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

[Jean-Pierre Blackburn, Conservative, Jonquière—Alma, QC]

Madam Speaker, I was saying that they walked away from the committee when workers and the unemployed would have liked to hear their valuable input in order to adopt as many positive measures as possible to help workers. They turned their backs on workers; they turned their backs on the committee. We continued working, and now we are introducing this important measure to help long-tenured workers, those who have been paying in for many years and who, when the business shuts down, are suddenly going through a hard time. In addition to the year of employment insurance they will receive, we are adding another 5 to 20 weeks, so they will have more assistance from our government and this Parliament.

[Robert Bouchard, Bloc, Chicoutimi—Le Fjord, QC]

Madam Speaker, I listened carefully to the minister and member for Jonquière—Alma. He said they had to draw a line. He also said that 190,000 workers will benefit from employment insurance. He even talked about several sectors, including forestry and automotive. Can he tell me how many unemployed workers, by sector, will benefit from these measures? He mentioned 190,000 workers and various sectors. Can the government table a document giving us the number of unemployed workers in each sector who will get EI benefits?

[Jean-Pierre Blackburn, Conservative, Jonquière—Alma, QC]

Madam Speaker, whom were we thinking of when we set up this EI program to help long-tenured employees? We thought of individuals who lose the jobs they have held for a number of years in Canada, in a region, in a business. We want to help them.

In our country, people in all types of jobs and businesses may find themselves in this situation. We are aware, of course, that there have been more layoffs in the forestry, automobile manufacturing and mining sectors and in the manufacturing sector. This is why we are helping these people.

I would remind the member for Chicoutimi—Le Fjord that we have also put measures in place. My colleague, the Minister of State (Economic Development Agency of Canada for the Regions of Quebec) and I both come from that region and have put four different measures in place to support workers in Canada's forestry sector, among others.

[Tony Martin, NDP, Sault Ste. Marie, ON]

Madam Speaker, I certainly appreciate the opportunity to be engaged in this debate here this morning. Members of the Bloc and of our party were cut out of the discussions that happened over the summer, which I think was rather unfortunate. Perhaps it might have led to more success at having something done had we been there.

However, here we are, and we have an opportunity to put on the table some of what we think needs to be done. This is a beginning, but a very feeble beginning of trying to respond to a very difficult circumstance that is now evolving out there. The government has indicated that 190,000 people will be served by this initiative. I suggest that if we did the math, we would find that there are hundreds of thousands of others who do not fit the category that is identified in this initiative. They either do not qualify for EI, have already run out of EI or will run out of EI very soon.

Some economists are referring to this as another wave. As these people find that they cannot pay their bills and they begin to default on all kinds of credit, credit cards, bank loans, mortgages, et cetera, the impact that will have on the economy, not to speak of the impact that it will have on them personally and on their families, is what concerns me the most.

Is there any opening over there to some discussion about that large group of people who, if they have not already, will soon fall onto welfare in this country? As the member knows, that is not a very happy place for anybody.

[Jean-Pierre Blackburn, Conservative, Jonquière—Alma, QC]

Madam Speaker, I thank the member for his question and comment.

Once again, we are putting all sorts of measures in place in an effort to support Canadians, people and workers in this difficult economic period. We are one of the countries currently coming out of it fairly well compared with the situation worldwide. Seasonal and regular workers have EI when they lose their job. They have, based on the region where they live, between 420 and 700 hours. They are entitled to employment insurance.

The other thing we are doing this morning is adding on. We are saying this: If you lose your job and the business closes for good, you will, in principle, have a year's EI. It is there. The system is in place. We are adding an extra 5 to 20 weeks to help these people. That is what we are doing. There are parameters, of course, which we cannot avoid. There is a budget to manage. Our country has to be managed. At the same time, however, we feel a responsibility to try to help those in difficulty.

If it were left to our hearts, we would give and give and give, but we have to manage a budget and keep within the guidelines set for all governments.

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

Madam Speaker, I have a very brief question.

The dollars that we are investing in Canadians and employment insurance hardly match up to some of the dollars that we have put into companies across this country to deal with the impacts of the financial crisis.

Does the member not think that there needs to be proper support for Canadian workers in the future? Is this not really what we are here for?

[Jean-Pierre Blackburn, Conservative, Jonquière—Alma, QC]

Madam Speaker, there are two things. Just this morning, Guy Chevrette of the forestry sector said he feared that employer premiums could be raised. As soon as we try to help one group in difficulty someone is afraid because there is a cost associated with doing so. In the current circumstances, we have said we were freezing premiums for employees.

Permit me to say this to the hon. member. We should compare what is offered in Canada in terms of employment insurance with what is offered in the United States. There, people get between 40% and 60% of what they have earned. That is all they can get. Here, between 4 and 10 times more goes to help our employees and unemployed.

[Hedy Fry, Liberal, Vancouver Centre, BC]

Madam Speaker, I rise to speak to Bill C-50 which is so difficult to support for so many reasons. The bottom line about the bill that makes it difficult to support is that it purports to amend the Employment Insurance Act to increase benefits. The fact is that the bill will not do what it is says it will do. The bill is so convoluted that few, if any, of the long-tenured workers it says it will help would actually be eligible. That is what is so cruel about it. It creates a false sense of security for these workers that they are going to be getting help when in fact they will not. I want to read from the bill. It states:

If a claimant was paid less than 36 weeks of regular benefits in the 260 weeks before the beginning of the claimant’s benefit period and that benefit period was established during the period that begins on the later of January 4, 2009 and the Sunday before the day that is nine months before the day on which this subsection is deemed to have come into force--

And it goes on. One would need a lawyer, a linguist and an accountant to figure out as an ordinary Canadian whether one is eligible or not. It is so convoluted.

We even hear from the group that the bill says it is going to help. Ken Lewenza of the Canadian Auto Workers says: “The new EI plan provides crumbs to unemployed Canadians at a time when they are in need of a full loaf of bread”. Laurell Ritchie of the Canadian Auto Workers says that only a handful of long-tenured auto workers will actually qualify through the bill. The bill's convolutedness, its complexity, and the fact that it says what it will do when it will not, is a good enough reason in the whole for not supporting the bill.

One of the other things that concerns me about the bill is that it is not helping people in the highest hit sector. Let us look at the forestry sector. Armine Yalnizyan, an economist in Toronto, said that it will not help the manufacturing sector. It will not help the oil patch. It will not help the forestry sector and increasingly, it will not help the service sector”. These sectors are all subject to periodic layoffs.

I want to pick the forestry sector because I come from B.C. and this is the sector in B.C. that has been really hard hit. Mr. Kobayashi from the forestry sector in B.C. says that the only workers who have not received EI in the past five years will be eligible for the extra weeks of benefits that the bill says it will offer.

People who live in B.C. know that is a joke because the forestry sector there for the last four years has been subject to periodic layoffs. Because of the softwood lumber issues, mills have been closing down, mills have been idling, and people have been laid off. We see forest fires that have been creating problems and mills not having any lumber to use. We see the pine beetle problem that has hit this sector.

This is not going to work for the forestry sector in British Columbia and that in itself is really sad because these are the people who are losing their jobs and their homes. We have 55-year-old workers who have done nothing since they were 16 but work in the forestry sector in B.C., who are watching everything they worked for over their whole lives falling apart. However, they will not be able to benefit from the bill.

The other thing the bill does not do, and this is what I also find quite cruel, is the fact that the bill does not help many of those workers under age 38 because they have not been in the workforce for the 15 years they would have to be in order to qualify through the bill. The 38-year-old workers have not been in the workforce for 15 years. These are the people hardest hit and most vulnerable. These are the people with very young children. These are the people who are at the beginning of their working careers so their earnings are low. These are the people who are the first to get laid off because they are new to the workforce.

This is again the cruelty of ignoring this whole group of Canadians who are suffering and who, if they just bought a new home, cannot afford to pay for it. We read recently in British Columbia that this group of people says they are one paycheque away from bankruptcy and they have been ignored completely by the government's inability to deal with this problem. These are the people that we need to talk about.

We also find that the 55 to 65-year-old workers who this is supposed to help in the forestry sector and the automobile sector are not going to be helped at all, nor in the service sector.

It is kind of ironic that in the service sector we find that this is the result of ridiculous decisions made by the government, like cutting visas for tourists from Mexico. The tourism industry has gone downhill in this country, especially in my province of British Columbia, and the service sector is laying off workers: restaurant workers, hotel workers, and all the people who work in this sector. Nothing is being done for these people at all. For me this is a huge and cruel joke being played by this bill.

Apart from the substantives of the bill, we have the politics of the bill. If we want to talk about political games, this is the cheapest political trick I have ever seen in my 16 years in the House of Commons.

We have the NDP members for instance who have suddenly said that there is absolutely no reason for them to vote against this particular bill because they do not want to block the flow of money to workers. It is the same party that did not seem to mind when it voted against a stimulus package in January and when it continued for the last nine months to vote against all of the motions that had to do with ways and means, confidence motions, and job creating motions in the House.

The government promised housing for seniors, money for training and infrastructure. It promised money for all of those things which as we see never actually came to pass.

Even then the New Democratic Party members could not support those bills because they said that they were horrible and not helping anyone. All of a sudden the political gamesmanship of saying that they can support that now is actually a joke.

The government that has actually accused our party in the House of getting into bed with socialists and separatists is now desperate not to have an election. Suddenly, it finds it is okay to have a one night stand with socialists and separatists when it feels like it. This is all a joke. The people who are the victims and the brunt of this rather cruel political game are ordinary Canadians.

That is what bothers me. The cruelty of it all is that this is what government is for. At a time when Canadians are suffering, and we just heard that young Canadians under 38, and single mothers, are suffering very much because these are the people who are working in part-time jobs. These are the people who are laid off regularly. These are the people who are the first to be laid off in an economic downturn. These are the people who are losing their homes, who cannot pay their rent, who cannot put food on the table. These are the people who, 60% of them in my province of British Columbia, were recently quoted as saying they were one paycheque away from bankruptcy.

This is about taking care of Canadians. That is what a government's role is at a time when Canadians are in need, at a time when Canadian are desperate. This is not about laying blame. This is about doing what we can to help all Canadians, not some Canadians who we deem are better than other Canadians. This is a time when government, which asks us to trust it, cannot even trust its own people.

We have heard in the House over these last few months words from the Conservative Party across the way, and that is supposed to be government, saying we cannot trust Canadians, they are going to cheat on EI, they are going to steal whatever, and they are going to do all of those things. We find here a government that does not trust its people. It does not trust its people because it thinks that people are cheaters. It does not trust its people because of their citizenship or their immigration status. It does not trust people because of their age.

What are we talking about here? This is a time of recession when the people of this country need their government to pull together, to assist them, all of them, not some of them, not those that it picks and chooses that it thinks are worthy.

I could go into this in greater detail, but for these reasons I find the bill completely unsupportable. I find this lack of understanding of Canadians, this lack of compassion, this cruelty and this picking and choosing, to be totally unworthy of any federal government in this country.

[Cathy McLeod, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

Madam Speaker, I too am from British Columbia and I actually live in the interior which does have forests. Certainly the impact of this crisis on the forestry workers is very near and dear to my heart.

I look at the work happening throughout my riding in terms of the economic action plan, building infrastructure, building Canada as work is being done on our universities. It was with great pleasure that I looked at the job opportunities program which announced $60 million and is putting unemployed forestry workers to work.

We know that these workers actually want to work and that is our top priority. Indeed, we have made many changes in EI and the most recent being of course additional support for the long-tenured workers. Therefore, I see many positive things happening throughout my riding that supports forestry workers.

My question for the opposition member is this, and perhaps she could ask this question in Vancouver. If she were to visit my riding, how could she look at those forestry workers, long-tenured, who qualify for this program and say to them, “I could not support giving you additional EI even though you really needed it”?

[Hedy Fry, Liberal, Vancouver Centre, BC]

Madam Speaker, I think this is very interesting because I have been to the hon. member's riding and I have been to the forestry sector. I have been going there for the last five or six to 16 years, back and forth to that part of the country.

The forestry sector in British Colombia accounts for one in five jobs. In my riding of Vancouver Centre jobs are created because of the forestry sector. I have spoken with these workers, one on one. I was there when the fires were raging in 2004. I talked to workers and to mayors across that area when the fires were raging this very summer. I heard about the hardship they were suffering.

We see towns like Mackenzie unable to sustain itself as a town and being shut down. Schools are being shut down, workers are not being given the assistance they need, and it is cute to say that they are because they are not. They are walking away from houses at the age of 55 that they have built and paid for, and cannot give away because of the dire times.

Not a single thing has been done to help these people. It has been promised. Words are cheap. It has been promised over and over in every single budget, but it has never come to pass.

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

Madam Speaker, I want to thank the member opposite for her presentation. She seems to agree that the EI system needs to be fixed. I would like the member to comment on why, when she and her party were in power for 13 years, they did not take any opportunity at that point in time to fix the system the way it should be fixed and is going to be fixed now.

[Hedy Fry, Liberal, Vancouver Centre, BC]

Madam Speaker, it seems to me that this is where we came in as a Liberal government in 1993. It seems to me that this is history repeating itself. Because of the Conservative-led deep recession, a Conservative-led deficit, a Conservative-led debt, and unemployment rates for young people, which today is at 19.2% and was at 22% at that time, that in fact it was as a result of that, which was called the jobless recovery after that recession, that we changed the employment insurance system of the day to meet the needs of Canadians.

We continued to see that employment insurance worked during the good times, which came about under good Liberal management. It made this country recover and become one of the number one countries in the world in terms of economic development, research and development and innovation.

During that time, we shifted the system to meet those times. What we are asking for now, and we were prepared to sit down with the government and work on this, is to equalize this. Regionally today in a recession, which we saw in the last recession when we changed things then, people were losing jobs, different sectors were disadvantaged and different parts of this country were disadvantaged. We wanted to equalize that. We wanted to create an equality of opportunity for Canadians.

We cannot look back at what was done ten years ago. We are in a different place now. The government needs, as we did then, to act and to act swiftly to meet the needs of Canadians of the day. That is what we are asking the government to do, to act now and to act swiftly, because people cannot afford to wait a year and six months when they are one paycheque away from bankruptcy.

[Siobhan Coady, Liberal, St. John's South—Mount Pearl, NL]

Madam Speaker, I thank my hon. member for such an elegant impassioned speech.

The Conservative government has been reluctantly dragged into making some changes to the employment insurance program at a time when there is incredible devastation in our country with regard to employment and jobs.

What I note is that this Conservative proposal is dividing the unemployed into those deserving increased benefits and those not deserving. I assume that is what the government is doing.

I look at the fact that we have so many seasonal workers, so many workers who are in fields who would not meet the criteria to allow them to access this new proposal that the Conservatives have put forward. Five hundred thousand people have lost their jobs, yet the Conservative proposal, using its figures and I am not sure where its figures are coming from, says it will affect 190,000 people.

What about the other 300,000 people the Conservatives are not helping under this program? I am just wondering if the hon. member could answer the question, why does she think the Harper Conservatives are discriminating in this employment—

[The Acting Speaker, Denise Savoie]

I would ask the member to remember not to mention sitting members' names.

The hon. member for Vancouver Centre for a quick response.

[Hedy Fry, Liberal, Vancouver Centre, BC]

Madam Speaker, I am glad my colleague asked that question because she does come from a part of Canada that knows what it is like to be devastated by unemployment and knows what it is like to be regionally discriminated against sometimes in this country.

The bottom line is that I consider it unworthy of a federal government to discriminate against its people, to decide who is worthy of its assistance and who is not, to decide whether it will help people based on their age or entrance into the workforce when they are all at this moment feeling extremely vulnerable.