Bill C-44 (Historical)

An Act to amend the Aeronautics Act

Employment Insurance Act

[Monique Guay, Bloc, Laurentides, QC]

Mr. Speaker, before getting into the heart of the matter, I would like to take a few seconds to thank the constituents of Laurentides for having once again put their trust in me.

For the third time in a row, the people of my riding have chosen me as their representative in the House of Commons. I am profoundly touched by this great vote of confidence. As I did during my two previous terms of office, I will do everything in my power to serve them as best I can. I promise to take all the necessary steps to represent their interests in this House.

I will start fulfilling that promise right away because, as usual, this government is once again trying to take us for a ride with Bill C-2.

For many years now, the employment insurance issue has been a priority for the Bloc Quebecois. It is normal because the EI program helps people who are in need or who, periodically or for conjunctural reasons, have to rely on it because they have no income. We are talking mostly about self employed workers, seasonal workers, workers in regions, young people and women.

The Bloc Quebecois has been fighting for years against the federal government's plan to grab the surplus in the employment insurance fund, a plan that has now become a reality with Bill C-2. Let us say it as it is: with Bill C-2, the federal government is about to literally establish and legalize the misappropriation of $30 billion in funds. This money does not belong to it. This $30 billion belong to the unemployed, workers and employers, period. This fund was not created to save money and to create a surplus in order to pay off the deficit and now the debt of the country.

With such a surplus in the employment insurance account, the people of Quebec and Canada were expecting major changes to the employment insurance plan. With Bill C-44, the predecessor of Bill C-2, which was introduced just before the election was called last fall, the Bloc quickly realized that such was not the case. History is repeating itself with Bill C-2, which contains only cosmetic changes. Bill C-2 is almost a carbon copy of Bill C-44. There are some minor changes here and there, but almost nothing to answer to the real needs of workers.

The Bloc Quebecois has not been the only party to denounce Bill C-2. Advocacy groups for the workers and the unemployed also denounced this bill. They think that the government is not trying to resolve the real problems and that the changes proposed are far from being enough. The main problem—eligibility for the plan—remains unsolved.

In its arguments, the government is basically saying that Bill C-2 is a major reform of employment insurance, because, based on government estimates, it will cost $200 million this year, $450 million next year and $500 million in 2002-03.

It is plain and simple hypocrisy. It is playing the people of Quebec and Canada for fools, nothing else. Just imagine a situation where I pick $100 directly out of your pockets but, being a very generous person, I give you back $8. That is how generous this government is. That is exactly what it wants to do with this so-called employment insurance reform. Moreover, as I said earlier, it is running away with the employment insurance fund and its $30 billion, and the population and the Bloc Quebecois should say thank you to the government? We say never.

More specifically, it means that, based on a $6 billion a year surplus in the employment insurance fund, the government would only give back 8% of the amount it picks each year from the pockets of the unemployed, and we should be thankful for that?

Employment insurance has become a payroll tax, because the government refuses to give back to the unemployed and the workers what is owed to them and is continuing to accumulate surpluses at their expense.

The government obviously does not feel for the unemployed and those left behind in the employment insurance reform. The measures contained in this bill do not adequately address the problems caused by the plan, particularly as they relate to seasonal and regional workers, young people, women and self employed workers, and here is why.

To begin with, the government has clearly decided to ignore self-employed workers, yet their numbers keep increasing on the labour market. According to Statistics Canada, the percentage of self-employed workers went up from 12% in 1976 to 18% in 1999, so that nearly one worker in five is self employed. The EI plan ignores these workers. It is as if they did not exist, while there are more and more of them in the Canadian economy.

Let us talk about students now, our future, those who will forge our society of tomorrow. Our young people must have access to higher education if they are to satisfy the needs of the new economy. Between the rhetoric of this government, which claims to be very worried by our students' fate, and reality, there is a world of difference. The EI legislation does not help all our students to study, on the contrary.

As we all know, more and more students pay for their studies by working part time, and full time during the summer. They pay premiums without even being able to get any benefits under the plan.

The last census in 1996 revealed that there were more than 2.8 million full time students. The 1999 control and evaluation report states that nearly one million Canadians earned less than $2,000, which entitled them to a refund. However, only 40% of those applied for it, 42% of whom were under 25 years of age. In other words, nearly 2.6 million students had to contribute to the EI system while trying to pay for their studies.

The EI eligibility rules are a real orphan clause. Young newcomers face more restrictions in applying for benefits. Instead of a minimum of 300 hours, that is 15 hours a week for 20 weeks, they need 910 hours, which amounts to 35 hours a week for 26 weeks. It is utterly unacceptable.

On top of that, how can one explain that, with a plan that is supposed to help those who pay premiums, benefits have dropped 28% between 1993 and 1999, and the number of people collecting regular benefits has dropped 52.4%?

How can one explain that, in 2001, having a child is something that should be penalized, according to the federal government?

For the government, having a child is something that should now be penalized. To punish mothers, the federal government and the Minister of Human Resources Development, who is a woman, have decided that, to collect the maternity or parental benefits, 600 hours will soon be required. Whereas a worker in a region with high unemployment will be entitled to benefits after 420 hours of work, a woman in the same area will have to work at least 600 hours to collect maternity benefits. Up to now, 300 hours, or 15 hours a week during 20 weeks, were required. Where is the moral sense of this government?

Being a responsible political party that wants to meet the needs of the unemployed and the workers, the Bloc Quebecois is prepared to pass Bill C-2 quickly on one crucial condition, that it be divided into two separate bills.

The first bill, as suggested by the Bloc Quebecois, would meet the urgent needs of the workers not appropriately covered under the current plan. Among other things, the Bloc Quebecois would want the new bill to eliminate discrimination against younger workers and newcomers on the labour market—910 hours to qualify—to increase benefits from 55% to 60% of insurable earnings, to level the playing field for seasonal workers and to eliminate the waiting period.

The second bill would include long term measures to be debated in committee. The Bloc Quebecois is in favour of an independent employment insurance fund and coverage for the self employed.

In conclusion, if the bill is not divided, there is no way that the Bloc Quebecois can support such a clear misappropriation of $30 billion from the EI fund and a discriminatory bill that is totally inconsistent with the needs of the unemployed and the workers of Quebec and Canada.

[Ghislain Fournier, Bloc, Manicouagan, QC]

Mr. Speaker, once again, I did not say it. It was in the dictionary, but I will of course respect your recommendation.

I was saying that it is shameful to see the government taking money from society's most disadvantaged, men and women who have lost their jobs, who are vulnerable and who sometimes have no means to defend themselves. It is all the more shameful to see the government boasting in the throne speech that it is ensuring all children are protected from poverty.

Worse yet, in another paragraph, there is the following:

There was a time when losing a job also meant immediate loss of income for workers and their families. And so Canadians created employment insurance.

This government is ignoring the demands by social groups opposing the legalization of this misappropriation of $38 billion dollars from employment insurance, which is now $30 billion.

Clearly, employment insurance has become a payroll tax. The government is refusing to give the unemployed and workers what is coming to them and continuing to accumulate surpluses on their backs. It has no concern for their welfare, and they are left behind by this employment insurance reform.

The measures in this bill will not solve the problems caused by the system, including those of seasonal workers in the regions, especially young people, women and all workers in general.

The Bloc Quebecois opposes Bill C-2 in its present form. The Bloc Quebecois is proposing a favourable and constructive approach, because it feels that it is essential to respond as quickly as possible to the real needs of unemployed workers. This is why it is calling for two bills.

The first bill would deal with urgent needs. This is what the Bloc Quebecois would propose: abolition of the intensity rule, of course; abolition of the discriminatory practice of taxing back the benefits of frequent claimants; an increase in insurable earnings from 55% to 60%, so that unemployed workers could have a decent income; abolition of the clause that discriminates against new entrants in the workforce, especially young people and women; and, finally, abolition of the waiting period.

The second bill would concentrate on long term amendments to be discussed in committee, such as the creation of an independent EI fund.

Before the election was called in the fall, the government introduced the same bill, giving the Liberals full control over the EI fund. At the end of 1999, the surplus in the EI fund stood at approximately $30 billion. Since 1994-95, the Liberals have helped themselves to more than $38 billion in this fund. Hence the importance of creating an independent fund.

This bill does not meet the essential demands of the Bloc Quebecois. The government does not go far enough to improve the system and put a stop to the discriminatory criteria. The government broke its election promises when Bill C-44 was introduced before the election campaign. People said that bill did not go far enough. During the election campaign, the Prime Minister himself admitted that his government had made mistakes. He said “It is true that we made major mistakes in that bill”. The Secretary of State for Amateur Sport personally pledged to make changes to the Employment Insurance Act.

For example, on November 9, 2000, the daily Le Soleil reported that the secretary of state had said that “Following the election of a majority Liberal government we will restore the process and ensure that the changes are appropriate and that they adequately reflect the realities and needs of the people of the Saguenay—Lac-Saint-Jean region and of all Quebecers and Canadians. I am committed to making changes to the act and we will make changes”.

The Secretary of State for Amateur Sport came to my riding because workers from the FTQ, the steelworkers union, and the CSN had planned a protest. He came to ask them not to protest, because he would personally make sure that changes would be made. This is a disgrace.

Where is the Secretary of State for Amateur Sport and what is he doing? Absolutely nothing at this point. We do not hear him and we did not hear him during the debate on this bill. Now that the election has been held, we find ourselves with the same bill as before and the issue is still not settled. This attitude is unacceptable. We can no longer hope that politicians will be taken seriously when they display the attitude I just described. This is no longer what we call democracy. It is misleading the public. People expect more than mere election promises. They expect significant and concrete corrective measures.

Under the current plan, higher income earners, for example those engaged in seasonal work, particularly in the construction sector, have to pay money back when they file their income tax returns, if they have earned more under the employment insurance reform.

Over the past five or six years, employment insurance has been the single most important factor influencing poverty in Quebec and in Canada. As I said earlier, the government claims to want to protect poor children. If there are children living in poverty, it is because there are parents living in poverty. The government has not done anything to reduce poverty in this country. Therefore, the Bloc Quebecois will oppose Bill C-2.

[Peter MacKay, Progressive Conservative, Pictou—Antigonish—Guysborough, NS]

Mr. Speaker, I will continue my remarks from yesterday evening. It is important that all Canadians acknowledge and realize that this system pertains nationwide. It is not limited or directed to any one region of the country.

The problems that exist in the system currently could very much be improved if the government took the time to listen to seasonal workers and to its own employees who handle EI problems in places such as the maritimes. They have suggested on more than one occasion that one method of improving the system and improving the method of determining EI benefits over a pay period would be to have it scrapped and replaced with a system of declaring hours worked on a weekly basis. If people do not work during a certain week they do not declare the particular week.

It is obvious that the EI system has major inadequacies that are placing Canadians who need help into tremendous debt. I have written personally to the current minister and the previous minister on a number of occasions, and I have not had the pleasure of a response, sadly.

On the issue of undeclared earnings, I wrote the HRDC minister over two years ago but have not received a response. Even then public concern over the inequity was growing. I have subsequently written again and the minister has not responded.

The Conservative Party is generally supportive of Bill C-2, but our support is conditional on the bill going before the committee so there will be further analysis and hopefully the opportunity to put forward amendments and changes, if necessary.

We are supportive to the extent that the bill will remove the existing intensity clause and will be committed to fixing the so-called repeater's rule which made it virtually impossible for a woman to receive employment insurance if she left a job to have a second child. However the Conservative Party does not support the government's refusal to deal with artificially high EI premium rates.

We would welcome the opportunity at committee to enact some of the changes we proposed and put forward during the recent federal election. Those included support for the continuation of an independent employment insurance commission and its role in recommending sustainable EI premiums.

The current legislation would give cabinet the power to set premiums for 2002 and 2003, which actually gives the government a further year to study the premium setting. This was the case with the previous Bill C-44. The thought of having this provision removed from the independent body and handed to the cabinet and the finance minister is unacceptable.

Other groups, such as the Canadian Restaurant and Foodservices Association, have spoken out against the move. The Conservative Party supports the CRFA and its opposition to the Liberals' approach, which is seen as very paternalistic and a manoeuvre that would create more problems than it would address.

We are also committed as a party to the investigation, with the employment insurance commission, of a proposal that would move toward the establishment of an individual EI account and an EI rebate program that would enable workers to roll a portion of their EI contributions into an RRSP upon retirement.

There is no reason why EI rates are so high. At the end of last year the EI account had a cumulative surplus of over $35 billion. The $2.25 employee premium rate will drive the cumulative EI surplus above the $40 billion mark by the end of 2001.

The recent auditor general's report blasts the government for the way in which it has handled the account. The auditor general rightly points out that the EI surplus is well over twice the maximum amount that the chief actuary of HRDC considers sufficient as a reserve for the account. This is because of the unnecessarily high premiums that the government refuses to significantly reduce.

As seasonal workers in Atlantic Canada and across the nation suffer from the Liberal cash grab, it becomes very frustrating for a member of parliament who represents an area with many seasonal workers and high unemployment, such as Guysborough. There is great frustration among those workers and employers when premiums should and could be reduced to the $1.90 mark from the current level of $2.25.

There is ample opportunity for the government to correct the inadequacies in the bill. We look forward to the opportunity at committee to bring forward amendments that would improve the legislation.

[Peter MacKay, Progressive Conservative, Pictou—Antigonish—Guysborough, NS]

Madam Speaker, I welcome the opportunity to speak to the bill, formerly Bill C-44, which has generated a great deal of debate and discussion around the country. It is certainly a matter of great interest in my constituency in Nova Scotia, Pictou—Antigonish—Guysborough.

The changes that we are discussing result from callous changes that were made by the Liberal government to the insurance plan in 1997 which resulted in a public backlash that was attempted to be remedied by the government in the wake of the 2000 election.

Now in typical Liberal fashion, the call of the election resulted in the death of the bill. We saw that with a number of important pieces of legislation. While on the hustings though, the Liberals dangled former Bill C-44 in front of the faces of Atlantic Canadians in particular. Seasonal workers of course were those who were most vulnerable on this particular piece of legislation.

Hopefully, this early calling of the bill, the debate that has ensued and the opportunity again to revisit these issues at the committee is an indication that the Liberals are in fact quite serious about passing this legislation and bringing about improvements that will enhance the ability of seasonal workers to benefit from the bill.

In my riding of Pictou—Antigonish—Guysborough the problems with employment insurance are major issues of concern. Whether I spoke to workers at Trenton steel plant, farmers in Lismore or fishermen in Canso, the same complaints were prevalent when addressing their EI concerns. The issue of undeclared earnings was by far the number one complaint throughout the riding and was given particular priority by those who engaged in shift work at the Trenton Works Ltd. steel plant in Trenton, Nova Scotia.

Just to elaborate, there is a loophole in the undeclared earnings section of the Employment Insurance Act which allows the government to claw back moneys from individuals as an overpayment even though the claimant never receives the benefit. That is the crux of the issue. In essence, the government is taking money back on earnings that were never actually realized by the employer.

I spoke to members of the HRDC local office who administer the EI claims in the maritimes and they too have expressed concerns over the manner in which this particular section is implemented.

For example, during the weeks where a shift worker is employed, the worker does not expect, nor does he receive any EI benefits. At the end of hard week's work, the worker then fills out an EI claim and sends it to be processed. However, the problem arises if the worker is then asked to work overtime. That is there is a change in the situation because of an overtime job that requires the worker to be called back in. The worker, in some instances, has already sent in the card. This is not an issue where the individual is trying to deliberately mislead anyone, it is simply a change in circumstance.

What then happens is the overtime hours will not be included in the declaration of hours worked. Often a worker does not bother to phone the HRDC office to report his or her additional hours because the person knows that he or she does not qualify for benefits for that particular week. The person knows that making a change in the original card submission will only cause delays in the processing. Sadly, those who are reliant on these government cheques are in a catch-22. They are afraid, in essence, that they will receive no benefits if they are forthcoming with this information. There is also a shortcoming in their ability to communicate this.

I know there have been attempts to deal with this anomaly by setting up a 1-800 number. Again, it is very difficult for the worker on shift work to provide that information to the local office. The delays often result in a longer wait for claims where individuals are not able to work or are not called in to work and are therefore in receipt of no income.

Still when an EI representative phones the employer to confirm how many hours the employee has worked, the discrepancy becomes evident quite quickly. The employee is then penalized for having submitted a fraudulent claim.

There is an issue that has to be addressed. There is an opportunity in this particular bill to address this anomaly. The penalties for fraudulent claims are enormous and unnecessary. The penalty covers the entire period of pay as opposed to the pay week where the infraction occurred. There is almost an issue of double jeopardy here. Thus the employee's penalty would claw back the much needed money even from weeks where the hours of work were properly reported and a blanket penalty would be imposed.

All of this may sound convoluted to any individual who has never availed themselves of seasonal employment and been on the EI system. For those who have, this is a real dilemma for seasonal workers.

I know my time is short. I look forward to the opportunity to continue participation in this debate when we resume the matter tomorrow. I know the time is here to conclude for the day, but I respect the Chair's indulgence and look forward to further participation.

[Benoît Sauvageau, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

Madam Speaker, first of all I want to congratulate you on your appointment.

In response to the question of the new member for Yukon, I could read the list, because it is indeed not very long. There is the abolition of the intensity rule, the abolition of discrimination in the rule of tax clawback, the change in the definition of new entrant, the indexing of the maximum yearly insurable earnings and the reduction of the premium rate to $2.25.

I hope that answers his question and his interest for this subject. In a spirit of co-operation, he too could oppose this bill, because that is what the people in his riding would ask him to do if they had the same information available to them. Unless he must follow the party line, which would be very sad for a new member.

First of all, as my colleagues did the first time they rose in the House, I would like to thank the people in the riding of Repentigny for putting their confidence in me. This is a riding that you know well, Madam Speaker, as you visit it regularly. Since you represent the other end of the island of Montreal, you have the opportunity to come by often.

So, the great riding of Repentigny is an urban riding composed for the most part of young families that have elected me and given me their confidence for a third mandate. To all those who voted for me I want to give my wholehearted thanks and assure them that I will work hard, as I have over the last seven years, to stand up for their interests here, in the House of Commons.

First of all, I would like to talk about the previous bill, because before we talk about this one, we have no choice but to put it in context and look at its background.

We are debating today Bill C-2, but it is really a new incarnation of Bill C-44. Technically, Bill C-44 died on the order paper, because the government House leader, with all his goodwill, made sure the Liberals did not call an election after passing such a revolting bill. He did not see fit to use closure or other parliamentary tricks to gag the opposition. He made sure the bill would die on the order paper so they could appear, during the campaign, to be more open on this bill.

Bill C-44, an act to amend the Employment Insurance Act, has disappeared. The Prime Minister, who is in China today, has made this comment about the bill: “We realized that this was not a good decision, and we should not have done this”.

The Prime Minister said that Bill C-44 was not a good idea, but one of his ministers is much more talkative. The minister responsible for amateur sport often stumbles in his public statements. Hon. members will certainly agree with me. He never misses a chance to voice his strong opposition when a government decision is not to his liking. If he does not agree with me, the minister will get a chance to say so during the questions and comments period, and if he does not say a word, it is because he agrees—

[Odina Desrochers, Bloc, Lotbinière—L'Érable, QC]

Madam Speaker, first, as it is the first time I have had the floor during this 37th parliament, I am very happy to begin by thanking my constituents of the great riding of Lotbinière—L'Érable, who have returned me as their representative in the House of Commons. This victory by the Bloc was reflected in all of the 50 municipalities of my great riding and this victory is due to the 500 volunteers who worked hard to keep the riding of Lotbinière—L'Érable with the Bloc.

Speaking of the campaign, I would like to remind the House of certain things that were said at the time, specifically on employment insurance. Before going deeper into this bill, I am going to bring forward some facts that marked the last election campaign. During the next minutes, I am going to show, once again, that the Liberals have not been true to their word, to their promises.

We all remember the interview on an English language network where the Prime Minister apologized and was very remorseful for the devastating effects of the EI system reform.

That week, the Secretary of State for Amateur Sport adopted a similar tone when he said that, when the Liberals returned to power, it would be time to propose major changes in order to meet the expectations of the unemployed.

I also remember that one week before the election, when the Prime Minister was in New Brunswick and spoke so eloquently about his election commitments, he forgot to mention that he would look after the unemployed. One of his advisers immediately reminded him that he should talk about the issue.

All this confirms that once again we have been the victims of a real misinformation campaign. The unemployment issue has indeed created confusion in parliament. No one has a clue. Everybody is looking for the facts. We are trying to find out what the government intends to do, but to no avail.

Let me reflect on the highlights of the reform, on certain recommendations that the Bloc Quebecois intends to make. I will also deal with the report tabled last week by the auditor general.

For a few years now the Bloc Quebecois has been openly critical of the surplus in the employment insurance fund. Only last week, the auditor general said:

In his 2000 report, the Chief Actuary of Human Resources Development Canada has estimated that a reserve of $10 billion to $15 billion should be sufficient to guarantee the stability of EI premium rates over a business cycle.

In the meantime, the Employment Insurance Account's accumulated surplus has grown to $28.2 billion, almost twice the maximum amount considered sufficient by the Chief Actuary.

We wondered. What did the Government of Canada, what did the Liberals do with the surplus? The auditor general told us in a rather direct manner:

The Account's operating surplus, in effect, provides a source of revenue and cash flow for the government and helps reduce its net debt.

This means that the government has taken money from the unemployed, it has taken EI contributions to pay off the debt and particularly to set up programs that often infringe on Quebec's jurisdictions.

What is going on in this parliament is totally unacceptable. A few moments ago, the government House leader announced a first time allocation motion, a first gag order.

What should we make of this whole issue? During the election campaign, the big names in the Liberal Party of Canada said that parliament would take its time to discuss the employment insurance issue. Now that we are back here in the House we find that the House leader is again playing the same game that he started during the last session by moving gag orders to prevent democratically elected representatives from saying what they have to say about the Employment Insurance Act.

The Bloc Quebecois is strongly opposed to Bill C-2, a pure and simple imitation of Bill C-44. However, it would be interesting if the current government divided Bill C-2 in two, to ensure it would respond more realistically to the expectations of unemployed people.

We have a series of recommendations to make. I would like to say that, already in the last parliament, the Bloc Quebecois had been very forward looking, since it had introduced six bills to improve the operation of employment insurance, to try to find better solutions to respond to the needs of unemployed people.

The Bloc's requests are very clear. We ask for the elimination of the intensity rule. This bill talks about this. We also ask that the maximum insurable earnings be increased from 55% to 60%, which would be much more realistic. We also ask for the elimination of the discriminatory clause towards new entrants to the labour force. We know this applies to young people and women. We also ask for the elimination of the qualifying period.

In Bill C-2 it is announced that the premium rate is to be reduced to $2.25, but the auditor general's report has much more precise calculations. This government is already late when it says it wants to reduce premiums to $2.25. The chief actuary, an employee of the Department of Human Resources Development, believes that employees' premium rates should be between $1.70 and $2.20, which would cover the long term costs of the employment insurance program.

In its planning documents, the Department of Human Resources Development predicts that the accumulated surplus will reach $34.6 billion by March 31, 2001. On August 31, 2000, the unaudited balance of the fund's accumulated surplus was $32.4 billion. These figures disgust the public. These surpluses are upsetting, they make no sense.

We understand that the Liberal government is trying with Bill C-2 to hide the truth. It is trying to legalize what has always been called the hold-up of the unemployed and the small and medium businesses. If Bill C-2 ever passes, no one, including the auditor general, will be able to intervene to bring this government back to order.

Of late we have witnessed all sorts of operations making this government, this parliament, increasing antidemocratic. In the riding I represent and in all ridings in Quebec, there are seasonal workers, men and women who return to the labour market, young people who come onto the labour market. These people, because of measures that are very difficult to understand, cannot draw employment insurance.

Just imagine that a young person has to work 910 hours before being entitled to draw benefits. A worker paying benefits—depending on the region—must accumulate between 420 and 700 hours to be entitled to employment insurance benefits.

The current act, which will not be amended by Bill C-2, discriminates seriously against young people and women, who are affected by this rule, that is, they must work 910 hours if they return to the labour market.

If I look at Bill C-2, especially if I refer to the many promises not kept by the federal Liberals in the latest election, it is very thin in content. It offers no hope to the unemployed waiting for major changes, which could have met their needs and corrected the injustices committed against them by the Prime Minister and his government in the last session.

When I think about what happened during the election campaign and when I hear all the balderdash on employment insurance coming from the other side, I wonder who knows the truth. Fortunately, the Auditor General of Canada brought back some kind of order last week. He gave some indications to try and clear things up.

This bill is an insult to the unemployed. There is nothing in it for them. It only mentions the abolition of the intensity rule and some minor changes when everyone in Quebec and in Canada was expecting so much.

The Liberals are laughing at the unemployed. They did it throughout the election campaign and continue to do so here, in the House of Commons.

The members of the Bloc Quebecois will continue to fight for improvements for the unemployed. Fortunately, we have in the House of Commons 38 men and women to protect the interests of Quebecers. Even with the government trying to muzzle us and take away our freedom of speech, I hope that, in the little time we have, we can prove that Bill C-2 is an empty shell, that it brings almost no changes to the system and is an insult to the unemployed in Quebec.

Speech From The Throne

[Paul Crête, Bloc, Kamouraska—Rivière-Du-Loup—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to address the House today, following the speech by the member for Bellechasse—Etchemins—Montmagny—L'Islet. I have two questions for him.

The first concerns research and development. I agree that some of the Canadian Foundation for Innovation projects have produced some interesting results. For example, I know that the Centre spécialisé de technologie physique du Québec, in La Pocatière, received funding.

I would like the hon. member to tell me whether his vision encompasses a sufficient share of R and D investment both for Quebec and for areas outside the major centres, be they in Quebec or elsewhere.

As we know, the trend in this field is to create centres in order to create synergy, but often there is a natural attraction toward the major centres. There has been a tradition of research in certain areas for years. For instance, the centre in La Pocatière benefited from the support of an experimental farm for some years. Unfortunately, it was closed in 1994 as a result of cuts. Since then, however, new areas of activity have been developed in fields related to technology, mass transit and all manner of other areas.

Does the hon. member think Quebec is getting its fair share? What about the regions? When I see the number of federal research centres that are located in the Ottawa region compared to Quebec, I feel there is a very considerable disproportion.

My second question deals with an issue which must be of concern to the hon. member. During the election campaign, it was said that there would be other changes to employment insurance in addition to those contained in the former Bill C-44. Now Bill C-2 has just been introduced and it is Bill C-44 all over again.

During the campaign, the Prime Minister stated that certain problems, certain major shortcomings in the plan needed to be corrected. The Secretary of State for Amateur Sport and the Minister of Public Works and Government Services, who is also the minister responsible for Quebec, suggested that other improvements needed to be made. I know as well that the hon. member for Bellechasse—Etchemins—Montmagny—L'Islet, with whom I participated in a debate on this issue during the campaign, has indicated a desire for such openness.

Can he explain to us why the government has not immediately brought in other modifications? Does he believe it is possible for additional improvements to indeed be added through the work of the committee, and for the terrible clause trying to legalize the misappropriation of the employment insurance fund surplus to be eliminated?

Employment Insurance Act

[Paul Crête, Bloc, Kamouraska—Rivière-Du-Loup—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC]

Mr. Speaker, does the hon. member for Lévis-et-Chutes-de-la-Chaudière think that the members for Bonaventure—Gaspé—Îles-de-la-Madeleine—Pabok and for Bellechasse—Etchemins—Montmagny—L'Islet will vote in favour of the bill in its present form, a bill in which there is nothing that was not already in Bill C-44? Do these members go along with the Prime Minister's trickery, who said “Some major changes are in order and we will make them” whereas, now that the election is behind us, the Prime Minister is forgetting the reality?

Does my colleague agree that during the election campaign the members representing the Gaspé and the Etchemins—Montmagny—L'Islet ridings came and told us that major, indepth changes were necessary? Today no such changes have been made. How will these members vote at second reading? Since no changes have been made to the bill, this means they now agree with the content of that bill, while they were opposed to it during the election campaign.

What does the hon. member for Lévis-et-Chutes-de-la-Chaudière think these members will do?

[Antoine Dubé, Bloc, Lévis-Et-Chutes-De-La-Chaudière, QC]

Mr. Speaker, we have the same opinion of what they were saying. During the election campaign, I watched the news like everyone else. When the Prime Minister was campaigning, in your neck of the woods, I believe, he said this about Bill C-44 “We realized that it had not been a good decision; we ought not to have done so”. He was referring to the cuts to employment insurance eligibility.

The hon. member for Bourassa made a personal commitment to making corrections to the employment insurance legislation. Many people understood this to mean corrections that would improve the bill that had been introduced just before the election.

The result as far as concrete measures are concerned, with the exception of a few lines or phrases, is that nothing substantial has been changed. It is as if there had never been an election. It is as if those words had never been spoken.

That is why in the speech I have just given I said that, on occasion, I am beginning to understand why people are fed up with politics. When a person listens to what is said during election campaigns, particularly by the people across the floor, words that are not respected afterward, not taken any notice of, it is as if nothing has happened at all.

I would say, however, that the voters did a good thing by re-electing a number of opposition MPs, particularly the hon. member for Acadie—Bathurst, and all the others I have just named, to act as watchdogs over this government. I would have a word of caution for the hon. member for Chicoutimi—Le Fjord, for whom I still have considerable respect. When a person crosses the floor of this House, before he does so, he needs to be vigilant about maintaining his opinions, his values, the things he wants changed.

[Suzanne Tremblay, Bloc, Rimouski-Neigette-Et-La Mitis, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Quebec City for her question. I would just like to make one small correction: the number who do not qualify is six out of ten, not four.

That having been said, according to official OECD figures, 30% of Canadians are illiterate. We think this refers to adults. They are considered illiterate because they are unable to read the dosage on a bottle of aspirin.

It is with great sadness that I note there seems to be a heavy concentration of these illiterate adults among the members on the other side and among their handlers because they are incapable of understanding what is going on. One of the reasons they gave for introducing reform was that the system was costing too much and they needed more money. They solved that rather well. Their second goal was to adapt to the economic reality facing the country. In my view, they are incapable of understanding that reality and no one is able to explain it to them. Concerning the minister's interpretation, in my riding I told people to vote for me and we would block Bill C-44. Sixty per cent of them gave me their vote.

The member for Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup—Témiscouata—Les Basques said the same thing. He won 60% of the vote. The fact is that wherever there are unemployed workers, in the riding of Acadie—Bathurst, for instance, people were more inclined to trust the member who was there than the Liberal candidate who ran. In certain other ridings, one would have to look at how the campaigns were run and what the member did before and after.

During the campaign we learned about a few little things that had gone on. In addition, in the case of the minister, there were some little scandals in Nova Scotia. We learned about it during the campaign. We did not know about it beforehand. I myself heard people say “We could perhaps vote for the Liberals. They are the ones who have the money and give it to their friends”. These are not very good reasons to vote for a party.

The minister has it all wrong. During the election campaign, when the Liberals talked about employment insurance, they told people to elect them and they would make changes. Our response was to ask people to elect us and we would do the same. Since those for whom the public voted, whether Liberals or Bloc Quebecois, promised change, this change must come about or some of us will be liars.

[Christiane Gagnon, Bloc, Québec, QC]

Mr. Speaker, during question period today there were questions raised regarding the new employment insurance bill.

One of our colleagues, our critic on this issue, the member for Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup—Témiscouata—Les Basques, asked the Minister of Human Resources Development why she felt justified in reintroducing the same bill that was proposed before the general election.

She said that the percentage of support that her party received in the general election gave her the legitimacy to go ahead with her contested bill.

I would like to ask my colleague who defended this issue remarkably in her speech to explain her understanding of the situation. Did the people who voted in the last election really say to the minister to go ahead with Bill C-44, a bill which excludes four persons out of ten, which requires people to work more without qualifying for employment insurance and which gives back to the men and women who lost their jobs only 8% of the $6 billion paid every year into the employment insurance account?

I think we can explain the results of the election in a more refined and accurate way, instead of interpreting it as support for the bill reintroduced by the minister, Bill-C-44, which will be discussed in committee. I would remind members that we will invite people to appear before the committee to voice their opposition to the minister and to tell her that the bill is not generous enough. I would like my colleague to give us her interpretation of the last election results.

[Suzanne Tremblay, Bloc, Rimouski-Neigette-Et-La Mitis, QC]

Mr. Speaker, except for today's question period, this is really the first opportunity I have had to rise in the House in this 37th parliament.

First, I want to thank the constituents of Rimouski—Neigette-et-la-Mitis for their tremendous support during the last federal election. I am proud of the confidence they have shown me and I can assure them that I will continue to make their interests my first and foremost priority.

To you, Mr. Speaker, I also want to extend my congratulations on your election as Speaker of the House. I was very impressed by all the comments I have read about you in the papers. Best of luck in your new duties.

Let us now turn to today's debate. Last Friday, February 2, the government introduced Bill C-2, an act to amend the Employment Insurance Act and the Employment Insurance (Fishing) Regulations.

Those of us who have followed the recent election campaign of the Liberals, mainly in the maritimes, the lower St. Lawrence, the Gaspésie area, the North Shore and Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean, expected the government to show a little more respect for the people and not to have so much amnesia.

If that had been the case, the government would have introduced a very different bill from the one now before the House. When I saw the Secretary of State for Amateur Sport, I told him “Now we will look for results. We have kept abreast of the promises you made”. He answered“ Do not worry, we will keep our promises”.

We are off to a really bad start. The bill we have before us for study is, unfortunately, identical, but for a few commas here and there, to one introduced just before the House was prorogued, Bill C-44.

I would like to make some things perfectly clear concerning Bill C-44. Just before the last general election was called, the Liberal government wanted to head off to the hustings with the advantage of Bill, C-44, which brought in a few changes to the conditions for eligibility for employment insurance.

It therefore sought the unanimous support of all House leaders in place at that time to help accelerate the process of getting Bill C-44 passed.

All opposition parties refused to give this consent to the leader of the government. The Canadian Alliance had its reasons and the Bloc Quebecois had its own, as did all parties in opposition.

We were mainly opposed to the outright theft of the surplus in the employment insurance fund. We had the support of Action Chômage and various lobby groups in the province of Quebec. They were not prepared to trade a few meagre improvements for the theft of billions from the fund's surplus. We therefore opposed rapid passage of the bill.

When the government says that the Bloc Quebecois voted against the bill, it is engaging in misinformation, disinformation and even demagoguery, since a vote on this bill was never held in the House. It is true that the Bloc Quebecois refused to be an accomplice to the theft of the employment insurance fund, because we learned at a very early age that he who holds the loot bag is just as guilty as the one who fills it. So, we refused to be the accomplices of this government by agreeing to quickly pass this legislation.

Then came the general election. What happened? Every day, there were all kinds of polls. Among other things, we heard that the Progressive Conservative Party and the New Democratic Party would disappear, that they would fall into oblivion, that they might manage to save a few seats, but that they would no longer be official parties in the House.

We also heard an increasing number of experts, analysts, parliamentary correspondents, journalists and professors of political science say that we seemed headed for a minority Liberal government, something which became a source of concern for the Liberal Party's top strategists. These people said to themselves “We need a good cause. We should make a good sales pitch so that Canadians will like our party and give us a majority government. Then we can do whatever we want”. It was to be promises during the campaigns and then arrogance, contempt and, above all, no recollection of the commitments made.

In order to make sure the Prime Minister would get the Guinness record he wanted so badly, that is to get a third straight majority mandate, top Liberal strategists said “What would be good for the Liberals would be to make people from the maritimes and Quebec believe that if they elect us we will change the employment insurance program”.

Several ministers got down to work and travelled throughout Quebec and the maritimes, especially in the regions most affected by unemployment, and promised that the employment insurance plan would be changed.

It is amazing how easily people let themselves be fooled once again. The government has broken its electoral commitments. The new Bill C-2 is the exact copy of Bill C-44, introduced before the election.

The government has done exactly what it did when it promised to scrap the GST, to use the Prime Minister's words.

We should examine what some members of the government said. It is a very revealing exercise. On January 17, 2001, La Presse reported comments by the Secretary of State for Amateur Sport, who never misses an opportunity to make promises concerning the employment insurance system. Unfortunately, he is not as good at it as when he makes promises about sports. He has a better command of his own portfolio than that of the human resources minister, who does not seem to understand the commitments he has made on her behalf.

Here is what La Presse wrote on January 17 “ If well reasoned and justified arguments are brought forward, we are open to change”. He further clarified “The public works minister and myself are open to this kind of dialogue. We are open to discussions”.

Some openness. The government's mind is completely closed. We are caught in the same situation we were in with Bill C-44. The dilemma is absolutely unbearable: we are penalized if we vote for it and penalized if we vote against it. The government puts us in a very uncomfortable position.

The Secretary of State for Amateur Sport said that if we had good and justifiable arguments, his government would be open to change. We have been here since 1994. We were elected in 1993 and began sitting in parliament in 1994. What have we been doing since 1994? Day after day, all the critics for the Bloc on that very important issue, be it the hon. member for Mercier or the hon. member for Kamouraska—Témiscouata—Rivière-du-Loup—Les Basques, asked questions about the issue first to Mr. Axworthy, then to Douglas Young and to the current Minister of International Trade. As for the present minister, we confronted her day after day, but to question her about a scandal so outrageous that we did not have time to ask questions about the employment insurance plan.

However we did question her three predecessors about their employment insurance reforms. We reminded them of the position they had taken when they were in the opposition and were opposed to the changes proposed by Mr. Valcourt but that was like talking to a wall. They all had the same answer, always the same answer: “The hon. member did not read the documentation. He or she does not understand and will not understand anything about the reform”.

This is what we were told day after day. All those ministers showed how they betrayed Canadians.

They have never been able to explain the real idea behind the reform. The government wanted to get more money into its coffers because it needed billions of dollars to pay for its scandals, for its expenses and to grease its friends' palms; that is why it had to reform the EI on the backs of workers and employers, that is on the backs of those contributing to the EI fund.

Time and again at committee stage, we put forward justified and justifiable arguments showing the need to change that plan which is against the young and discriminates against them. It is so discriminatory to young people that I cannot see how it could be constitutional.

Earlier, I heard the member opposite—I do not remember the name of his riding, but it is close to Nunavut or Abitibi—say that young people do not leave our regions because they do not have jobs. Of course, they do. Over the past five years, in my region, we have seen 700 young people aged between 15 and 29 leave.

Do you know what it means when young people aged between 15 to 29 leave? It means that the population is declining, that we no longer have the resources we need to develop, that the government could not care less what happens to the regions. Yet, it is prepared to spend millions of dollars to get elected, as we have seen in the Gaspé, while letting people wallow in unemployment.

They are asked to work 910 hours. It is impossible for a young person to work 910 hours. They really have to leave the region and go to a large centre to find other jobs in order to manage, and to work the famous 910 hours. Then, they never come back to the region, or almost never.

I myself heard the Prime Minister, the member for Saint-Maurice, make his promise during the campaign. He had forgotten, and his organizers made him get back up on the stage. I saw him with my own eyes and heard him with my own ears say “Oh yes, that is true. I had forgotten to promise that we will rework the plan”. What did he say? He said that they would, in February, give money to the unemployed retroactively. “Housing costs are not paid retroactively”, commented my leader.

How can the Prime Minister, who knows what really goes on in his government, say that there will be retroactive measures? We tried for retroactive measures for those who lost their job between July 17 and September, so they would be included in the same plan as the temporary measures proposed by the government. The government refused to allow a retroactive arrangement for these people. However, they will have to face the gap, as my colleague from Acadie—Bathurst said. The spring gap is coming. The Prime Minister will not notice, any more than will the minister.

What was the Secretary of State for Amateur Sport saying during the election campaign? He said “Once a Liberal majority is elected”—ah, now the cat is out of the bag. They wanted a Liberal majority so they could continue being arrogant with people—“we will reinstate the process and make sure that the changes are effective and meet the needs, for the most part, of the people of the Saguenay—Lac-Saint-Jean and Canadians as a whole. I have made a commitment to change the law and we will see to it”.

The Secretary of State for Amateur Sport, who is also a boxer, has become a featherweight in this government since he has been unable to include one single amendment in this bill. Not one.

Moreover, we may soon be gagged both in the House and in committee because the government will find that too many people are complaining about its arrogance. It makes no sense at all.

The Prime Minister added “We realized that it was not a good decision, and that we should not have done it”. That is what he admitted, in the Canadian Press, on November 4, 2000, in the middle of the election campaign, on the subject of the cuts to the employment insurance plan his government had imposed. He recognized that it made no sense but now that he is back in power with a majority government, it suddenly makes sense to him to keep on being arrogant.

I could keep on quoting clips collected during the electoral campaign, but it would remind Canadian and Quebec people too many bad memories.

I am sure they bitterly regret now what they did on November 27, because in other cases they did the right thing. In my riding, 60% of the people supported me when I told them I would come to Ottawa with a strong voice to represent them and to defend their interests about unemployment insurance and the Young Offenders Act. The government is up to its old tricks.

As for parental leave, the government has no idea of what makes sense.

My colleague from Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup—Témiscouata—Les Basques, our critic on this issue, explained very well this morning that we will unfortunately be faced with having to vote against the bill, not because we are against tiny improvements, at least they are improvements.

There are some improvements. There is the elimination of the intensity rule, the elimination of discrimination concerning the rule of tax clawback for frequent users, the change in the definition of new entrants or re-entrants to the labour force for special benefits, which applies mainly to pregnant women, the indexing of yearly insurable earnings and the reduction of the premium rate to $2.25, which is not enough but is still better than nothing.

What is terrible is the stealing of the fund. Never would I have thought that the Liberal government would do such despicable things. Once again, it has fooled the people on all counts.

Canada made some progress when minority governments were in office. It is very sad that there is not one this time. Imagine how different the bill would have been if the leader of the government had to deal with the four opposition parties to give us a bill that fulfilled the Liberal Party's promises.

[Greg Thompson, Progressive Conservative, New Brunswick Southwest, NB]

Mr. Speaker, I congratulate you on your appointment. I am not sure whether to chastise you, criticize you, or promote you. During the last parliament you were the government whip. I guess I am giving you some credit because it was a very tight majority. You never lost a vote in that three and a half years.

Although it is difficult for us on this side of the House to say it, I think you did an extremely good job. Despite our political differences, I think your colleagues recognized that. I wish you the best in the chair. Being a former NHL referee, as has been mentioned many times, it comes naturally to you. This is probably a tougher forum than some of the ones you have refereed.

Bill C-2 is a replacement for Bill C-44 which died on the order paper when the election was called. It was to address some of the difficulties the government incurred following its draconian moves on the EI file in 1996. At that time The government inflicted a lot of punishment on seasonal workers.

It really revolved around the intensity clause, which meant that if one collected employment insurance over a period of years, one would lose 1% of the benefits, up to 5% if one collected over what is called a 20 week cycle over a five year period. In other words if one was a claimant for five years, one would lose 5% of the benefits. That would bring it down from 55% to 50%.

That does not seem like a lot of money to any one of us in the House, but my colleagues and I have done a quick calculation based on a minimum wage worker. Many workers in New Brunswick and other parts of Canada are earning minimum wage. In some cases it is as little as $6 an hour, or $240 a week before taxes, before EI premiums, CPP and all other deductions are taken off. With a $240 paycheque, how much does one have at the end of the day? It is not very much. I suggest in the order of $200 with any luck.

When our jobs ran out what did we do? Was there a safety net? There was, and it was called unemployment insurance. The name has now been changed to employment insurance. I guess it is a more positive name. No one wants to use the word unemployment. Employment insurance is the instrument we would look at for some protection and support when we are unemployed.

The intensity rule meant that a minimum wage worker would be entitled to $120 a week in employment insurance. That is what their benefit would be if they were unemployed. It would be 5% higher, somewhere in the order of $126, maybe $130 tops, if one had not claimed employment insurance at all. Basically, that is the straw that broke the camel's back.

The government was not being very responsible or responsive to its citizens at the time. I know some of the ministers in Atlantic Canada simply played hardball with the seasonal workers. They basically told the workers to get off their rear ends and go to work not realizing that work does not come that easily in some parts of Canada, particularly Atlantic Canada. I am still surprised at my colleagues from the united alternative, formerly the Reform Party, when they talk about lazy Atlantic Canadians. They have made that statement more than once. In fact it hung them in Atlantic Canada in the last election. They were out campaigning hoping to get elected while calling the people lazy, the very people they would have been representing in the House of Commons.

Seasonal work is not the type of work that most of those people would prefer. They would prefer full time jobs, 52 weeks of the year, but unfortunately that is not possible in some parts of the country.

When the government brought this in, it received a lot of criticism. In fact, that criticism was borne out in the election of 1997 when the Liberal Party lost 19 seats in Atlantic Canada because the feeling was that the government was not being responsive to the people it represented.

Atlantic Canada is the poorest part of Canada. We do not have oil in the ground at $40 a barrel. If we did there would be a big difference. We do not have a car manufacturing capacity and the benefits of an industrialized society. We will give all levels of government credit for making advancements but there is still a long way to go.

We still have fish plant workers and fishermen. We have woodworkers and people employed in the tourism sector. All of those are seasonal workers, workers who can only make a living part of the year and at the end of the year they are left to draw employment insurance.

When the government realized that it had lost those 19 seats in 1997, it decided it would do something about it. On the eve of the election last fall, it brought in a bill that would address this issue. In other words, it would eliminate the intensity clause. It decided that it had made a mistake, that the 5% punishment on seasonal workers was too much and that it was going to change it. I give the government credit for doing that.

Unfortunately, the legislation was held up in the House by the united alternative party because it does not believe in that. There was just too much generosity in the package for minimum wage workers for members of that party to swallow, despite the fact that they have swallowed themselves whole on the pension issue. They made a career of attacking big government and the generosity of government, and destroyed many political careers in the process, only to find out that every single one of them will eventually jump on the pension bandwagon which they chastized, criticized and condemned for the last 10 years of their lives. What else would we expect them to do on this bill? What do they do? They attack little people.

The government can be attacked on this as well because it is addressing the intensity clause. In so doing, it has eliminated the commission.

The commission is the body set up by the government to determine what the rate will be. Currently employees are paying $2.25 into EI. That is their premium. The employer is paying 1.4% above that. Effectively the employer is paying over $3 and the employee is paying in $2.25.

What has the government now done? By stealth, it has limited the capacity of the commission to establish the rate because the rate is too high. The rate could be set at $1.75 for the employee. That is borne out by the auditor, the chief actuary of employment insurance premiums. He states in his report:

It is likely that a rate as low as 1.75% could also be set for the year 2001 and kept for the indefinite future. Although this rate would contain a smaller margin of safety, the current surplus would still make it a reasonable option.

The government has simply eliminated the ability of the commission to set the rate because it is sitting on a $35 billion surplus in the fund. This is expected to grow to $50 billion in the next two years while the commission is suspended.

The rate could go down to $1.75 because the interest on that $35 billion today has to go back into the fund. That helps keep the rate lower. The reason the government will act in stealth is that the EI surplus is just a bookkeeping entry. The government even wants to eliminate that, because once it eliminates that entry it will be free to cash in the $50 billion and use it as it so desires. In fact it already has; this is just a paper transaction.

This will effectively allow the government to keep the rates higher. If it does not have the $35 billion, the interest on which helps to keep premiums lower, it will then have the ability to sneak premiums up when necessary. This is why the entire bill has to be revisited. The ability of the government to suspend the commission has to be eliminated.

The government has a history of acting in this way, especially on this file. Who else but this lonely group of us at this end of the House of Commons will stand to defend the lowly, seasonal, minimum wage workers? I give the NDPers credit. They consistently support the little guy, and that is what we are doing. We cannot leave it up to the government to do it because it has a horrible history of ignoring the little people.

What happens when those safety nets disappear which we see happening at the municipal, provincial and federal levels? What do the little people have to fall back on? We are not talking about the generosity of government. We are talking about a fund that they have paid into, expecting it to be there when they need it. It is called insurance.

How many times have we heard about people being duped by insurance companies where they pay in but cannot collect? It is pretty well the same. The government wants them to pay in. It wants them to pay premiums higher than they should be, but it does not want them to go to the fund when they need help.

For example, we have government departments acting in collusion to hit little people who cannot defend themselves.

I refer to an article that appeared in Saint John's Telegraph-Journal on Friday, February 2. The headline reads “Tax case against auctioneer thrown out” and is subtitled “Justice: Revenue Canada unfairly targeted businessman, judge rules”. The article about a businessman says that “Saint John auctioneer Tim Isaac's tax evasion case has been thrown out after a judge ruled that he had been unfairly targeted by Revenue Canada”.

Isaac survived this witch hunt only because he had the financial wherewithal to hire a lawyer to defend him. The judge came down hard on the Department of Revenue, which is now called the CCRA, Canada Customs and Revenue Agency. The better words for that would be “Revenue Canada”. That is what we used to call it.

Now we find the same thing happening to the lowly clam digger. What do clam diggers do? They go out right now in sub-zero weather—they go out in summer as well—to harvest clams in the mud flats by digging them up by hand. It is back breaking labour. These people are the working poor, there is no question about it. They average $6 an hour, maybe $8 an hour if they are lucky enough and strong enough.

I have just found out that there is another witch hunt underway, but this time it is Revenue Canada, now called the Canada Customs and Revenue Agency, working with DFO, the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, and HRDC, Human Resources Development Canada, to take a look at some of these clam diggers' claims. They will also take a look at some of the buyers of these clams, because somehow they feel that the tax man is being cheated. This morning HRDC officials confirmed that they have had numerous third party reports concerning claimants drawing EI who have not worked, who did not dig enough clams to actually claim the benefits they are claiming. That is the long and short of it.

What are third party reports? Are they hearsay evidence? We do not know. No one knows. These are rumours, the same kind of rumour that allowed the tax people to go after Mr. Isaac. He hired a lawyer and the government was chastised severely by the judge in that case.

In this particular case we have 33 to 36 interviews by government officials—interview is basically another word for interrogation—of the lowly little clam diggers to determine whether or not they dug clams. They had no counsel in the room with them. They had no one representing them. Not one of them, and probably not all 36 of them pooling their resources together, could afford a lawyer.

Is this the type of government we have?

When people get desperate they do desperate things. One of the things that people want to do when they get desperate is to feed and clothe their children, particularly when it is the kind of winter that we are having now in eastern Canada.

We will never know what goes on in that room when two government officials interrogate the lowly clam digger. That is digging to the bottom of the barrel when one goes in and violates people's rights or, as our justice critic says, the charter of rights. Do the government officials read the clam diggers their rights when they go into the room and interrogate them? My feeling is no, the officials probably do not, because they know that they can kick the bejesus out of these little people, get away with it and have a minister sitting right over there defending their actions. In fact, it was government orders from right here in Ottawa that caused them to do this.

I am not criticizing the local HRDC officials, because if they do not carry out their actions, they are gone too. The government does not have any compassion for its own workers and has even less compassion for the disenfranchised, which is what these people are.

That is why when we stand up in the House we defend the little guy, because no one else is going to do it. The little guys cannot afford a lawyer or a consultant and there will be no one on that side of the aisle to come to their defence, and very few of us on this side. That is one of the few things I can give the Bloc credit for as well. It is not very often I defend the Bloc. They will defend their lowly woods workers and fishermen. The NDP will defend the little guy as well. So will we. The majority in the House will not do that.

This type of harassment of little people has to cease and desist. If the ministers involved had any respect at all for human life and human dignity they would get together, share the information, consult with the members on this side of the House and find a better way of doing this. In the middle of winter when it is damned hard to be make a living as a clam digger, what is now being done is wrong.

We will be proposing amendments to the EI bill. We are prepared to support it with some amendments. We do not want to go back to the old days of what they called the lottery, of working 10 weeks and loafing for 40. There must always be a balance between a system that is too generous and one that is too miserly and too hard on the workers. That is the type of balance we want to strike. That is the reason we will support anything that comes in to help the little guy, but we do not want to flip-flop too much the other way and make the system too generous.

[Paul Crête, Bloc, Kamouraska—Rivière-Du-Loup—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to speak today on the occasion of the start of debate on Bill C-2 on employment insurance.

From the start it is important to establish clearly the point we have reached in this debate. In January 1997, the reform of the employment insurance plan took effect. It was supposed to attune the plan closely with the realities of the labour market and enable people to return to work quickly.

However there is a major flaw in the system. Under cover of the reform, which was to improve employment insurance, the plan started pumping money to the Minister of Finance of Canada. It became one of the best tools in the fight against the deficit on the backs of the unemployed, workers and employers.

The federal government wondered how to go about collecting as much money as fast as possible and as quickly as possible, and on the backs of whomever would be the easiest. It turned toward society's most disadvantaged, the unemployed, people who were not necessarily solidly organized in social terms, and imposed the employment insurance plan on them.

I will provide an example for members. The employment insurance plan is based on contributions by employers and employees, and benefits are paid. In 1994 the surplus was $2.3 billion; in 1995 it was $4.3 billion; in 1996, $5 billion; in 1997, $6.7 billion; in 1998, $7.3 billion; in 1999, $6.5 billion; and in 2000, $5.6 billion. The surplus is approaching a total of $30 billion to $31 billion.

Accordingly, the federal government, since imposing the new employment insurance plan, has taken $31 billion more from the pockets of employers and employees than it has paid out to the unemployed as benefits.

I will not use the word that we would use back home because it would be considered unparliamentary, but the government has plumped up its coffers by making employers and employees pay excessively high premiums and by tightening the screws across the board.

First, it looked for a way to reduce benefits to a bare minimum. One thing it came up with was the intensity rule. For the past three or four years we have been telling the government that this rule has to go. Finally it listened to us and introduced a provision to that effect in Bill C-44. The intensity rule is federal bureaucracy at its best. The federal government is saying that our seasonal workers are unemployed because they want to be, because they simply do not want to work. The idea is that it will give people 55% of their average earnings the first time they draw EI benefits and bump them down to 54% the next time around. It figures this will encourage people to get out and work.

Let us take someone earning $600 a week. This is not astronomical—it amounts to $30,000 a year. If such a person worked 18 to 20 weeks, at $600 a week, his employment insurance cheque would normally be $330 a week. The intensity rule would lower this to $300. This means that the government has pocketed the $30 difference, a loss that is keenly felt at this income level. The federal government has siphoned off quite a bit this way.

The demands for changes to this rule of intensity, which the government has finally decided to change, are nothing new. They have been around for a very long time.

The government imposed a program that would collect as much money as possible to battle the deficit. I have already given some examples of the amount of money it has generated. As a result, the program no longer has any credibility.

Today, about 40% of the unemployed qualify for benefits. If this were a private insurance plan, no one would subscribe to it. When we pay premiums for a car, a house or other kinds of insurance, we expect to get some benefits in the end. This one is a mandatory program to which everyone contributes. The Liberals changed the rules in 1997 and now everyone pays into it.

Young workers start contributing as soon as they start to work, even if they do not work the 910 hours required to qualify. Women returning to the workforce contribute as soon as they start to work. If the young worker has not accumulated 910 hours, “so long”. No question of paying him or her any benefits. Although the worker has contributed, there is no entitlement to benefits. Today's bill does nothing to correct this.

A system has been created, a way of doing things that works to the detriment of the people in our society who are the worst off. It has, however, been realized that the surplus accumulated over the years has to be put back into the system one day in the context of the present legislation. There was a provision that the government could decide to use this money for other purposes within one economic cycle. That it has done.

At the end of the economic cycle, it should put these surpluses back into the system but it does not want to do that. Making lower income earners contribute has worked just too well.

For example, people pay premiums on their income up to $39,000. Someone earning $100,000 pays premiums on the first $39,000 but not on the difference between $39,000 and $100,000.

Similarly, someone earning $45,000 pays premiums on the first $39,000 but not on the additional $6,000. This is assuming that person contributes to the employment insurance program, because many people do not. During his last mandate, we even informed the Prime Minister that he was not contributing to the employment insurance program. After 30 years as a member of parliament, he did not know that. We informed him of that fact.

There are others who do not contribute, including all the professionals who work but do not pay EI premiums. This means that these people did not do their share in the fight against the deficit.

When there are surpluses, as has been the case in recent years, people expect lower taxes. For some, it is the way to get something back for helping to fight the deficit. However, those who do not pay much tax, those earning $15,000, $18,000, $20,000 or $25,000 per year—and there are many who earn such salaries and even less than that—do not really need a significant tax reduction but rather an acceptable and adequate employment insurance program that will provide them with a decent income when they find themselves between jobs. The bill still does not provide such a program.

This issue was the subject of a major debate during the previous parliament.

The debate was so important that during the election campaign the Prime Minister was obliged to recognize that a lot of errors had been made in the reform. He said, for example, on November 4, 2000 “We realized that it was not a good decision in that we should not have done it”. He was talking about the cuts to the employment insurance plan his government had imposed.

The Prime Minister himself has recognized that the government made a mistake. Bill C-44 had been introduced before the election campaign and people were rightly saying that it was not enough. It was in reaction to this position that he said “It is true, we did make major mistakes”.

The problem today is that the bill before us is the same one we had before us prior to the election. During the election campaign, the Liberal Party noted very clear messages on this. It told the public that significant changes would be made.

For example, I quote the Secretary of State for Amateur Sport, who said during the election:

Once a Liberal majority is elected, we will reinstate the process and make sure that the changes are effective and meet the needs, for the most part, of the people of the Saguenay—Lac-Saint-Jean and Canadians as a whole.

The Minister of Public Works and Government Services, who is also responsible for Quebec, also supported the arguments in favour of changes to the employment insurance plan. The Secretary of State for Amateur Sport continued, speaking as well for the Minister of Public Works and Government Services, “The government is open to discussion”.

There is a problem in this government, because we did not know who speaks on its behalf, except that now we know, the bill has been introduced.

On the subject of this bill, the remarks of the Secretary of State for Amateur Sport and the Minister of Public Works and Government Services, who is also responsible for all of Quebec, were rebuffed by the government. Once again with the administration of the employment insurance account, it would appear that it is not those who want improvements who have won but the Minister of Finance. Money must continue to flow from the pump for him because he needs it and he is still getting it the way he always did.

This attitude is unacceptable. Politicians cannot expect to be taken seriously by public opinion if the government keeps acting this way.

If one makes a promise during an election campaign and, immediately after winning the election, one forgets one's promise, this fuels frustration and cynicism toward politicians. The Liberal Party is truly responsible for that.

There is even worse. Cynicism does not stop people from eating. It is something very difficult to bear and very damaging to democracy but today we have a situation where Canadians expect significant corrective measures, a situation where people going through hard times expected much more than what they are seeing.

It has been proposed that the intensity rule be abolished. It would be interesting to increase the average benefits from 50% to 55% for everyone. However we have seen that 55% is not enough. The thing to do would be to increase this percentage to a higher level, something like 60% of the average salary. Thus the unemployed could count on a decent income between two jobs, which was the intent of the employment insurance plan.

Even if economic growth is optimal, some seasonal jobs will not reap the benefits. Economic growth is important because it is essential to job creation and is part of the fight against poverty.

In forestry, agriculture and tourism, the fact that the economy is in good shape does not necessarily translate into a significant increase in benefit weeks or hours of work. As we have pointed out, the jobs in these seasonal industries are also seasonal. These workers are therefore entitled to a minimum acceptable income.

There is also the whole issue of maternity and parental leave. After much lobbying, the government reduced the number of qualifying hours from 700 to 600. It may interest members to know that before the reform, however, a woman needed 300 hours to qualify for maternity leave.

If the government had just stuck with the requirement in the 1997 regime—20 weeks of work at 15 hours a week, or 300 hours of work—nothing would have changed and more women would have been able to qualify.

At the time the federal government took advantage of the situation and raised the requirement to 700 hours, or 20 weeks at 35 hours. That is many weeks. The result was that far fewer women were able to qualify. For five years, we were stuck with a regime that was divorced from the conditions workers actually face.

I will give an example. In 1989, before all the reforms, 82% of unemployed women qualified for benefits. We saw this percentage drop dramatically as soon as the Liberals introduced their change. In 1994, benefits had dropped to 59% of earnings. The downward trend continued, and in 1999, 38% of unemployed women qualified for EI.

This behaviour is totally unacceptable especially because, with the increase in precarious jobs and part time jobs, the number of people contributing to employment insurance but not eligible for benefits has increased. This is the ideal clientele for the Minister of Finance. On the one hand, he collects the money and, on the other hand, he does not give it back.

The same thing has happened with young workers. In 1989, 98% of young people between the ages of 20 and 24 were eligible. In 1999, only 24.9% were.

This means that only one young adult out of four is eligible. In Bill C-2, there is no provision in this respect. They have decided not to change their tune. I have already asked questions on this and I received the same answer as when I asked about the intensity rule “This rule has been put in place because people are unwilling to work hard. If we cut their income, these people are going to go back to work”. This is the point of view expressed by the Prime Minister himself when he referred to the unemployed as beer drinkers.

This is the bureaucracy went by for four years. People were systematically penalized. They were told they would lose benefits because they did not want to work. We realized that after three years of studies on this matter. During that time, a lot of people lost money and could not afford to meet their mortgage or car payments or to raise their families. This is unacceptable.

Today the government is proposing that the measures be retroactive to last October. These people should benefit from retroactivity back to the date the plan came into effect because it is inhumane. Canadian workers are being treated like economic guinea pigs. It is totally unacceptable.

The conception that people are a little lazy and do not want to work is being applied to young people. The minister herself told me “If we take away the discrimination toward young people, they will all drop out”. That is the exact same conception as for seasonal workers.

When young people drop out, it is not because they do not want a job but rather because they have a problem. We see nothing to that effect in the new bill. It is as if the new bill would not change anything. This is not acceptable to me.

We have in front of us a system that does not function well. Everybody contributes from the first hour worked. There is a dramatic drop in the number of contributors who qualify. We have seen it with women and young people. There are those who earn more than $39,000, as I was saying previously, and women who just do not qualify any more. More and more women could not qualify for the employment insurance system.

Average benefits also dropped considerably. The tables have been changed. Instead of being eligible for 40 weeks of benefits after a certain number of hours of work, people now qualify for only 32, 33 or 34 weeks, which means less income, and the creation of what has been known as the spring gap. People will live through that again this year.

Last summer there was an attempt to change the regional map. In my area, people applied for unemployment benefits between July 9 and September 17. Because the minister had changed the regional map without reasonable consultation having taken place prior, 565 hours were required to qualify instead of 420 hours previously. Instead of being eligible to 32 weeks of benefits, they were given 21.

We should remember what happened as a result of public protests. It was a few months before the election. The federal government was paying a lot of attention to these things. It decided to correct the situation. On September 17, it said it would return to the old rules: 420 hours to qualify and 32 weeks of benefits.

However it cannot correct the situation that it created with the summer gap between July 9 and September 17. These past few weeks there are people in my region whose benefits are running out. It did not correct that situation, while it would have the opportunity, in legislation such as the one we have before us, to say it made no sense to create for two months sub-citizens, sub-unemployed, people who do not have what is required to qualify.

Some people came to my office. They were two friends who worked in the same business. One said “I submitted my request on September 15 and got 21 weeks of benefits”. The other said “I went on September 18 and for the same length of employment I got 32 weeks of benefits”. Where is the justice in this?

At the time, when this correction was made, the minister told us that it would take a legislative change. The legislation would have to be changed. Legislation cannot be changed like that. Changes cannot be retroactive.

Today the legislation is being changed. This would be an excellent opportunity to amend the act and to restore the dignity of an EI system that would provide the benefits that these people deserve. There is no such amendment, even if the Prime Minister himself was made aware of the situation.

I wrote him last December asking if there was really no way to address the situation so as to provide these people with more acceptable conditions. I am still waiting for an answer.

The government is now making some corrections that were suggested as important a very long time ago, dealing with the intensity rule, eligibility for special benefits and clawback. According to the present system, seasonal workers who make a lot of money, particularly in the building industry, have to give it back when they file their income tax, when they earn more than a certain amount.

A solution had to be found, because no one enjoys giving back part of the money earned during the year, money used to keep the family, and having to give it back suddenly in March and April.

I do not think we would like to live with this kind of situation given the kind of work we are doing. If we were told in February or March that for the purpose of our personal income tax return the vacation allowance should be considered as a supplement and returned to the government, we would not find it very interesting.

We are still faced with a situation or a government approach that is unacceptable. We have a fundamental problem that is reflected in the spirit of the Speech from the Throne. I quote the only sentence referring to employment insurance in the Speech from the Throne “There was a time when losing a job also meant immediate loss of income for workers and their families. And so Canadians created Employment Insurance”.

That is a complacent statement. It is as if, when employment insurance was created, we had solved all the problems of the unemployed people who needed income between two jobs. Rather, it is the opposite. It is unemployment insurance that was created soon after the war in order to provide people with sufficient income. It is only when the plan was changed under the Liberals that it became the employment insurance plan.

We had an unemployment insurance plan under which people, through collective solidarity, could get a decent income between two jobs. The name of the plan was changed and not only the packaging but also the content were changed. It has become a money pump for the finance minister. It has become a way to make sure the government gets as much money as possible. This certainly does not meet the objective outlined in the Speech from the Throne, which was to ensure an income for workers and their families.

I think employment insurance has been one of the main factors in the increase in poverty in Canada over the last five or six years. We keep hearing about concerns for children with respect to the child tax benefit. It is not a bad program per se but we must remember that if there are poor children, it is because there are poor parents to begin with. If the situation were different, if employment insurance had not been cut as it has, many children would be much better fed every day in their families.

A lot of people would not have to resort to food banks at the end of each month. We are talking here about money and an insurance program, a program based on contributions. Society as a whole, workers and employers contribute collectively to offer those who lose their jobs some form of income. But cuts were made to this program, which changed it into a program promoting financial dependency. I think an important social pact that existed in Canada was also broken.

For many decades now the resource rich regions of Canada supplied the raw material, the basic resources our society needed to function. Now that we have also developed the new economy, this employment insurance plan has put an end to an existing agreement. Under this agreement, the resource regions that had industries, such as forestry, agriculture, tourism and fisheries, were to develop their resources but because these industries do not operate all year long, the plan would provide adequate income to workers so they could have a decent life in their own region. However the government put an end this agreement unilaterally.

One the one hand, it has decided to apply to seasonal workers the principle that they do not work because they are lazy and that putting more stringent conditions into the plan will make them work harder. Benefits will be cut and workers will have to manage.

On the other hand, the government was supposed to invest in the diversification of regional economies and thus counterbalance the effects of the tightening of the employment insurance plan. But that money never came, and when it did, it was invested inefficiently.

We witnessed the HRDC boondoggle. A program called the transitional jobs fund was used for electioneering purposes, especially in 1997, to help the Liberals win more ridings. We have never seen so much investment in Bloc ridings as we did then. The Liberals had carefully targeted the ridings where they wanted to get results. But this did not resolve the social pact issue.

Right now, resource regions have to adapt, and they have had to bear a disproportionate share of the fight against the deficit. Now that we have surpluses, they cannot get their fair share. I think there is a basic problem with the implementation of the plan.

There is also another important aspect. The employment insurance program has been in place for five years now. It is reviewed every year. It is in its fourth year and we are waiting for the report. We hope the report will be published soon and it would be important to have it before the end of this debate. Maybe we could adjust things based on the report.

Apart from the financial problems the unemployed may have, there is a need to bring the plan in line with the labour market. Among other things, the Bloc Quebecois has proposed that self-employed workers be eligible on a voluntary basis. Why not put this possibility on the table? Today, with the new reality of the workplace, why can we not be more flexible and find a way to make the program more acceptable, since many people work part time and 18% of the people are self-employed?

The answer is always the same: the basic principle is not to provide people between jobs with a decent income but to accumulate as much money for the finance minister, so that he can invest in all kinds of activities with the money of those who are the worst off.

It is much easier to force a worker whose status is precarious, a young man or a young woman starting to work at 15 hours a week and getting a pay cheque for the first time, to contribute to the plan. How can he or she protest and say “ It does not make sense for me to contribute when I do not even qualify”. Before these young persons get organized and make representations, things will not change much.

People have learned their lesson. I am now very satisfied with the public's reaction to Bill C-2. I just received a call from a representative of the Mouvement autonome et solidaire des sans-emploi du Québec. I asked him if he had a problem with the fact that we considered it unacceptable for the government to legalize the misappropriation of these surpluses and, as a result, that we oppose the bill even though it proposes some improvements we have been asking for a long time. He answered that he did not because the association thinks that the bill is a disgrace. The government ought to be ashamed of trying to use blackmail by saying “I stole $100 from you and I am giving you $8 back, so you should be delighted”. When someone takes $100 from me he owes me this sum and he must give me back $100, not $8. Otherwise it is unacceptable to ask us to be delighted because we are getting $8 instead of the $100 owed us.

I think that in this regard we are on solid ground. Unions and other representatives of the workers and the unemployed know very well that we stand for social equity. This is what the population wants and it needs no explanation. We are going to defend social equity and I am ready to debate our position at any time.

People know very well that if we just agreed with the bill, the $30 billion surplus would just disappear into the system. The unemployed would never benefit from the surplus. All the sacrifices they had to make in the fight against the deficit would not earn them anything while other groups would benefit from those sacrifices.

Management of the system must appear to be fair for people who contribute to the plan, for the employers and the employees.

Seasonal workers are at the mercy of economic cycles. Unemployment rates are down in every region of Canada. In many places, the 10%, 12% or 13% unemployment rates we saw a few years ago are now 7 or 8%. However in those areas seasonal workers do not necessarily work a higher number of weeks. For them the situation did not change. They need to qualify for employment insurance to get an income for the winter months and the months when the industry they work for slows down. When the unemployment rate suddenly decreases in an area, instead of needing 420 hours in order to qualify, they will need 500, 560 or 600, and in the end they will get benefits for fewer weeks.

This has given rise to a situation where there are problems not only in rural areas but also in cities where there has been a big drop in the unemployment rate. There are situations where people have to work 700 hours in order to qualify and they end up being 7, 8 or 10 weeks without any income. It is not a very interesting situation in which to be.

This debate is closely connected with the issue of globalization. We must not forget that the 1994-95 employment insurance reforms were carried out because the International Monetary Fund and other organizations urged Canada to put its fiscal house in order. To be productive, Canada had to create programs that were quite similar to those of the United States.

The government tried to bring our employment insurance system in line with the American system. Sometimes it forgets to look at both sides of the fence.

Even in the United States, for example, for the waiting period, there is, just like in our system, an old principle stating that during the two first weeks, the claimant is considered to be unemployed and, therefore, he gets no benefits. That principle dates back to the time when workers did not start paying premiums the moment they started on the job. A person had to work 20 hours a week for 15 weeks in order to qualify. Now that everyone contributes right from the first hour worked, this archaic waiting period ought to be done away with, but it is still in the plan.

This is another element the government should change. There is a $30 billion surplus and the bill involves about 8% of the annual surplus in the employment insurance fund in recent years. If there is an annual surplus of $6 billion, that will mean $500 or $600 million will be put back into the fund, which is about 8% of the surplus. The government keeps the rest, which should go to employment insurance. This is unacceptable.

The government must be brought around to changing this, and I hope that will happen during the committee hearings. It will be very important for all groups wishing to make representations to come and do so. People have met with the Secretary of State for Amateur Sport, the Minister of Public Works and Government Services and probably with ministers in the maritime provinces as well, and just about everywhere else, and have been told changes would be forthcoming. Those people are not very happy this morning to learn that this bill contains nothing of what was promised to them. The only way they can get their point across properly is in a parliamentary committee.

Members can be certain that those of us in the Bloc Quebecois will be open to people having an opportunity to be heard, so that amendments that reflect the points they have brought up can be introduced.

I am anxious to see the Secretary of State for Amateur Sport and the Minister of Human Resources Development contradicting each other on issues on which they have theoretically reached agreement secretly during the election campaign.

Somebody, somewhere, must have said “Yes, there will be changes and here is the list”. I am eager to see, when these requests are made public, who will win the battle going on among the departments under the responsibility of the current Prime Minister? Who will win in the end? Will it be those who are seeking improvements or those who want the system to remain the same and to continue to grab as much money as possible?

We, from the Bloc Quebecois, have the advantage of being able to speak publicly on this subject. We do not have to hide behind cabinet secrecy or government solidarity. I can assure the House that we will fully assume this responsibility.

We were expecting much more since the Prime Minister had admitted that it was a bad reform.

Why is there an extension of the evaluation period of the system? We learned in the bill that the annual evaluation, which was to apply for a five year period, would go on for many years. The message is aimed at those who are waging a trench war to obtain improvements to the system. We will have to fight for the issues that we raised on a day to day and year to year basis.

There are encouraging signs. We have long said that we are against the intensity rule and finally the government has decided to do something about it. Our arguments are just as strong on many other issues, including discrimination against young people and women. In the end I am convinced that the government will have to act.

We do not have an election every year and this government's sensitivity is lower following an election. It seems to diminish until the next election gets close. That is a reality with which we have to live but we still believe that the soundness of the arguments and strength of the people who come to tell us what they are experiencing will allow our views to prevail.

In recent weeks I also spoke to Françoise David from the Fédération des femmes du Québec. Mrs. David wishes to make representations to the parliamentary committee reviewing these issues, as do the union representatives and officials from the Associations de défense des chômeurs. I am convinced that in the end we can arrive at a positive solution.

I would like to refer to a release issued by the CLC, the Canadian Labour Congress. The title of the release is to the effect that two thirds of the unemployed will still not qualify. This morning Hans Marotte, who is the spokesperson for the Associations de défense des chômeurs, said the same thing:

The current bill does not in any way solve the issue of eligibility to the plan. The current program will simply improve a number of minor conditions for people already in the system, for example, by abolishing the intensity rule.

However the issues of insurability and the return of the right of access to the plan for those unemployed have not been resolved. In view of all this, clearly we cannot vote for the bill unless it is thoroughly changed.

The Bloc Quebecois proposed two things. First, we recommended that the bill be split into two bills. One would be debated later and would cover the whole issue of management of the fund surplus to enable it to be come an independent fund or a payroll tax. This indepth debate would be held in the coming weeks or months.

The other bill would concern the list of improvements to be made to the plan which we should vote on soon. We are ready every day to do so.

The argument that the Bloc Quebecois is holding up the vote on improvements is totally false. We are ready to vote on improvements at any time but we will not be duped into approving a clause that would enable the government to retain control and legalize the misappropriation of surplus funds. The bill currently permits that.

The government is shifting responsibility for setting the contribution rate from the employment insurance commission to itself. If the bill is passed, next year, when the rate is set, the government would not have to take the needs of current workers into account. It would have to take the needs of labour into account along with its own financial requirements and this would justify anything the government wants to do.

The reason this clause is included in the bill is that we are at the end of an economic cycle. If there is such a change, the government would have to put money back into the system and it is not ready to do that.

What people living with the employment insurance plan want, whether they be employers or employees, is a system that gives value for money. In an insurance plan, when there are surpluses, either premiums are reduced or the terms and conditions are improved but no third party grabs the surpluses and uses them for some other purpose. Those who pay premiums are the ones who should benefit.

We have before us a bill that is totally unsatisfying and inadequate. This is a bill that would not satisfy the unemployed, workers, employers or unions representing workers. This is a bill in which the government is trying to make a fool's deal with us, a deal where it would give us some little improvement, while what is needed is a comprehensive employment insurance reform. Such reform would ensure that the plan would be administered by the people who pay into it and give dignity back to it, so that it can really serve the unemployed and not pay for the federal government's debt.

We all have efforts to make regarding the debt. We have done some in the past but there are people who did not get the return on their investment that they deserved. On their behalf, the Bloc Quebecois will oppose this bill as long as the changes deemed necessary have not been made.

[Val Meredith, Canadian Alliance, South Surrey—White Rock—Langley, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I congratulate you on your appointment to the chair.

Bill C-2 was known in the last parliament as Bill C-44 and is known more by its unofficial title of the Liberal Atlantic Canada re-election strategy. The parliamentary secretary has explained some of the details of the bill so I will not go into them. However, I will say that the official opposition does not support the approach the government is taking on these amendments.

We are not alone. There are people and organizations across the nation who feel that this is not the right direction to take: the Canadian Restaurant and Foodservices Association, the Atlantic Institute for Market Studies, the St. John's Board of Trade on the east coast, the Vancouver Board of Trade on the west coast and probably all the boards of trade in between. Even the Canadian Federation of Labour has problems with the bill.

When the bill was first introduced last fall, this is what Catherine Swift, president of the Canadian Federation of Independent Business, had to say:

After several years of making some steps in the right direction on EI policy, this is a U-turn that hearkens back to the 1970s—a big spending government promoting dependency on programs, instead of solid economic growth. We thought they had learned something from the mistakes of the past.

We also have the International Monetary Fund report. Last week the finance minister was bragging about how the IMF supports Canada's economic incentives and economic and fiscal policies and said that he had received high praise from the IMF. However, he chose to ignore paragraph 8 in the report, which I should like to read into the record. It states:

Comprehensive reforms enacted during the 1990s to the Employment Insurance (EI) system and to social assistance programs and the introduction of the National Child Benefit have enhanced the flexibility and efficiency of the labour market, boosting employment growth and helping to reduce structural unemployment. Pressures to ease the impact of some of these reforms—particularly the 1996 EI reforms—have intensified as they have become more binding. The Government has mitigated the intended effects of some of the reforms and has proposed to rollback others. In particular, the IMF staff sees the proposed elimination of the intensity rule, which was designed to discourage frequent use of the system, as sending the wrong signal. Frequent use of the system, along with the provision of extended EI benefits for high unemployment regions for a prolonged period of time, has had adverse effects on the behaviour of both workers and employers, has significantly raised reservation wages in high unemployment regions, and has reduced labour mobility. In addition, the recent experience in the United States suggests that labour market flexibility is an important factor in fostering the rapid adoption of productivity-enhancing new technologies. Therefore, the IMF staff continues to endorse the implementation of new measures to reduce the frequency of EI use (such as experience rating of the EI premium rate, which would tie the rate for individual firms directly to the use of the system by their workers) and the elimination of regional extended benefits.

This quote is from the International Monetary Fund, which the finance minister seems to think is highly supportive of government policies. This is one area in which it has recommended and suggested to the government that the change in direction is not in the best interests of the economic future of our country.

If IMF support is so important in all other areas and if its recommendations are so valid in all other areas, why does the government turn its back on the recommendations that the IMF put forward on the EI insurance program?

The question is, with this coming from the IMF, why would the government go in this direction which retreats from the very policy that the IMF claims is having a beneficial economic impact on Canada.

We in the official opposition feel that it is extremely important to get the bill before the standing committee on human resources so that the committee can hear witnesses and have an indepth study to look at the EI program and the benefits and lack of incentives that are being proposed.

We would like to put Bill C-2 before the House of Commons and have the government, which said it was in favour of parliamentary reform, let the bill pass through to committee in a very real and meaningful way.

Let us see whether the government will seriously listen to all aspects of the discussion from witnesses who have a lot to say about the legislation. Let us see whether the Liberal government will actually allow committees to do their job, to listen to witnesses and to come up with recommendations to change the legislation and make it more meaningful.

The Canadian Alliance would like to see whether or not the government is willing to look at some of the concerns that have been expressed. One concern that has been expressed is that the legislation is taking the control or responsibility from the EI commission and placing the rate changes in the hands of cabinet.

There is a real concern out there, not only in the Canadian public, among workers and employers alike, but in labour commissions and labour organizations, that the government is trying to control this fund to a degree that we have never seen before. Instead of having the employment insurance program at arm's length from government, the government is reaching in and bringing in total control over the EI program.

One has to ask oneself why this would happen. Why would the government want to have this kind of control? A surplus of $40 billion may be all that is needed to see why a government would want to do this. The EI fund is reaching the point of having a $40 billion surplus. I think the government would like to see this as its personal slush fund to use at will rather than for the purpose it was intended.

The chief actuary for the fund has indicated that a $15 billion surplus is all that is required in the program. I would like to look at last year alone. EI premiums last year were $18.511 billion. That is money coming in. EI benefits paid out were $9.3 billion. That leaves a $9.211 billion surplus in this fund which the cabinet wants to control. I suggest that is the wrong direction for the country to take. It is wrong from the employer point of view and from the employee point of view. It is wrong from every way we look at it for the cabinet of a government to have control over that kind of money, which was put in place for a specific reason.

I am sure the poor working person who is paying employment insurance premiums does not want to continue paying an inflated amount of money so that the government has access to a huge surplus fund to use whenever it wants. When these surpluses were brought to the attention of the government, what did it do? It reduced premiums by 25 cents, a small, piddly amount.

The reality is that every worker could stop paying EI premiums for two years and we would still have the surplus in the account that is required, according to the chief actuary, to have a stable fund. We could go two years without any premium payments and the fund would be where it should be.

We must ask ourselves why the government is so intent on keeping employment insurance premiums to a level that gives it surpluses every year, to the point of building a surplus fund of $40 billion. The reason is so that the government can balance its books. It is balancing its books on every working person and on every business person who provides jobs for working people. That is not fair. It is not right and it has to stop.

In its August 1999 unemployment insurance bulletin, the Canadian Labour Congress states “The UI fund must be separated from the government accounts, and the authority and autonomy of the UI commission must be strengthened”. That needs to be brought before the committee of parliament. It needs to be reasoned out. We need to find a way of strengthening the EI commission, of putting it at arm's length from government and taking control of it away from the Canadian government and cabinet.

This is only a drop in the bucket for the government, which takes things out of the public eye, away from commissions that do business up front, and puts them behind the doors of a cabinet meeting. It puts things beyond the reach of ordinary Canadians to understand or to know what is going on.

It is distressing to me to see that we will be continuing this direction with a government that has told Canadians it will be more transparent and more open. We see that the very first legislation to be introduced in the House of Commons is doing precisely the opposite. The government is taking something that is open and transparent and putting it behind closed cabinet doors.

More than anything else, the thing that distresses a lot of Canadians and me personally is the importance that the government places on making small amendments to the employment insurance legislation rather than looking at creating an environment of long term permanent jobs for Canadians across the country from coast to coast.

Five years ago the Liberals announced changes to EI. The Prime Minister stated “we wish to provide an incentive for people to work instead of receiving social benefits”. We have to wonder why the government is turning away from that challenge.

The Minister of Finance, the Minister of Human Resources Development and the Prime Minister have said that the best way to help unemployed people is to put them to work, to give them jobs, to have jobs created so that they can find employment. I suggest that the government has done little to create any employment. The parliamentary secretary claimed that there were 400,000 jobs created in Quebec and 2.1 million jobs created across the country. I challenge her, in that it was not the federal Liberal government that created those jobs. The small business community and the business community created those jobs.

The Minister for International Trade pointed out last year that 85% of these new jobs were created due to trade. Most of the increased trade is due to the free trade agreement and NAFTA, and let me remind Canadians of elections past when the Liberals opposed the free trade agreement and NAFTA. They violently opposed free trade and NAFTA until they formed the government.

There are some things that the government could do. The first is to substantially reduce personal income tax.

By leaving money in the hands of consumers, the government could have increased the purchasing power of Canadians. It does not take a rocket scientist to know that by increasing the purchasing power of Canadians one increases jobs. There are provinces that have shown that this works. There are provinces that had the courage to do what had to be done and they saw the benefits. The federal government did not have the courage.

If the government really wanted to do something concrete, something that would benefit the economy, it could have developed a vision for a national transportation infrastructure strategy program.

I am amazed that the government has such little insight and foresight and such little incentive to place the country in a position where we can compete in the North American marketplace and compete internationally.

The Liberal government is not even paying lip service to the development of a national transportation strategy. While our economy has grown, we are still relying on a transportation system that was built almost a half a century ago. We think the system should be adequate enough to service our people and our goods. In many places, the movement of people and goods is in total gridlock while the government sits back and does nothing.

The port of Halifax is a very good example of what could have been. Two years ago Halifax was bypassed as this continent's Atlantic super port. Halifax has an excellent port. It is much more convenient to Europe. Why was it bypassed? It was bypassed because there was no adequate infrastructure to move the goods from the port to the North American trade market, to the cities and towns that would be using the materials brought in. There was no adequate railroad access to the market. Why did New York get it instead of Halifax? It was because there was no adequate infrastructure program in place to support the Halifax bid.

Think of the jobs that the transportation infrastructure strategy would have created, not only in Atlantic Canada but in the north, long term jobs that would have benefited the future economy. Where is the strategy, the planning and the insight? The strategy is not there. The vision is not there.

The government wastes money on grants and all kinds of things, but it does not put money where it would have a meaningful impact on the growing economy of our nation. It is not just Atlantic Canada and Quebec, it is also the north. The north has the capacity and the potential of some major developments and megaprojects. The north is an area of traditionally high unemployment and it is waiting for something to happen.

The aboriginal community in the Northwest Territories is prepared to negotiate for the Mackenzie River pipeline. There is also talk of a gas pipeline from Alaska coming down through the Yukon to join the existing pipeline network that currently extends as far as northern Alberta. Alaska is also seeking a rail link from that state to join our northern rail lines that only go as far as Fort Nelson and Dease Lake in northern B.C.

People in the Northwest Territories are also talking about extending the Mackenzie Highway from its current northern terminus at Wrigley all the way to Inuvik. The extension of this highway would assist in opening up the vast untapped mineral reserves of the Northwest Territories.

Let us not forget our new territory, Nunavut, which would like a road link with the rest of Canada. While these projects would undoubtedly cost billions of dollars, they will also return billions of dollars to the federal government coffers through taxes and royalties. Equally important is that they would provide hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of man years of employment, good paying long term employment.

If the Liberals were truly interested in an employment strategy for the country, they would be in extensive negotiations with the territories, the western provinces, the American and Alaskan governments, northern aboriginal communities, environmentalists and the business community on how they could develop our north. However there was not a passing reference to this kind of development in the Speech from the Throne, not even a mention of developing the north.

Instead of co-ordinating projects that would employ thousands of individuals, they tinker with the EI bill by making minor amendments. They are more concerned about keeping people on employment insurance than they are in providing them with good, long term, full time employment.

Nevertheless, because of the Liberal's lack of vision we are limited to debating a handful of amendments to the EI act. There is no vision of moving forward in a strong dynamic way by making great changes and great projects. We are talking about minor changes to an existing bill that does not address the serious problems of employment.

We will not spend a lot of time on the details of the bill at second reading. We want to move the legislation before a committee. We want to see whether the Liberal government is intent on opening up the process of reforming parliament to allow real discussion and real debate on employment insurance and what it should be doing and what it is doing. We want to see whether things can work differently and better.

We want the first bill being debated in the House of Commons to go to committee. We in the opposition will make a commitment to go there with an open mind. We hope the government will go there with an open mind as well, so that we can hear witnesses and people who specialize in this area and, if necessary, make changes to make the legislation better. I would like to see the bill serve as an indication of the willingness of the House to do things differently for the good of all Canadians.