name. It is the same for this commitment, this promise. All of the parties agreed on 360 hours, but now, we are about the only ones, along with the New Democrats, that are sticking with that number and continuing the fight.

Employment insurance coverage should also be increased permanently from 55% to 60% of income.

The law must be amended so that individuals the government deems uninsurable can be insured. There is a principle of culpability whereby individuals who apply for EI are assumed to be malicious and ineligible. People have to prove that they are entitled to EI even though they have paid their premiums and they have the required number of weeks. The time has come to do away with the principle that an individual is guilty even before he or she has received any EI benefits. It is true that some people are not entitled to EI because they do not qualify, and this is to be expected, but these people are a small minority. There must be very clear rules to determine who does and does not qualify.

The famous two-week waiting period must also be eliminated. During the election campaign, there was a general consensus that the waiting period should be eliminated, but the government announced that it would not grant the royal recommendation for this measure. It has not kept its promise. When the Conservatives were in opposition, they made a recommendation with us that the waiting period be eliminated.

Independent workers must have access to EI on a voluntary basis. What this government has done for independent workers amounts to half measures. It has made them eligible for a portion of EI benefits. Workers in Quebec are eligible only for leave for serious illness and compassionate care leave, which is not very much.

What independent workers have to pay for their employment insurance benefits is three times what they actually cost Quebec. This is not true elsewhere. Quebec has its own system of parental leave. The other provinces of Canada can have access to parental leave, and more power to them. That is fine with us. They pay the appropriate premium, but workers in Quebec have to pay three times the cost. I hope the government will tell independent workers that they are paying too much, because it has not told them so far. Yet the House unanimously adopted a Bloc motion on this. The party in power agreed that the government should redo the math and make premiums proportional to benefits.

In conclusion, we agree with this bill, because it corrects the injustice Canadian Forces members face. At the same time, the bill should remind us that there is a lot of work to do to overhaul the employment insurance system. We need to tackle this as parliamentarians, or else the government will keep on doing a piecemeal job.

[Fairness for Military Families (Employment Insurance) Act, May 6th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, I want to commend my colleague from Dartmouth—Cole Harbour for his speech on this bill and for his fine work in the Standing Committee on Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities, as well as for the role he plays as a parliamentarian.

In many ways we are very similar in our desire to improve the employment insurance system.

My question is twofold. First, does the hon. member agree with me that this government has been negligent in terms of its support for our soldiers upon their return from a mission when they are often physically exhausted from their injuries and emotionally exhausted by the strain of reintegrating into their families and into society?

Second, does the hon. member agree that it is high time to protect the employment insurance fund in order to make the improvements he himself has suggested to help families when a family member has the misfortune of losing their employment?

[Employment Insurance Act, April 29th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to congratulate my colleague from Brome—Missisquoi for introducing Bill C-241 and framing his arguments so well in regard to its main purpose.

Our colleague from Sudbury was exactly right. He showed very well what this measure is good for when people lose their jobs. He gave the example of the employees at Vale Inco, who have been in a labour dispute for a number of months now. Previously, there were job losses that had a domino effect on companies in Sudbury and caused further layoffs. Often these people do not earn big salaries, especially those working in retail. They were deprived from the outset of two weeks income. My colleague from Brome—Missisquoi did a good job of describing the impact of such an income loss.

These families still have financial obligations at month’s end, but they have two weeks less income. People who lose their jobs do not have any time to make financial adjustments. They have to start looking for a job and do not receive an income right away.

It is incredible to hear what our Conservative friends have to say about this. The parliamentary secretary quoted David Dodge, who was the long-time governor of the Bank of Canada and earned between $1.5 and $3 million. I do not know how many millions he got when he left his position and received a huge separation allowance.

He went so far as to say that giving employment insurance benefits to people who have contributed to the system—it is their money—could well push Canada into bankruptcy. It is incredible to hear such things. There are shows like Just for Laughs where people imitate what happens in the House of Commons and say things like that. It makes me laugh, but they could make similar arguments. They quote rich people to say how little the poor deserve what belongs to them. But this is their insurance, to which they contributed the whole time they were working.

They say that the government cannot pay for it. Well it is not the government paying, because only employees and employers pay into employment insurance. The benefits are paid with that money. They also say that the fund will go into deficit, but that is not true.

My colleague the parliamentary secretary, talking about the budget, acknowledged that $57 billion in surplus over the last 14 years was taken from the fund and used for other purposes. Over the next three years, from 2012 to 2015, an additional $19 billion in surplus will also be used for other purposes. They tell workers who lose their jobs they are going to bankrupt Canada. It is wrong to mock people like that. That money belongs to the workers.

Yesterday, in committee, a witness was asked whether workers are going to agree to having their premiums raised. They do not have anything to say about it, because the government has already decided it will increase premiums by 15¢ per $100 in earnings each year for the next five years. There is a $19 billion surplus. Are workers going to agree to that increase? They have no choice because it has already been decided.

Is there enough money to pay for it? Of course, it is being used for something else. This is a serious economic crime, committed against workers who lose their jobs, against their families, against the regions and provinces affected. Those people find themselves with no income, and it is the province in question that has to cover the cost. It is the Quebec nation that covers the cost, even though there is money in the bank.

It has to be said. The issue has to be debated in its proper context.

The waiting period was set nearly 39 years ago, as my colleague said. It was set because there were jobs at that time. Employers could not find workers. There was a lot of work and you could change jobs virtually every week if you wanted.

They decided they were going to punish people who did not want to work by imposing a two-week penalty on them. That was the reason at the time. It no longer exists. When people who have the misfortune to lose their jobs do not find a job overnight in their region, it is because there are no jobs. That is the reason why.

That measure has become antiquated and regressive over time. It applies to a situation that existed 39 years ago but no longer exists. Let us get to 2010, and let the government join us in voting for this bill. To do that, let it stop invoking the royal recommendation. That is a ploy to fool people. This bill is not asking that charges be made on the consolidated revenue fund. It does not cost a penny. The yes-people on the other side, particularly from Quebec, are not standing up for the people in their ridings. Let them show some backbone for once in their lives. The member for Roberval—Lac-Saint-Jean admitted it himself today. He said he was proud of the token role he was being asked to play. So let him stop—

[Employment Insurance Act, April 29th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, with all due respect for my colleague, I do not think he really understood what the hon. member for Sudbury was saying. The hon. member correctly gave the example of Vale Inco in regard to the waiting period. He was giving specific examples of people who were unable to take advantage of the two-week period. That is what he was talking about.

[Employment Insurance Act, April 29th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, I feel concerned by this reminder. Mr. Speaker, the reason I did not rise is that, like you, I saw the relevance of putting the waiting period into the context in which it was set, along with other measures that were also implemented.

In fact, I want to congratulate the member for Dartmouth—Cole Harbour for the relevance of his comments on Bill C-241.

[Employment Insurance Act, April 29th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, indeed, I am going to ask you to read the Standing Orders to the parliamentary secretary, because he is doing what the Conservatives often do, which is to bend the rules of the House to send messages that are false and that do not respect the rules of this place.

The hon. member for Brome—Missisquoi is absolutely right on this point. I am asking that the member opposite deal strictly with Bill C-241. We have done that, and we are going to continue to do so.

For once, could he comply with the rules of this House?

[Employment Insurance, April 21st, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, although Quebec's industrial structure helped it weather the recession better than the other Canadian provinces, the figures from the Institut de la statistique du Québec show two different sides of Quebec. In all, Abitibi, Mauricie, Saguenay—Lac Saint-Jean and eastern Quebec have lost 30,000 jobs since the beginning of the recession. One out of every 17 jobs was cut in the resource regions, and the Conservative government did not do a thing.

What is the government waiting for to completely overhaul employment insurance, to help the workers in these regions especially?

[Employment Insurance, April 13th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, today I would like to applaud the determination and courage of a woman named Marie-Hélène Dubé, a fighter who is determined to live life to the fullest.

In 2003, on her 32nd birthday, this mother of two learned that she had thyroid and lymphatic cancer. After two recurrences and treatment after treatment, she is doggedly fighting this illness. She has exhausted her 15 weeks of employment insurance sickness benefits, but she refuses to feel sorry for herself. Instead, she has decided to take on another battle: she has launched an online petition calling for employment insurance sickness benefits to be extended.

This petition has been signed by 62,766 people and I am presenting it for her in the House today.

On behalf of all of my Bloc Québécois colleagues, I wish to pay tribute to her and tell her how much we admire her tenacity and unwavering determination. Our best wishes go out to her for a full—

[Petitions, April 13th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, this morning, I have the honour to present a petition that is quite remarkable both because of its nature and because of the 62,766 signatures it contains. That may be a record in the House.

This petition calls for an extremely important measure: an increase from 15 to 50 weeks in the employment insurance benefit period for people who are seriously ill, injured or quarantined.

I would like to take this opportunity to pay tribute to the woman behind this petition, Marie-Hélène Dubé, who has survived cancer three times. This courageous woman is on Parliament Hill today, along with other people from organizations that have supported her: the Canadian Cancer Society, Coalition Priorité Cancer and the Canadian Union of Postal Workers.

My colleague from Joliette has already put forward a motion in the House to implement this measure. I hope that when the time comes, all my colleagues in the House of Commons will vote in favour of increasing the number of weeks of benefits for people who are on extended leave because of illness, injury or quarantine.