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

[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, NDP, 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.

[Paul Calandra, Conservative, Oak Ridges—Markham, ON]

Madam Speaker, I note that it took the hon. member 13 years in office to figure out certain things on employment insurance. However, I think most Canadians know where the member comes from. She is the same member who recently told our brave men and women in the armed forces that they should not be proud to wear the flag on their knapsacks. She is an hon. member who represents a party that walked out on unemployed Canadians recently.

Many good things are happening across this country. A constituent of mine, Mr. Baljit Sierra, an owner of Novo Plastics, raves about everything the government has done with respect to helping him and his business in this time of economic uncertainty and raves about employment insurance and employment sharing programs.

I wonder if the hon. member has noted in her riding all of the companies that have benefited from the economic action plan and what she will say to them now that her party simply wants to close down Parliament and turn its back yet again on the hard-working men and women of this country.

[Hedy Fry, Liberal, Vancouver Centre, BC]

Madam Speaker, this whole thing is a political game. When one is not able to answer questions, one begins to become personally offensive to individuals in the House. I will not go there.

What I will say is that I do speak to the constituents in my riding regularly. In fact, the riding of Vancouver Centre is the headquarters for most of the businesses in British Columbia. It is the headquarters for most of the employment agencies in British Columbia. It is the headquarters for most of the economic development in British Columbia where everyone is headquartered.

I talk to my constituents regularly. I do not wait for them to call me. I bring them together, meet with them and ask them how things are going. I must say that the visa on Mexicans that was denied recently has devastated the people in my riding. Hotels are closing down, jobs are being lost for part-time workers and service sector workers in the hotel industry and the restaurant sector.

What I hear from the constituents in my riding is that people have no work and they do not know what to do. That is what I must speak to and what makes me so passionate, because what the government is doing severely lacks compassion. I guess it is because Vancouver Centre does not have a Conservative MP, which may be why we are so badly treated.

[Ed Komarnicki, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Human Resources and Skills Development and to the Minister of Labour]

Madam Speaker, I will be splitting my time with my colleague from Nepean—Carleton.

I am pleased to rise today in support of the bill to improve employment insurance. It is a good bill and it should be supported by every member of the House. There is no question about that. It is certainly a lively debate, and so it should be.

The current EI program is working. We are seeing positive results of the actions taken by the government. However, while the economy moves toward recovery, our continued action is required and our continued attention is necessary. The new measures we are taking through the bill will assist Canadians who have worked for a significant period of time, have made limited use of EI regular benefits and, through no fault of their own, find themselves laid off and looking for a new job.

These are Canadians who paid their dues. They have worked hard, paid their taxes and paid their EI premiums for many years. It is only fair and responsible that we support them and their families when they need it. Many of these workers have worked in the same job or in the same industry for many years and face the prospect of having to start all over again. In many cases, these workers are now facing low prospects of finding work in their industry and many will face challenges transitioning to a new career. It is a very trying time for sure, and we understand that.

With Bill C-50, our government is doing the right thing.

Bill C-50 would extend, nationally, regular benefits for long-tenured workers by between five and twenty weeks. The longer a person has been working and paying EI premiums, the more weeks of benefits that person will receive.

The measure being introduced today is the continuation of our government's efforts to ensure that the employment insurance program is working for all Canadians.

Through Canada's economic action plan, our government has already made a number of improvements to the EI program to support unemployed Canadians and to help them get back into the workforce. We are providing five additional weeks of EI benefits. We have made the EI application process easier, faster and better for businesses and workers, and we have increased opportunities for unemployed Canadians to upgrade their skills and to get back to work. We are assisting businesses and their workers who are experiencing temporary slowdowns by an improved and more accessible work-sharing program. More than 160,000 Canadians are benefiting from work-sharing agreements that are in place with almost 5,800 employers across Canada. This is a positive change and a positive program. These are jobs that are being protected by the actions taken by this Conservative government.

We believe it is important to ensure Canada's workforce is in a position to get good jobs and bounce back from the recession.

Career transition assistance is a new initiative that will help an estimated 40,000 long-term workers who need additional support for retraining to find a new job. Through this initiative, we have extended the duration of EI regular income benefits for eligible workers for up to two years for those who choose to participate in longer term training. We are providing Canadians easier access to training that is tailored to the needs of workers in our country's different regions.

We made a number of other changes to the EI system, even before the recession began. For example, we extended the eligibility for EI compassionate care benefits by enlarging the definition of family member to include a wider range of individuals. We are improving the management and governance of the EI account through the establishment of the Canada Employment Insurance Financing Board, a federal crown corporation that reports to Parliament through the Minister of Human Resources and Skills Development. This board will be responsible for EI financing, setting the EI premium rate and ensuring that EI premiums are spent within the EI program to help Canadian workers when they need help the most.

Also Important is that the Canada Employment Insurance Financing Board will ensure that EI premiums are not used to finance Liberal pet political projects, which has been the case in the past.

It should be clear to the House that we have not hesitated to test new approaches and to make changes to EI when they are proven to be warranted.

The House can be assured that we will continue to monitor and assess the EI program to ensure it continues to be effective. We will listen to recommendations and place priority on reasonable, affordable measures. We will continue to identify opportunities to ensure that EI helps Canadians adapt to the modern labour market.

Bill C-50 is just such an opportunity. It demonstrates that the government is making responsible choices to support Canadians now. This measure is time limited. We are taking it immediately. It is responsive to the needs of hard-working Canadians.

We are not the only ones who think that this type of measure is the best one at this time. In yesterday's paper, the president of the United Steelworkers, in our minister's own riding, said:

It's going to be quite good and give workers a little more time. This is a good thing to extend benefits to people like that.

Members of he Liberal Party need to get behind this legislation because it is a good thing. They need to support it. If they want other initiatives, that is fine, but this is a good one and it needs to be supported.

The Ontario premier said that it was a step in the right direction.

Back on June 22, Ken Lewenza, president of the Canadian Auto Workers, said in the Exchange Morning Post:

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.

Unemployed workers need the support that we are proposing in Bill C-50. They do not need political posturing by the opposition. They need the support of that party to get the bill through the House as quickly as possible to ensure those who need it the most can get it when they need it.

Action is exactly what we are providing to these hard-working Canadians. We are taking action to extend their EI benefits.

On August 25, in the Canadian Press, Don Drummond, TD Bank's chief economist, said:

I think time is going to prove that the debate we're having on the employment insurance system is focusing on the wrong thing. I think this recession will prove it has been less about an access problem than a duration problem.

That is exactly what the bill is addressing.

In this month's Policy Options, Jeremy Leonard, of the IRPP, the Institute for Research on Public Policy, said, “The narrow focus on”--and he is referring to a 360 hour work year, is unfortunate, because.... The more serious issues...how to deal with the large number of long-term unemployed who are no longer eligible for EI....”

The duration of benefits is exactly what we are addressing in today's bill.

Also in this month's Policy Options, Janice MacKinnon, the former social services minister of my home province of Saskatchewan, with whom I do not always agree, said, in reference to the 360 hour program:

...it be better to expand coverage...and improve the benefits of those who have paid into the program for years but find themselves unemployed?

That is precisely the point. People have been working long and hard. They have been paying their taxes and now they are facing a very trying time. Their benefits are running out or have run out. This program would bridge that for them. They expect our government to respond to that and the parties in the House to get behind it. We are taking reasonable, fair and affordable actions to help Canadians who have worked hard and paid their taxes for a long time.

Our government will remain focused on the economy and helping those hardest hit by the economic downturn. We are focused on what matters to Canadians right now, helping those hardest hit, investing in training and helping to create and protect jobs. In contrast, the opposition Liberals seem to want simply to fight the economic recovery.

Recently on EI, the Liberals walked away from the table and unemployed Canadians. They turned their backs on those who need their help at this particular time. In contrast, this government is continuing to work to help unemployed Canadians. The most recent example of our continued work is the bill itself.

The Liberals refuse to give up on their ill-advised, ill-conceived two month work year scheme. This Liberal scheme was costed at over $4 billion. It is irresponsible and unaffordable in our current circumstances and, what is more, it is offensive to hard-working Canadians who have paid their taxes and EI premiums.

In contrast, this government is taking fair, responsible and affordable measures to help hard-working Canadians who have not been able to get back into the workforce yet.

The Liberals have said that they will vote against all government measures, including this measure, the extra support for workers who have paid into the system for years; and maternity and parental benefits for self-employed, which the minister has indicated this government is working toward.

I would ask members of the House not to engage in political posturing but to look at the positive aspects of the bill. It is simple and direct and it is meant to help those who are long-tenured. Members should get behind it, support it and look at other ways to improve the system later.

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Madam Speaker, in his speech, the member referred to the Canada EI Financing Board, which was included in the last budget. As I recall, that called for some $2 billion to be transferred to this new board for seed money, then it would administer the ins and outs of the employment insurance program.

My understanding, though, is that the board has not yet been set up and that the $2 billion of seed money has not been provided. It does not exist, so I would hope the member would provide some clarification on why he even raised it.

If that does not exist, then we still have this EI surplus in the notional EI fund, which has a $50 billion-plus surplus. Under the rules, two years of surplus have to be retained for recession purposes and a board would determine the premiums to be set. Therefore, the only way to deal with the excess surplus is either to reduce premiums or to introduce new programs, neither of which have been done because those members ignore the fact that the EI fund actually exists.

Would the member care to clarify whether we have a financing board or whether the EI fund still exists and whether either of these are in fact operational for recession purposes?

[Ed Komarnicki, Conservative, Souris—Moose Mountain, SK]

Madam Speaker, it is quite remarkable a question such as that would come from the hon. member, who is a member of the Liberal Party.

The board has been established and the reason it has been established is to ensure that EI premiums that are collected over a period of time are used for the benefit of those who have paid in, to help the unemployed.

What the previous Liberal government did was use the approximately $50 billion to which the member refers. Was the purpose to help those unemployed, those who needed it? No. The Liberal government used it as general revenue to fund its pet political Liberal projects. It took that money and spent it during that time. The Liberals tried to balance their books on the backs of the unemployed, on the backs of Canadians, by taking money from provinces, from municipalities and, worse yet, from those who needed it most, the unemployed. Those who need it the most do not have the money because the previous Liberal Party spent it on its pet political projects.

The Liberals have the audacity to stand today and ask us where the money is. It was spent by the Liberal Party of Canada.

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

Madam Speaker, I listened to the member trumpet the proposed measures, such as the additional 5 to 20 weeks, to purportedly improve employment insurance.

A lot of people say that this program was designed for auto workers and that unemployed forestry industry workers were completely disregarded in the proposed measures.

I would like the member to respond that.

[Ed Komarnicki, Conservative, Souris—Moose Mountain, SK]

Madam Speaker, perhaps what has been lost on the hon. member is that the program has not been designed for a particular person or a particular region of the country. It has been designed for those who have worked the longest.

Those who have paid most into the system, those who have collected the least from the system, those who keep the system going for everybody, where everybody gets to benefit in the good times, are the ones who should be protected wherever they live, whatever they do, whichever industry they are in, whether it be forestry, the auto sector or mining. It does not matter.

What matters is that this is a group of people who have worked hard, paid into the system, find themselves out of work after they have worked for a long period time and now find themselves in this awkward position. They need to be helped and they need the support of the Bloc party.

I cannot imagine the Bloc party voting against something like this, something that will benefit not only members in my riding and other members' ridings, but his riding as well. It is unconscionable for them to oppose a bill like this which deals with a singular item and has nothing else attached to it. If the Bloc members want other benefits, that may be fine, but this is a positive benefit. They should support it and quite playing politics with EI.