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

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

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to join the debate on this critical issue of employment insurance.

I will be sharing my time with the hon. member for Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine.

This new bill fails to provide any assistance for the vast majority of the 1.6 million unemployed Canadians who are looking to their federal leaders to make it easier for workers who have lost their job through no fault of their own to qualify for benefits during this crucial time of economic downturn.

The bill does, however, succeed in doing one of the things at which the Conservative government excels. The bill divides Canadians. It divides unemployed Canadians into two groups: those who are deemed to be deserving of assistance and those whom the government has chosen to leave out. This politics of division has been the hallmark of the Conservative government.

It is truly saddening that members opposite refuse to set aside their political differences to address a national crisis of unemployment insurance. Instead the government is showing how truly uncaring it is by further dividing Canadian workers.

If a worker has been laid off once or more in the past five years, under this legislation that worker will fail to qualify for this new extension of benefits. Any worker who collected 35 weeks of EI in the past five years, such as seasonal workers or nonstandard workers or long-tenured workers who lost their jobs earlier in the economic crisis, will be shut out of assistance by the government.

Many of these workers have already faced challenges in their industries in recent years as the manufacturing sector has contracted, as government has failed to protect interests in the forestry industry, as jobs have been shed in the tourism industry.

It simply does not make sense to exclude from this program workers who have been through a previous recent job loss in these chosen industries. These workers have been punished already and now have this punishment extended through this exclusionary policy brought forward by the government.

Consider the fact that we have so many seasonal workers, so many workers in fields and industries who would not meet the criteria to allow them to access this new proposal.

Five hundred thousand people have lost their job during this downturn, yet this Conservative proposal would affect only, according to the government, 190,000 people. What about the other 300,000 people the Conservatives are not helping under this program?

What is the government trying to say to forestry workers, for example, who have worked for 15 years at AbitibiBowater and are now out of a job? Because these workers lost their job before a certain arbitrary date they are simply left out. They are on their own. They have been left by the government to fend for themselves even though they are long-tenured workers, workers who paid into the employment insurance program throughout their careers. Under this legislation the government is preventing these workers from claiming money to support their families now when they need it most, and it is just not right.

It should not be surprising given the track record of the government. An unemployed worker is an unemployed worker, and if these workers have paid into our system of employment insurance, they deserve to be treated the same and they deserve to be able to access the benefits that should be available to them.

Numbers of people have come out and spoken against this particular proposal by the Conservative government. For example, in my home province of Newfoundland and Labrador, the president of the Federation of Labour said the proposed Conservative employment insurance changes were “inadequate and will penalize the majority of the unemployed”.

According to the Conservatives, these measures help only, as I said previously, 190,000 people, not all of the unemployed.

I can give examples of other reactions.

For example, the Canadian auto workers president described the reforms as “'crumbs' for the unemployed”, dismissing them as doing little to help the vast majority.

The Canadian Labour Congress president has called the reforms “welcome” but notes that the measures announced “won't touch most of the unemployed, including younger workers or mothers who work part-time”.

I speak against the proposed changes because I do not think they go far enough. Our party has made many recommendations to the government. We worked hard over the summer. We've made this a big issue. We have basically encouraged, supported and pushed the Conservatives toward making some changes to the employment insurance program, but these fall far short of what we require. These changes just do not help enough people when the economic downturn is really severely hurting many workers.

These new restrictions on accessing employment insurance benefits create more divisions among Canadian workers instead of helping families who need support now. Canadians really do deserve better.

[Jim Abbott, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of International Cooperation]

Madam Speaker, I was listening intently to the member's speech. Obviously she has done her research and she has a number of very interesting quotes. My quote would be that it is interesting that in the 16 years I have had the privilege of doing this job for the people of Kootenay—Columbia, the more things change, the more they stay the same. The change is that we have become the government; what stays the same is the disconnectedness of the Liberals and the Liberal Party.

I would like to ask the member if she would care to reflect on the fact that the regime under which the employment insurance system works was a creation of her government. We are making some very concrete positive steps to do away with some of the more onerous and odious parts of the revisions that the Liberals did, and we are getting 190,000 more people on to the benefit side of the program. Surely she can see this is an improvement. Other than the blind political--

[The Acting Speaker, Denise Savoie]

I would like to give time for the hon. member for St. John's South—Mount Pearl to respond.

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

Madam Speaker, as the Liberal Party, we have worked very hard to bring forward proposals to the government. We have pointed out over the last seven or eight months the required changes to the employment insurance system that would include the 500,000 or more people who have had difficulty in this economic crisis.

There are 1.6 million Canadians who are currently looking for work. We want to help them. We are sincere in that. We have worked hard during the summer. We met repeatedly with the Conservative government on this issue, yet we were not able to make progress.

This is not a government that is open to actually assisting the vast majority of the unemployed Canadians. It is difficult and very challenging. When we have unions in this country saying it is not enough, it is not helping, then I think the government of our country should listen.

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

Madam Speaker, there are workers in my riding who do not qualify under this bill. They have asked for legislation that removes severance pay from EI calculations. My New Democratic colleague from Welland introduced such a bill this year.

Would the member opposite explain why members of her party voted against the bill that was so important to my constituents?

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

Madam Speaker, I think there are a number of proposals that need to go forward to reform our employment insurance program. I think there are a number of things that should be done. That is why the Liberal Party of Canada was working towards having good discussions over the summer, in order to come back to this hon. House and make some of the changes that are required to the employment insurance system.

We have a crisis in our country. People who may have been long-tenured employees, short-term seasonal employees, working mothers, as I indicated earlier, are out of work through no fault of their own. They deserve to have some of the changes made to employment insurance. We were sincere in our attempt to do so. It is truly unfortunate that the Conservative government has not moved forward on those proposals. It is truly unfortunate that it is dividing the unemployed Canadians of our country.

[Marlene Jennings, Liberal, Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine, QC]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to take part in this debate on Bill C-50.

I would like to begin simply by correcting some of the information we have been hearing in this House, particularly from members of the Conservative government, suggesting that the Liberals brought forward only one proposal during the work of the employment insurance working group, namely, the proposal concerning the eligibility threshold of 360 hours a year, which they described as 45 working days for one year of EI benefits. The Parliamentary Budget Officer clearly said that the government was not telling the truth when it made such a statement and that the government was exaggerating the cost of the Liberal plan.

I was a member of that committee, which met on several occasions. The Liberals presented their plan concerning an eligibility threshold of 360 hours, explaining that it would be for workers who receive regular benefits and that it would be for a period of one year. We estimated the cost of this measure at $1.5 billion, for approximately 160,000 workers.

We asked the government and its officials to examine our plan and assess the costs involved in such a measure with an eligibility threshold of 420 hours, 390 hours and 520 hours. We also asked the government to show us how it would benefit unemployed workers if, instead of using a three month period to determine the unemployment rate of a region, we used a one month period, or 30 days. In other words, we wanted to know how many workers who are entitled to benefits would be eligible for EI. We made several requests and several proposals. Everyone agreed that the department and its officials should assess those proposals. It was the minister herself who, in a meeting on August 23, informed the members of the committee that she had unilaterally decided to instruct her officials to stop all assessments of the Liberal proposals because the government had no intention of examining those proposals.

The Conservatives never submitted their own proposals. They did not do it on July 14 or July 23, on August 6 or August 13 or August 20. We were supposed to have our last scheduled meeting on September 3, according to the established procedure, and the two co-chairs were supposed to speak previously with each other to determine the agenda. The Liberal co-chair, the hon. member for Dartmouth—Cole Harbour in Nova Scotia, phoned the minister on Friday, August 28 and left a message to the effect that he wanted to discuss the agenda for the meeting on September 3. The minister did not call him back that day. She did not call him back during the weekend, or on Monday, on Tuesday or on Wednesday. We decided on Wednesday, therefore, that we would not attend the meeting in view of the fact that the minister had clearly signalled that the Conservatives had no more interest in working with the Liberals. I just wanted to correct the misdeeds of these Conservatives and the disinformation being spread in the House.

Insofar as Bill C-50 is concerned, I think my colleague who spoke before me said it very well. Seasonal workers in Quebec, for example, will not benefit from the measures in it. The same is true of workers in the forest industry and workers in the fishing industry and pulp and paper industry.

There are cycles in these kinds of industries. People may work for the same company for 25 years while being laid off for certain periods because the work is seasonal. The Conservatives have long known that. They are doing with this bill what they always do: cherry pick.

In saying that 190,000 unemployed will benefit from these measures, the Conservatives are trying again to put one over on Canadians. They already exaggerated the cost of the Liberal plan. They did not just double it, they quadrupled it. It is not I who says this, it is the parliamentary budget officer. I wonder if they have not also exaggerated the figures on the number of workers who will benefit. How much, as a percentage, have they exaggerated?

Third party experts from trade unions and business people have studied the bill and cast doubt on the government’s figures. In their view, it is false to say 190,000 workers will be helped. It will be more like 60,000. The government has conflated three years but tries to make Canadians think it will be 190,000 workers a year. This is typical of the Conservatives. They say the truth one little drop at a time.

The government is engaging in disinformation and is saying things that are not true. The Conservatives think that if they say things often enough, people will believe them. I was not the one who said that. They inflated the figures in the Liberal proposal and refused to assess the other proposals the Liberals were prepared to examine.

The minister is insisting in this House that it was the Liberals who refused the Conservatives' proposals. That is not true. The minister is misleading the members of this House and Canadians who are watching the debates. The Conservatives never submitted any proposals, not even in connection with their election promise to make self-employed workers eligible for employment insurance during maternity and paternity leave. I was the one who, at the July 23 meeting, asked whether they had any proposals for making EI available to self-employed workers. I asked them to at least present their election promise and to come back on August 6 with a proposal and the figures they quoted during the election campaign.

Sometimes I am just gob-smacked—but not for long—by how the minister and her colleagues are in cahoots. I am sure that the Conservative member who gets up to ask me a question will dish out some more disinformation.

The Liberal Party will vote against this bill, because it has no confidence in this government, which is not telling the truth and is trying to scam Canadians.

[Jim Abbott, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of International Cooperation]

Madam Speaker, it is regrettable. I recognize that sometimes we get some words like the member has just used in this place, and it happens from both sides, I grant that. However, I must admit I am a little disappointed with the member. I thought, as a person who has been around this chamber as long as she has been, that she might find a little more appropriate way of expressing her disappointment in the way things have been going.

That said, I want to ask her a question. Does she accept the fact that we represent probably the vast majority of Canadians who think it is really quite, if I must use frivolous words, silly to be thinking of coming up with a revision to the employment insurance scheme that would give a year's benefits for 45 days of work? Does that really make any sense to her? It certainly does not make any sense to any right thinking Canadian with whom I have had any conversation, and it does not make any sense to me. I do not understand why that is the one thing the Liberals put in the window as a proposal. It really is rather—

[The Acting Speaker, Denise Savoie]

The hon. member for Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine.

[Marlene Jennings, Liberal, Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine, QC]

Madam Speaker, the member has just proven what I said, that the member from the Conservative Party, regardless of who it was who was going ask me a question, would again repeat the untruth that the Minister of Human Resources and Skills Development and the rest of her caucus have been repeating over and over again. Members opposite do not have to believe me. They should read the Parliamentary Budget Officer's report. When those members say that the Liberal proposal is 45 days work for one year of benefits, the Parliamentary Budget Officer has proved that it is not true. For those members to continue to repeat it, in my view, shows bad faith on their part. They should read the Parliamentary Budget Officer's report.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Madam Speaker, what is an absolute fact is that for 13 years, through three successive majority governments, the Liberal Party did nothing to improve EI for the workers of our country. In fact, the Liberals gutted EI and they took $57 billion of workers' and employers' premiums and they put it into general revenues. Now they stand here when the government comes forward with some proposal to fix EI and they vote against it.

Could the member opposite explain to me why, during 13 years in power, the Liberals did not take any action?

[The Acting Speaker, Denise Savoie]

Order, please. I know these are testing times, but I would ask that we be careful about our language, and that the heckling and the comments when the speakers are not recognized cease.

The hon. member for Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine

[Marlene Jennings, Liberal, Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine, QC]

Madam Speaker, first, when we talk about employment insurance under a Liberal government, the EI payroll tax was reduced 13 consecutive years. That has not happened under the Conservatives. In fact, they are talking about creating a $13 billion payroll tax as of 2011.

Second, under a Liberal government, EI maternity and paternity benefits were extended. I am quite proud of that as well. I have no apologies to make about the Liberal record with regard to EI under the Liberal tenure. I do, however, ask the member this. Why is his party supporting a Conservative government that has already said that it will increase the EI payroll tax by $13 billion? It is a job killer.

[Tom Lukiwski, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure to stand and speak to Bill C-50, a bill to once again improve the Employment Insurance Act, this time to deal with improvements to payments and benefits to long-tenured workers.

Before I get into the essence of the bill itself, it would be beneficial to all to take a little trip back in history to try to determine exactly how we got to this point today.

Some of my other colleagues in this place this afternoon have indicated that for 13 years under the previous Liberal administration there were really no substantive changes to the EI program whatsoever. What we did find out though, however, was that during that time there was an incredible amount of surplus in the EI fund, a notional fund, of upwards of $50 billion which the previous government basically put into general revenues. This was widely known and quite frankly unacceptable to most Canadians.

[An hon. member]

The Auditor General told us and so did Brian Mulroney.