Bill C-50 (Historical)

An Act to amend the Employment Insurance Act and to increase benefits

This enactment amends the Employment Insurance Act until September 11, 2010 to increase the maximum number of weeks for which benefits may be paid to certain claimants. It also increases the maximum number of weeks for which benefits may be paid to certain claimants not in Canada.

Employment Insurance Act

[Yves Lessard, Bloc, Chambly—Borduas, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Conservative member. All of the Conservatives' arguments are based on a claim that does not hold up, namely that Bill C-50 will create 190,000 new claimants, who will receive extended employment insurance benefits. This represents $935 million.

To get these figures, 85% of claimants would have to complete all of the weeks to which they are entitled to benefits. But we know that 25% of claimants do so. At best, 60,000 people in the country could benefit from Bill C-50, for a total of $300 million. Labour organizations and advocacy groups for the unemployed have realized this, as has the CAW.

Our colleague claims that the automobile industry is happy with this. What does he say about the fact that the CAW thinks it is a terrible bill and is calling on us to vote against it?

[James Bezan, Conservative, Selkirk—Interlake, MB]

Mr. Speaker, the reality is that this program is going to help tens of thousands of Canadians in all the sectors, whether auto, forestry, manufacturing or, in my riding, the steel industry. We have already done a lot of that in supporting them, with work-sharing and career transition programs. We have been supporting older workers, if they have to leave an industry and are now are trying to find work, with retraining and extended training benefits.

Through the economic action plan and the changes that we have made in EI, over $1.5 billion has already helped over 150,000 Canadians. With what we are proposing to do in Bill C-50, with the additional five weeks that we have already introduced, 300,000 Canadians have already benefited. What we are seeing with the new program is that by extending five to twenty weeks on top of that, another 190,000 long-tenured Canadian workers who have paid their premiums, who have been there for their companies and never really benefited from the program in the past, now will, and they will be able to support their families until their industries recover.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Mr. Speaker, the debate around Bill C-50 should be framed in the context that the Liberals used the EI program as a cash cow. First they changed the rules so that hardly anybody qualified anymore, and then they raked in billions and billions of dollars, $54 billion, and used it for other purposes.

In fact when the Liberals gutted the EI system so that it was virtually dysfunctional, it caused a loss in my own riding of Winnipeg Centre of $20 million a year in federal money that used to flow into my riding but no longer did. Twenty million dollars a year is the size of a payroll of a plant with 4,000 employees. It was devastating to an already poor riding, so I am listening with some disbelief as the Liberals speak against putting $1 billion of EI money into the pockets of unemployed workers when it was they themselves who were the architects of this dysfunctional system. They robbed the EI fund of $50 billion. That is what is difficult for me to understand.

There is another point that we have to keep in context. The Liberals paid down the deficit on the backs of unemployed workers, which was shameful, and it is hypocritical now for them to be speaking against putting some money back into workers' pockets.

My question for my colleague from Selkirk—Interlake is this. Will he not concede that even though it is virtuous to put $1 billion back into the pockets of unemployed workers, that it is not the government's money?

The EI fund is made up of the contributions of employers and employees. There is no federal money in the EI fund, so while we will support Bill C-50, we want to acknowledge that it is the workers' money that is being held in trust by the EI fund which is rightfully going back into the workers' pockets now that they need it if they are unemployed.

[James Bezan, Conservative, Selkirk—Interlake, MB]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague from Winnipeg Centre is right that the EI premiums paid by workers and employers became a cash grab by the previous government. The Liberals used that money to pay down the deficit and to fund their special interest programs. It was essentially a slush fund. They never used it to the benefit of those who paid into it. In fact they actually increased the premiums while they reduced the number of people who could qualify for EI. It was a terrible thing to do, and it is something that was not fair to the Canadian people.

We are trying to make sure that we balance that off now. That is what this is about, being there to support those workers who need it the most today. We want to make sure that as we move forward, the fund will be self-sustaining over the long term. Of course the government is there to underwrite that fund. That is what we are doing, putting this money in right now. We are helping the fund carry forward during this difficult time as it is drawn upon.

We know that in the future it will again be able to build up its own surplus and hopefully be actuarially sound as employers hire more workers back and there are more people available to pay the premiums and build up the program.

[Mike Lake, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Industry]

Mr. Speaker, today we saw something kind of interesting happen in the House. We saw the Liberal Party vote against the implementation of measures they voted for in principle previously. I found that kind of interesting.

My question is in regard to the contradiction between what the Liberals say and what the rest of the world is saying about Canada's success rate right now. We have seen The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Economist, the London Telegraph, the IMF, the World Economic Forum, and the World Bank all praising Canada's situation relative to that of other countries.

Recently, coming out of the G20 finance ministers' meeting, we had Christine Lagarde, France's finance minister, come out and say, “I think … we can be inspired by … the Canadian situation. There were some people who said, ‘I want to be Canadian'”.

That is France's finance minister saying there were some people who said they wanted to be Canadian. Of course, at this point we do not even really know what the Liberal leader's position is on that issue.

I wonder if the hon. member could comment on how this new measure, building on the measures that the Liberals voted against today, will help to further that position of leadership that Canada has on the global economy.

[James Bezan, Conservative, Selkirk—Interlake, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I agree with the member 100%.

We have been praised by the global community for the way we have managed our problems here in Canada during this global economic downturn. We are not going to sit back and wait. We are going to continue to be engaged, and that is why we are making these changes through Bill C-50 to help long-tenured unemployed workers, to provide them and their families those extra benefits and extra support as they wait for the economy to improve so they will hopefully be able to return to their previous places of employment or be able to find new jobs.

The argument is quite right, the Liberals just stood in the House and voted against a great initiative here, our home renovation tax credit, something that Canadians have already engaged in, something the Liberals supported back in the spring. Now they are voting against it just because they want an election that nobody else in Canada wants.

We are busy fighting the recession, and the Liberals are fighting the economic recovery. This is completely unacceptable and shameful. They want to spend even more than we are suggesting here by narrowing down the work year to only 45 days. That is not sustainable. There is no way that we should be having a 360-hour program and blowing even more money in essentially supporting people who are going to work only the summer months. Keep our students employed and everybody would be on the same program. That is not right either.

What we need to do is support those who have been employed for a long period of time. We are going to do that through Bill C-50 and help them get through this difficult situation.

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, on a point of order, respectfully, we operate in this place on the presumption of honesty. I know all hon. members try to be correct.

During the hon. member's speech, he indicated, I believe incorrectly, that the Liberals were increasing EI premiums. The record shows 13 years of EI premium decreases.

I wonder if the member would correct the record—

[The Speaker, Peter Milliken]

I don't think this is a point of order. It sounds like a matter of debate, and questions and comments time has ended. The member for Mississauga South cannot use this as a means of asking another question of the hon. member for Selkirk—Interlake, fascinated though I am sure the hon. member is with proceeding.

The House resumed consideration of the motion that Bill C-50, An Act to amend the Employment Insurance Act and to increase benefits, be read the second time and referred to a committee.

[Claude DeBellefeuille, Bloc, Beauharnois—Salaberry, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to inform you that I will be sharing my time with the likeable and talented member for Sherbrooke.

I am pleased to take part in this debate on Bill C-50, because my riding has been hit hard, over the last six years, by the permanent or recurring closure of various manufacturing companies. I really wanted to say how deeply disappointed and even outraged I am when I look at this bill.

It is very disappointing for the unemployed workers who are struggling to find a job in these difficult times. I would even say that it is a shame. It looks to me like the government is using the misery of the unemployed to play political games. What it does not understand, as evidenced on several occasions, is that it underestimates the intelligence of Quebeckers.

How can we support a bill that contains elements that nobody in the government wants to explain? This bill is denounced in Quebec by major unions, by the Conseil National des Chômeurs et Chômeuses and by the Quebec Forest Industry Council.

We would have liked to have an opportunity to discuss the bill immediately in committee to have experts and other witnesses explain to us who are those 190,000 unemployed workers targeted by this narrow, rigid and discriminatory measure.

At the briefing session provided by the Department of Human Resources and Skills Development this week, only 30 minutes were dedicated to presenting the bill. It was a well-structured 30 minutes, with the officials being very closely monitored by the government. They were unable to answer my colleagues' questions about how calculations were done, which method was used to arrive at the number of 190,000 unemployed, and how they came up with an amount of $935 million. No clear response was provided by the officials who gave the briefing.

When the meeting was opened for questions, the Minister of Human Resources and Skills Development was questioned. She too dodged the issue, so to speak. She was unable to provide an appropriate or specific answer to this question, which is in and of itself pretty simple: Who are these 190,000 unemployed Canadians to whom this measure applies.

I also read in the paper that the Minister of Public Works and Government Services, who is the Conservatives' political lieutenant in Quebec, commented that he could not provide any guarantees, and he too did not seem to know the answer to that important question.

In addition, I took part in a panel discussion on CPAC with the member for Beauport—Limoilou. I am a persistent, hard-working and determined member of Parliament and, as such, I put the question to her as well. She too was unable to answer this deciding question. We would like to understand. What percentage of workers or unemployed in Quebec's forestry sector will be affected by this measure? Before voting on a bill, it is essential to know what its basis is and on what basis agreement was reached to put forward such a measure.

I want to take a few minutes to talk about a concrete example in my riding. I have spoken about it several times. There is a small town in my riding called Huntingdon that was a one-industry town supported by textile factories. Unfortunately, five or six years ago, all of the factories in this small town were forced to shut down, and hundreds of people who had built up quite a lot of seniority found themselves unemployed. These were good, loyal, competent employees with considerable expertise. This was a one-industry town, as I said. These long-tenured workers did not have access to a program for older worker adjustment because it had been cut by the Liberals a few years earlier, and that decision had been upheld by the Conservatives, despite calls from older workers who needed this bridge to help them get their dignity back and access their pension plans.

I would like to take this opportunity to salute these people, these workers who were ignored, but who remained courageous. They were incredibly strong, and I empathize with their situation. As of now, some of the older workers have participated in the retraining program; they did everything they could to try to find a new job. I know of actual cases where people have told me that despite all their efforts, they have not been able to find a job. Employers did not want them for all kinds of reasons, but for many of them, it was because of their age. I am saying it again, but I cannot say it enough. A real older worker adjustment program is still necessary, but it is still being denied by the Conservatives.

The town of Huntingdon has an extremely dynamic mayor, Stéphane Gendron, who has taken the bull by the horns and shown leadership and daring. He has stimulated the economy in his town by bringing in new businesses. A number of small and medium-sized plants have started up in his town in the past three years or so. A few plants are going concerns, but they are having problems now because of the economic crisis and the American protectionist measures. Much of what they produced was for export, and since Huntingdon is on the U.S. border, you will understand that the budget forecasts unfortunately have not materialized because of the economic crisis.

When I look at that, I tell myself that some workers, who formerly worked in the textile mills and have been unemployed several times in the past seven years—in some cases for more than 35 weeks—could not receive benefits under the bill before us today. This means that if workers were laid off at a new plant in Huntingdon, which is doing everything it can to keep all its workers, some would not be entitled to these benefits.

Consequently, this bill is discriminatory and does not really help the long-term unemployed. The real problem, and what the Conservatives are not saying, is that we need an employment insurance system that not only is widely accessible, but also enables all unemployed workers who are having a tough time to be eligible for and receive EI benefits so that they can support their families, pay their bills and keep going while looking for another job.

This is a partisan measure that was introduced for political reasons at the expense of the unemployed. As a member of Parliament, as a citizen of my riding and as a Bloc member, I cannot support such a discriminatory bill, and the Bloc will not support it.

[Jim Maloway, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I listened carefully to what the member had to say. The government had said 190,000 unemployed workers would benefit from the bill, at a cost of around $935 million, or almost $1 billion. The member is disputing this based on a half-hour presentation by the government.

I recommend we get the bill to the committee. We should listen to the expert witnesses and, hopefully, she can get answers to her questions and then make a judgment at that time as to whether the bill does what she wants it to or not.

We know this is not all we want to help improve our EI system, but we recognize we have a bill in front of us and we do not want to turn our backs on helping 190,000 workers, at $1 billion. We are prepared to keep working on some of our other legislation before the House, legislation dealing with other aspects of EI, which we think are important as well, but we should not throw out a measure like this just because we cannot have everything at one time.

This is a complicated series that we have to work with and we have to get improvements one at a time.

[Claude DeBellefeuille, Bloc, Beauharnois—Salaberry, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am not sure if this interpretation is correct, but I never said I disputed the figures, that is, 190,000 unemployed workers at a cost of $938 million. I said there were some questions about where those figures came from. Whoever provides figures like that must be able to justify them.

I was told that the figures were not explained at the briefing session. How were these numbers reached, when the calculation appears so complicated that not one minister can explain it? Before we support a bill that claims to benefit 190,000 unemployed workers, it would have been nice—in fact crucial—to have these very important, specific answers. The Bloc Québécois is not known for being satisfied with easy explanations.

The government could have introduced quick measures to really help the unemployed, but it did not do so. The legislative process was not needed to bring in such a measure. A simple pilot project could have been introduced, as the Conservative government has done in the past. As the member said, that could have helped those unemployed workers immediately. But that was not what they did. I think we are seeing political games being played on the backs of unemployed workers.

[Jacques Gourde, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Public Works and Government Services and to the Minister of National Revenue]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague for her remarks. I would like her to answer the following question.

This measure for long-tenured workers, along with others already introduced in our economic action plan, will no doubt benefit men and women in her riding, people who truly need it.

If my colleague votes against this bill, does she realize she will be voting against the workers in her own riding who really need this extra money?

[Claude DeBellefeuille, Bloc, Beauharnois—Salaberry, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I want to reassure the parliamentary secretary. The people I represent are asking me today to ask questions of the government. Considering what is happening in my riding with the numerous permanent or recurring closures of manufacturing companies, I am unable to say at this time if this measure will help my constituents. There is no need to worry about my ability to explain the situation to my constituents and to justify my position. I have always done so, and I probably do it well since they elected me twice.

I would like to tell my colleague that people often come to see me, every week, to tell me that they qualify for employment insurance but do no receive their benefits within a reasonable length of time. We often see people who have filed their application in June and are still waiting for their first cheque in September. It would be very easy to change that—it is a question of bureaucracy—so that people who qualify for benefits receive their cheque in a timely manner.

[Serge Cardin, Bloc, Sherbrooke, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I wish to congratulate my colleague from Beauharnois—Salaberry for her intervention.

When I spoke at the beginning of the week, I forgot to mention something. September 14 marked my 11th anniversary as an MP and I wanted to say that I am proud to represent the people of my riding. I am ready to represent them for as long as necessary and I am ready to fight in this House for justice, particularly with respect to employment insurance.

Before being elected, I was an accountant. I was self-employed for more than 20 years. I had people working for me and my clients were employers and employees. Over the years, I saw the deterioration of the unemployment insurance system, as it was then called. I was upset by that. I thought that we should establish an employment insurance system—that was the term I used—to help the unemployed return to the job market quickly and regain their dignity.

Over the years, under successive Liberal and Conservative governments, I watched the employment insurance program deteriorate. I also saw some people take advantage of the program. They were employees who sometimes even conspired with their employers. I saw this going on.

Observing all this, I said to myself that there was a big problem with the government. These things are easy to spot. Rather than dealing with those who defraud the employment insurance system, be they employers or employees, it was attacking the system.

Today, it is still not uncommon for those who have lost their jobs, who find themselves unemployed and in a really difficult situation, to almost be perceived as crooks trying to defraud the system. But there is no need to defraud the system today because, quite often, it is the system that prevents the unemployed from collecting employment insurance benefits. Based on all the changes that have taken place over the years—it has not been all that long—and the different regions with varying rates of unemployment, people do not receive the same benefits or have the same period of coverage.

I remember something that happened in my riding a few months or perhaps a year ago. People living in Sherbrooke and working in Magog, some 30 kilometres away, commuted morning and evening, racking up extra transportation costs. When the Magog company closed its doors, the people who lived in Magog, which was in a different administrative region, received additional benefits for a longer benefit period. Some of the Sherbrooke workers had a hard time even qualifying, and those who did qualify received lower benefits. But they had all worked at the same place. Some had even spent more of their own money just to get to work.

It looks like the system needs a complete overhaul, particularly given the current economic situation, the unemployment rate and, above all, data from the OECD suggesting that the unemployment rate will probably reach 10%. But the government has chosen temporary fixes and is trying to look good by making a lot of noise about how it is going to give unemployed workers additional weeks, when some have not even collected one red cent yet.

Basically, I cannot be against the fact that people will be able to receive additional weeks of benefits. But I seriously wonder why the government has introduced this measure. It is likely just a bit of political window dressing, to tell unemployed workers that they can receive five to 20 additional weeks of benefits if they have worked for a very long time, they have not received benefits and they have paid premiums without getting anything in return. Yet there are people who have paid into EI who are not receiving anything today. We have seen this in the forestry industry. We are also seeing it among seasonal workers.

When I look at that, I seriously wonder and I feel that something is not right. The first thought that comes to mind is that the government's inability to pinpoint the real problems, the real needs, the most urgent needs, is equalled only by its failure to address those problems and those urgent needs.

Earlier I mentioned that the system has steadily deteriorated. Take the POWA, for example. At one time there was a mechanism that allowed older workers to transition to a dignified, honourable retirement if, after working for a company their entire lives—35 or 40 years—they were laid off and offered the option to retrain. Some workers can be retrained, but not others. The government has not yet addressed this problem. Neither the Liberals nor the Conservatives have done anything.

Now we have new measures that have nothing to do with what workers really need. Sure, the Conservatives added five weeks of benefits at the end of the regular benefit period, clearly in the hope that the economic situation would improve. But people need those benefits now. When you lose your job, you need help right away, not necessarily at the end of your benefit period. If only there was at least a longer benefit period. But even then, there would have been no need for the extra five weeks.

I do not know what these government representatives must feel when they see the unemployed workers. But I do not think this government is doing everything it can to make the EI system fairer and more accessible to everyone. I do not think there are people who wake up in the morning and say they cannot wait to be laid off so they can take advantage of the employment insurance system. First of all, no one wants to be laid off to go onto EI. Everyone knows the state it is in and who has access to it.

I am being told that my time is almost up, but I would like to add two things, in particular about the sharing of information among different departments. Again, we can see how the government has been acting. When the Bloc Québécois initiated sessions to identify individuals who were entitled to the guaranteed income supplement and who were not receiving it, we would have liked information from the Canada Revenue Agency to be accessible by the old age pension system. Thus, after filing their income tax return, someone who is eligible for the guaranteed income supplement could easily receive it. The government made billions of dollars off this. In fact, for several years, it did not give information to people and it made billions of dollars by taking money from the employment insurance fund.

Now, it is a matter of sharing information. The government did not want to integrate the systems at the time, and today, it is prepared to get information from each of them. You know very well that public servants are overwhelmed on employment insurance issues. It takes more and more time for people to get their benefits, and now we want to overload the system for a short period of time to go way back to collect information. This would be yet another temporary measure that does not solve the problems with EI and would cause more work for public servants.

The Conservatives should have listened to the Bloc's recommendations. Then they would have been better prepared to meet the urgent needs of unemployed workers.