Human Resources committee  I think the fact is that, first of all, the 360 hours is very important so all women all across this country have the access, because again we go back to how long it takes women to accumulate that time in temporary, part-time, and casual types of jobs. So the 360 hours in terms of access is critical to every woman, no matter whether she lives in a high-unemployment or a low-unemployment area.

Human Resources committee  I don't think you can back that up for one moment.

Human Resources committee  Just a moment; just a moment. You know there's no evidence that says that if you allow people access to their EI benefits, they will then refuse to go to work for a crummy $291 a week. I mean, really, just take a look at it: if you have somebody who is offered a job that has reasonable wages and reasonable benefits, are they going to choose EI over that?

Human Resources committee  Well, obviously we do support all sorts of measures for employment, in particular for people from disenfranchised groups, but what we're talking about here are people who have jobs. Sometimes when you look at aboriginal people, women, workers of colour, and workers with disabilities, they are also the people who are more likely to be employed in part-time, temporary, casual-type jobs that don't have security.

Human Resources committee  We think there are three things that need to happen with the EI system: the question of access, which we're dealing with there; the question of the duration of benefits, which Andrew has talked about; and the question of level of benefits, so the percentage of what people get. And even at 60%, by the way, we're not where we used to be before all the cuts came.

Human Resources committee  I'd love to say to you that in the studies we've done over the last number of years, things have gotten better for workers. They haven't. The percentages are still shamefully low in terms of who can access benefits, and obviously for women and for workers of colour, aboriginal workers, workers with disabilities, any of those people who might have any hope to qualify, it's even worse.

Human Resources committee  Thanks very much for the opportunity to be here. We won't be taking 10 minutes, because we want to get into the discussion as well. The key reforms to the EI program that have been advocated by labour and anti-poverty groups are a reduction in the number of qualifying hours to 360 in all regions; a longer duration of up to 50 weeks of regular benefits; and an increase to at least 60% in the percentage of insured earnings replaced by EI benefits, based on the best 12 weeks of earnings.

Status of Women committee  Because women do hold up half the sky; we are half of our population, and it's important that governments do that. It's important, for example, that governments do something about pay equity. And I think it's important in this forum especially that we clarify that there's a difference between equal pay for equal work, which is being paid the same for the same job; equal pay for similar work, which is equal pay for jobs that are roughly similar; and equal pay for work of equal value, or pay equity.

Status of Women committee  The elimination of the court challenges program, the elimination of even just the word “equality” in the mandate.... If we have pay equality, if we have equal pay for work of equal value in this country, how come women on average are still paid 71¢ for every dollar that a man earns?

Status of Women committee  My response would be very similar. We need to change the systemic discrimination that women face. There is no one from the women's equality movement who would oppose more money, and in fact we've been calling for more money to go to women's programming to help individual women as those problems occur.

Status of Women committee  Pay equity is about women's economic equality, and that's for all women. We think it's absolutely shameful that we don't have national pay equity legislation in this country. In fact, it should exist in every province. We had a very well-researched, well-consulted report that came out in May of 2004, in response to which there was no action--you're quite right--from the previous government, and it should have been acted on.

Status of Women committee  Okay, and I should try not to avoid your pencil going up by continuing to look down. Thank you very much for the invitation, the opportunity, to be here. I'm not going to read the document that you've received from us before, but I will highlight some key points. As pointed out, the Canadian Labour Congress represents over three million working women and men across this country; about half of our membership are women.

Status of Women committee  All right. I want to close by saying that we shouldn't look at these cuts in isolation. What we've seen are other cuts by this government in the area of literacy that greatly affect women: the whole question of post-secondary education losses that are going to affect women; obviously the loss of the child care program; the lack of movement on pay equity; the loss of the court challenges program; and no movement on unemployment insurance--currently, about 30% of women get UI, and in fact in some areas it's as low as 16% or 9%.