Order. The hon. member for Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo.
An Act to amend the Employment Insurance Act and to increase benefits
This bill was last introduced in the 40th Parliament, 2nd Session, which ended in December 2009.
This bill was last introduced in the 40th Parliament, 2nd Session, which ended in December 2009.
Diane Finley Conservative
This bill has received Royal Assent and is now law.
This is from the published bill. The Library of Parliament often publishes better independent summaries.
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.
All sorts of information on this bill is available at LEGISinfo, an excellent resource from the Library of Parliament. You can also read the full text of the bill.
Cathy McLeod Conservative Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC
Mr. Speaker, I am really glad to speak to that issue. As the hon. member should know, during a time of global recession, it is very complicated. We need to tackle this recession from many different angles. In actual fact, people want to work. Things like the job opportunities program are incredibly well received in British Columbia.
We have taken a multi-faceted approach. Bill C-50 is an absolutely critical piece of that support for the long-tenured workers. However, it is part of a fabric, and our economic action plan is the complete fabric.
Charlie Angus NDP Timmins—James Bay, ON
Mr. Speaker, I was listening to the debate back and forth, and I see my colleagues from the Liberal Party flapping like lost ducks.
They are going on about the economic stimulus package, but they voted for it.
When the hon. member's party, very ideological in base, decided to push out a motion that would strip protection for the environment in the Navigable Waters Protection Act, the Liberals rolled over and voted for it.
When the Conservatives wanted to get rid of pay equity for women, the Liberals rolled over and said they would support it as long as it bought them some time.
The Liberal Party is not concerned about the jobs of average Canadians. Liberal members are concerned about Liberal jobs.
We now have a situation where $1 billion is on the table. That is not a great amount and there are a lot of issues. Now the Liberals want to throw the $1 billion out because the Liberal leader wants to be prime minister.
Despite all the failings of that member's party, and now that we have $1 billion on the table to help the unemployed, does she not think that the Liberal Party should be less worried about their entitlement and more worried about average Canadians?
Cathy McLeod Conservative Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC
Absolutely, Mr. Speaker. Right now we are in the midst of a global economic recession. The last thing that Canadians need is an unwanted, unnecessary, opportunistic election.
I am glad the NDP appreciates the merit of supporting long-tenured workers. We look forward to supporting long-tenured workers.
Joe Volpe Liberal Eglinton—Lawrence, ON
Mr. Speaker, the Liberal Party has attempted to work with all members of Parliament in order to put objectives on the table and to see if we could work with government. We have actually done that.
The NDP has pointed out that all of the collaborative efforts have been for naught. Those members have finally realized that the government cannot produce anything, and it has not. Now the Conservatives are swallowing themselves whole and saying this is a great project. Where is the $1 billion?
Cathy McLeod Conservative Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC
I will make my answer very quick, Mr. Speaker, because I am not really sure what the question was other than perhaps the NDP and Liberals debating some things.
This is a great bill that would support long-tenured workers. We appreciate that it is going to move forward.
Guy André Bloc Berthier—Maskinongé, QC
Mr. Speaker, it is with interest but also with concern that I am taking part in today's debate on Bill C-50 to provide additional weeks of benefits to certain categories of unemployed people.
The Bloc Québécois—and we have seen this many times here in the House—has always acted and will continue to act as a reasonable and responsible party. It will study every bill introduced, issue by issue. As always, we will act in the interests of Quebeckers.
As we said a number of times this morning, we cannot support this bill because it does not address the root of the problem, which is that the employment insurance system is unfair and not suited to the needs of Quebec's workers. The Bloc Québécois and the NDP and some other hon. members know that accessibility is the problem and we have been saying that in this House for a long time.
When it comes to qualifying for employment insurance, far too many workers, who have paid their premiums, are told they are not eligible because they do not have enough hours of work. According to Human Resources and Skills Development Canada's own numbers released in this House, more than half of unemployed workers—which is not insignificant—do not have access to a system to which they have contributed. This is truly disgraceful.
It will take more than piecemeal measures like Bill C-50 to fix a system that has been full of holes since the many Liberal cuts in the 1990s. It is all well and good to design the best programs around, but if people are not eligible for employment insurance benefits, then all is for naught. That is why we cannot support this bill.
The Bloc Québécois and committees of the unemployed, the Coalition des Sans-Chemise, who have been calling for change for years, and Quebec's unions, have been unanimously demanding a universal 360-hour eligibility threshold. That is what Quebeckers need to be eligible for employment insurance. Lowering the eligibility threshold to 360 hours for everyone would immediately help the most vulnerable in our society.
The bill not only does nothing to address the problem of access to the system, but it contains measures that will essentially benefit a certain category of workers in western Canada and in the auto sector in Ontario. In fact, according to Mr. Chevrette, the head of the Quebec Forestry Industry Council, as well as the Conseil national des chômeurs et chômeuses and unions in Quebec, the measures announced will have little impact in Quebec, because they are not accessible to seasonal workers, forestry workers, young people or vulnerable workers.
In Berthier—Maskinongé, the riding I represent, there is one category of workers this bill does not cover. The government could give 100 weeks of benefits and these workers would not be affected. I am talking about seasonal workers, especially those who work in tourism in my riding. I also want to talk about the many forestry workers in my riding who have unfortunately lost their jobs. They will not be eligible for benefits under Bill C-50. Unemployed forestry workers will not have access to the additional measures being introduced in this bill, unlike auto workers in Ontario.
The president of the Quebec Forest Industry Council points out that nearly all forestry workers are unemployed at least 10 weeks a year. Did the government think about these workers when it drafted Bill C-50? No, even though the Standing Committee on Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities came up with a number of proposals and recommendations. The Conservatives turned a deaf ear.
Instead of proposing comprehensive, consistent reform, Bill C-50 proposes piecemeal reform of employment insurance that will create a new category of benefit recipients. The criteria in the Conservatives' bill mean that there are good and bad recipients. There are good and bad unemployed. People who have been unlucky enough to lose their jobs or to hold seasonal jobs for many years will not be any more eligible for EI and will not benefit from any other measure in this bill. The government is making the poor poorer.
We in the Bloc Québécois refuse to support these mean-spirited, demagogic measures that the Conservatives, with the NDP's support, are trying to impose.
Opportunistic political manoeuvring is not what we need. As we all very well know, a bill was unnecessary. These measures could have been introduced simply through special projects. Instead, we are seeing mass political manipulation. A thorough overhaul is needed so that this program can really meet the needs of all workers.
A few extra weeks of discriminatory benefits are not what we need. Instead, we need a real adjustment program for older workers, which is what we have been asking for for some years, as have workers in Quebec and across Canada—a program that the Liberals cancelled and the Conservatives refuse to bring back, in spite of an electoral promise to that effect.
What we need is a system that can fulfill its main mission, that is, to provide benefits to everyone in a fair manner, long enough to allow people to live with dignity.
The Bloc Québécois understood this, which is why we proposed a series of measures to restore the employment insurance system's main mission. In addition to improved access to the system, the Bloc Québécois is also calling for the elimination of the waiting period.
With that in mind, I presented to the House a petition signed by nearly 4,000 people from my riding, people who are losing their jobs and are asking this House to assist them in their time of need.
I would like to close by saying that if a government is not capable of adequately supporting its citizens when they find themselves out of work, those people inevitably wind up living in poverty.
I would like the members of the Liberal Party to pay close attention to what I am about to say. Speaking of poverty, I would point out that 19% of Canadians are currently living in poverty, while in Sweden for instance, only 11.4% are in the same situation. In France, that number is 14.1%, in Belgium 6.2%, in the United Kingdom 17% and in the United States 23.9%, dead last.
A policy like Bill C-50 will only make all our citizens poorer. We do not support this policy, and we will be voting against this bill.
Mario Laframboise Bloc Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, QC
Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his excellent remarks.
I have been listening to this debate since this morning and it is quite something to hear the NDP trying to justify its support for the Conservatives. NDP members have just said that they are proud that the citizens of their riding have gone to work in Conservative ridings. That is just great.
The goal of the members of this House, especially Bloc members, is first to defend the interests of their citizens—in our case, Quebeckers. We rise every day so that our citizens can work where they live, in their region.
I would like to hear what my colleague has to say about that.
Guy André Bloc Berthier—Maskinongé, QC
Mr. Speaker, I wish to thank the member for his excellent question.
We are asking the House to abolish the two-week waiting period. I believe that the NDP was willing to support this measure because, in principle, it represents poor workers and those who have lost their jobs.
Now we see that they support the Conservatives who have introduced a bill that does not at all help the unemployed. There is no mention in this bill of the eligibility threshold for employment insurance, or the 360 hours that the NDP also wanted and was recommended by the Standing Committee on Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities.
The Bloc Québécois stands up for Quebec, for Quebec's workers, for forestry workers, for seasonal workers and for all Quebec's workers.
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.
The Speaker Liberal Peter Milliken
Before question period, there were three minutes remaining for questions and comments on the speech by the hon. member for Berthier—Maskinongé.
Yves Lessard Bloc Chambly—Borduas, QC
Mr. Speaker, I want to first congratulate the hon. member for Berthier—Maskinongé on his speech and for making it clear that we will be voting against this bill.
This bill is full of measures to prevent even more people from getting employment insurance. I would like my colleague to describe once more the situations in his riding where people who lose their job would no longer be eligible for benefits under Bill C-50, despite what the government claims. I would like to hear what he has to say about that.
Guy André Bloc Berthier—Maskinongé, QC
Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague for his excellent question.
Of course, we will vote against Bill C-50 on employment insurance. Why? In my riding, for example, the tourism industry is very important. As we know, there are a number of seasonal jobs in this industry. People who have these jobs have no stability and are unemployed for a period each year. Therefore, they are not able to benefit from the employment insurance program and the benefits provided for in Bill C-50.
Jobs in the manufacturing sector are also very important in my riding. We know that the manufacturing industry has been experiencing difficulties for several years. Since 2001, workers from this sector have regularly been laid off. These people have had to claim employment insurance several times and would not benefit from the measures of Bill C-50. And how about the forestry industry? In my riding, there are many forestry workers. We know that this industry is in crisis, and we know that the Liberals at the time refused to provide loan guarantees to businesses in this industry. Now, the Conservatives have decided to invest in Ontario to support the automotive industry.
These forestry workers have lost their jobs many times, and have been experiencing periods of unemployment for years. So they would not be able to benefit from Bill C-50.
This is why my colleague and I, along with the other Bloc Québécois members, will vote against Bill C-50.
Dean Allison Conservative Niagara West—Glanbrook, ON
Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to stand in favour of Bill C-50, our government's most recent measure to improve the EI system, this time to increase the duration of benefits to long-tenured workers. This afternoon I will use my time to cover the recent economic history that has led us to these measures.
As we all know, about one year ago there was a swift, largely unexpected and severe economic meltdown throughout the world. This was precipitated not by any actions of our government or conditions in our country, but largely by the subprime mortgage and debt crisis that occurred south of the border. Many countries around the world reeled from the effects of that crisis. Some smaller economies almost collapsed. Across the developed world many banks did collapse.
Due to the good sense of Canadians, Canadian banks and their governments, Canada is one of the few western economies that did not have to bail out any of its banks. We have the strongest banking system in the world. I think we all know that, and we should be proud of it. The strength of our banking system and the prudence with which our banks acted over recent years was a major contributor to our economy's relatively late fall into recession and our relatively early recovery out of the recession.
The recession affected every single country that we do business with. All of our trading partners were affected and consumer demand plummeted. It was natural for many of our large exporting industries to be hit especially hard and for workers in those industries to be hit with layoffs.
One of the many things this government did once the severe and widespread effects of the economic downturn were realized was to start making plans to improve the EI program.
Many hard-working Canadians lost their jobs through no fault of their own. Demand for wood and wood products, cars and all sorts of consumer goods fell in the U.S. and around the world. Workers in our manufacturing industries were laid off. Many workers in the auto sector saw their companies collapse around them and saw their jobs disappear. Workers in the forestry sector were losing their jobs because companies were going bankrupt. We acted to help those workers as they tried to recover and transition from the effects of this economic downturn.
What did our government do? We consulted with Canadians and we were told, most important, to extend the length of EI benefits. Many Canadians who had worked full time for many years had suddenly lost their jobs. They were left wondering how long it would take for them to get back into the workforce. So, as part of Canada's economic action plan, we extended the EI benefit period by five weeks.
We also took other actions to help Canadians. We significantly increased the government's investment in skills, training and upgrading so that workers who were laid off could get the necessary training to transition to find work in different industries. We put more money into training programs so that people who did and did not qualify for EI could access them. But that is not all. We expanded the work-sharing program. We raised the number of weeks that employers could access the work-sharing program by 14 weeks to a full 52 weeks. Those actions by our government are protecting almost 165,000 jobs of Canadian workers through over 5,800 agreements. Again, that is something Canadians told us they wanted, and we delivered.
We did even more. We froze EI premiums for 2009 and for next year, 2010, because we understood that employers and employees needed to keep more of their money in their pockets to help them through these troubled times.
We were also clear that more may be needed and that we would monitor the economy and the EI system to ensure needs were being met with appropriate actions. While we heard these good, affordable and responsible ideas for EI improvements from Canadians, we heard different things from the veritable coalition of opposition parties and from the usual suspects.
What we heard consistently, first from the NDP and then the Liberals and the Bloc, was that they felt the solution, the silver bullet, was a number, and they kept repeating that same number.
That special number was 360. They suggested we lower the threshold to access EI benefits to a flat 360 hours across the country. What that is, quite plainly, is a proposal for a 45 day work year. They want folks to be able to work for 45 days and then collect months of benefits for those 45 days of work.
What good does that proposal, the one we have heard the most noise about from the opposition, for a 45 day work year do for the hard-working Canadians who have worked for many years in the automotive industry who have found themselves out of a job? The answer is nothing.
Would it help Canadian forestry workers in B.C., Quebec and elsewhere who have worked for 10, 15, 20 years in the forestry industry, who put in literally thousands of hours in full-time employment year after year? No, not really.
It certainly would do nothing to help Canadians who have been in the workforce for their entire adult life, working 35, 40, 50 hour weeks, month after month, year after year. It would do nothing for them.
That has been the opposition's big plan for Canadians who have worked hard and paid their dues for years, even decades. Nothing.
This government, on the other hand, saw what was needed and took responsible action to increase the help we were providing to hard-working, long-tenured workers.
We saw that many tens of thousands of Canadians, in fact close to 200,000 Canadians, could make use of additional weeks of benefits to bridge them further and to give them more time for the economy to recover and for them to get back into the workforce.
That is why we took the actions that we did and why we have introduced Bill C-50.
The measures in Bill C-50 would help ensure that long-tenured workers who have paid into the EI system for years are provided with the help they need while they search for new employment and while the economy begins to recover.
This legislation is an important step for Canadian workers who have worked hard and paid their taxes their whole lives and have found themselves in economic hardship, and it is the right thing to do. We are not the only ones to say so either.
Two weeks ago when we announced the bill, the premier of Ontario said that it was a step in the right direction. The president of the Canadian Labour Congress said that he was pleased about it.
The president of the Canadian Auto Workers said:
In the months ahead tens of thousands of unemployed workers are going to join the growing ranks of Canadians who have exhausted their EI benefits. They need action, not political posturing.
Unfortunately, all Canadians have received from the Liberals on this legislation is exactly what Canadian auto workers do not need and that is political posturing. From this government they are getting action.
My colleague from Acadie—Bathurst made some prudent remarks on September 16 in the Telegraph-Journal . He said:
But if we say no to this [help for long-tenured workers], we're saying no to thousands and thousands of people who would then go on welfare.
He is right. His comments illustrate the reckless and selfish political posturing being exhibited right now by the other two opposition parties, the Liberals and the Bloc.
The Liberals especially only seem interested in forcing an unnecessary election. Here on the government benches, the economy is still our number one priority. We need to continue to implement our economic action plan in order to create and maintain jobs.
We are concerned about fighting the recession. The Liberals just want to fight the recovery. Our government will remain focused on the economy and helping those hardest hit by the economic downturn.
I encourage my colleagues to help us do that by supporting this legislation.
Judy Foote Liberal Random—Burin—St. George's, NL
Madam Speaker, I listened to my colleague talk about how difficult it is for Canadians who lose their jobs through no fault of their own. That is certainly something that I can relate to and something the people I represent can relate to as well.
The irony is that many people will not be able to avail themselves of this latest measure because it does not apply to people who have availed themselves of EI. It is only for people who have worked for a long time and have not accessed EI.
There is nothing wrong with individuals being able to access EI, certainly those who have worked forever and have not been able to do so, but we should not penalize those who through no fault of their own have had to access the system from time to time.
Fishers, forestry workers and young people will not be able to benefit from this latest measure. Is it possible that this measure was put in place to help those in the oil industry, those who we all know form the largest base of support for the Conservative Party?