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

[Ralph Goodale, Liberal, Wascana, SK]

Mr. Speaker, we are scheduled under government orders today to begin dealing with Bill C-50, and I wonder if I could seek unanimous consent for the following motion.

I move, “That, for the purposes of our consideration of Bill C-50, an act to amend the Employment Insurance Act, which will begin under government orders today, the House agrees to conclude its consideration of this bill at all stages by the normal time of adjournment tomorrow, including examination of the bill in the committee of the whole instead of a standing committee if that is necessary to meet this timetable”.

[The Speaker, Liberal, Peter Milliken]

Does the hon. member for Wascana have the unanimous consent of the House to propose this motion?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed

No.

[The Speaker, Liberal, Peter Milliken]

There is not unanimous consent.

Does the hon. member for Paquette have anything to propose?

[Pierre Paquette, Bloc, Joliette, QC]

Mr. Speaker, as I have said, perhaps the name of my riding will change to Paquette after I die, but for now it is still Joliette.

Further to what the House Leader of the Official Opposition was saying, several stakeholders have said things that substantiate our fears concerning Bill C-50, a bill to amend employment insurance. A few come to mind, including Pierre Céré of the Conseil national des chômeurs, Marc Bellemare of the Fédération des travailleurs et travailleuses du Québec, and Guy Chevrette of the Quebec Forest Industry Council. Moreover, the Minister of Public Works and Government Services has pubically stated that he could make no guarantees regarding the scope of Bill C-50. All of that leads me to ask for unanimous consent to adopt the following motion:

That, notwithstanding any Standing Order or usual practice of the House, Bill C-50, An Act to amend the Employment Insurance Act and to increase benefits, be deemed referred immediately to the Standing Committee on Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities pursuant to Standing Order 73(1).

I seek the unanimous consent of this House to refer the bill to committee immediately.

[The Speaker, Liberal, Peter Milliken]

Does the hon. member for Joliette have the unanimous consent of the House to move the motion?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

No.

[The Speaker, Liberal, Peter Milliken]

There is no consent.

[Diane Finley, Conservative, Minister of Human Resources and Skills Development]

moved 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.

Mr. Speaker, I am proud to introduce Bill C-50 to the House today. What is it about? It is about our government helping workers and their families. It is about extending EI regular benefits to those who have worked a long time and have never or rarely collected EI benefits.

Many workers have lost their jobs through no fault of their own because of the global economic downturn that has cut the ground out from under them. What happens to the workers who have rarely, if ever, collected EI before and who suddenly find themselves out of work? These are Canadians who have paid their dues, have worked hard, have paid their taxes for many years and have, of course, paid EI premiums.

It is only fair and responsible that we support them and their families in their time of need. Many workers have worked in the same job or industry all of their lives 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.

These measures will help ensure that long-tenured workers who have paid into the EI system for years are provided the help they need while they search for new employment.

These are temporary changes to the EI program to help workers when they need it most.

The proposed measure would extend nationally regular benefits for long-tenured workers by between five and 20 weeks, depending on the number of years they have worked and paid EI premiums.

As proposed, this new, temporary measure would cover all new claims established from the start date, which will depend on when the legislation comes into force. Payments would then gradually phase out by fall 2011.

As members can see, this temporary measure is designed to help long-tenured workers find work as our economy recovers. The additional weeks of EI regular benefits would help these workers by providing support for a longer period while they look for work during the economic downturn.

This government is concerned about fighting the recession. This is, of course, in contrast to the official opposition that is more intent on fighting the recovery. This government believes that it is more important to be fighting for working Canadians, rather than fighting an unnecessary election.

This temporary measure is in addition to other measures that we are taking under our economic action plan to help workers. Canadians from all areas of the country and from all walks of life are being provided with meaningful help.

For example, another measure to help support long-tenured workers is the career transition assistance initiative. It consists of two measures to help workers retrain for new jobs.

The first extends their EI regular benefits up to a maximum of two years while they participate in longer-term training. Thousands of long-tenured workers will benefit from this measure.

The second measure gives long-tenured workers earlier access to EI if they invest in their training using all or part of their severance package.

Moreover, in our economic action plan, we have moved very quickly to provide the advantages of five additional weeks of EI regular benefits. In areas of high unemployment, we have increased the maximum duration of EI benefits by up to five weeks and, through our economic action plan, we are investing an additional $1.5 billion in provincial and territorial training programs. These programs are effective because they are being implemented by those closest to the labour market challenges in their respective areas. Close to 150,000 workers across the country will be benefiting from these initiatives that will help them retrain to keep their jobs or transition to new work. These agreements have been signed, sealed and delivered.

Let me now say a few words about work sharing, a federal program under EI that helps protect jobs. This program is another example of successful action taken by this government. It allows employees who might otherwise be laid off to continue working a reduced work week while they receive EI benefits for the days they do not work.

Under Canada's economic action plan, our government has made changes to work sharing that will maximize its benefit during this difficult period. The work sharing program now allows more flexibility for the employer's recovery plan and extends the maximum duration of the agreement by an additional 14 weeks.

Let me give this House an example of just how this is working. At a Michelin plant in Waterville, Nova Scotia, 550 workers have been participating in a work-sharing program since April 12, 2009. Under their agreement Michelin workers at this plant collect EI benefits for one day a week and work the other four days.

This government has always believed that the best way to help Canadians is to ensure that there are opportunities for work. This is a prime example of the right EI policy providing the right result. That is just one example.

At the beginning of September there were over 5,800 work-sharing agreements in place, benefiting almost 165,000 Canadians whose jobs are being protected.

Sometimes, despite their best efforts, businesses fail. When an employer goes bankrupt, workers have good reason to worry about the money that is owed to them. That is why a wage-earner protection program provides eligible workers with guaranteed and timely payment of their remaining wages, severance, termination and vacation pay if their employer goes bankrupt and cannot pay them.

Since January 27, 2009, the WEPP has reimbursed $17 million in wages to over 8,000 Canadians who were owed eligible wages by their bankrupt employer.

We know how difficult it can be for young people to find their career paths when they have little work experience. That is why, under our economic action plan, we are supporting two measures to help young people in transition.

Our Canada summer jobs program has seen its funding increased by $20 million over the next two years. Subsequently, this year we were able to sign approximately 22,000 agreements to support the creation of almost 40,000 jobs for students who will get valuable work experience.

And we have finalized a $15 million agreement with the YMCA and YWCA to implement the new grants for youth internship program across Canada.

Under this program, up to 1,000 young people will gain work experience through internships with not-for-profit and community service organizations, with a focus on environmental projects.

In today's environment we realize how important it is for Canadians to develop the skills they need to participate and indeed succeed in the job market. In particular we need to attract young people into the skilled trades. Earlier this month Canada and Calgary were host to the WorldSkills Competition. Canada's young people had an opportunity to become more knowledgeable about world-class expertise in the trades. I want to congratulate all the competitors on Canada's team at WorldSkills Calgary.

Let me announce to the House that Canada's team, known as the “Great 38”, won a total of eight medals this year: three gold, three silver and two bronze. To all those participants I would like to say their country is behind them and we are proud of them all the way.

While I was at WorldSkills Calgary, I was particularly delighted to present the first apprenticeship completion grant cheque in Alberta to a former participant in the Canadian WorldSkills competition. Under our economic action plan we added the apprenticeship completion grant to motivate Canadians to complete their apprenticeship training and receive certification in a designated “red seal” trade. The apprenticeship completion grant builds on the apprenticeship incentive grant which encourages young Canadians to progress through their apprenticeship training.

Mr. Speaker, are you aware that an apprentice could receive a total of $4,000 in grants with both of these programs? That is good news. As many as 28,000 Canadians could take advantage of this excellent opportunity aimed at training our workforce of the future.

We are also providing support, indeed more support, for older workers under the economic action plan. The targeted initiative for older workers will provide an additional $60 million over three years to enable people 55 to 64 years of age to get skills upgrading and work experience to help transition to new jobs.

These are people who bring a wealth of experience to the workforce, providing invaluable knowledge and mentorship skills.

The economic action plan is helping Canadians in all walks of life. It is helping an older forestry worker in Quebec transition to a new career. It is helping a young woman in Regina train for a job in web design. It is helping a single mother in British Colombia get back into the workforce by learning a trade.

It is helping the laid-off worker in Ontario who needs extra weeks to look for a new job. Our economic action plan is helping a lot of people who have been knocked down by the economic crisis to get back on their feet.

Not so long ago, as we moved into the summer months, the Leader of the Opposition made a great deal out of how important he felt EI was to himself and to other members of his party. We on the government side agreed to work together with the opposition to develop solutions to this serious problem. Our government brought serious proposals to the table. The opposition, however, became fixated on a program that would provide for a 45-day work year. We said from the beginning that it was the wrong direction. We knew that a 45-day work year would not create a single Canadian job.

Sadly, before our work was finished, the opposition walked away from the talks. Actually more to the point its members decided that they would not even bother to show up. On the advice of the Leader of the Opposition his party walked away from Canada's unemployed. Not only that, but when our government held a briefing session yesterday for the opposition members to discuss this bill and to inform them about it, the Bloc and the NDP were there to learn more, but not one Liberal MP cared enough about the unemployed to show up and learn about the bill.

I will stand in this place today and say to the House that this government will never, ever walk away from Canada's unemployed, especially when they need our help the most.

We are making good progress, but the job is not done.

I want to re-emphasize that Canadians do not need, nor do they want, an unnecessary election.

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.

[Larry Bagnell, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

Mr. Speaker, it is very embarrassing, I think, when a minister is introducing a bill and that minister spends most of the time not talking about the bill in question. However, there is not very much in the bill for the unemployed.

I have two questions. If all the feigned sincerity and interest in the workers that was in that speech were true, then why did some Conservative and NDP members “refuse” to expedite the bill a few minutes ago through either the motion put forward by the Liberals or that put forward by the Bloc, and to either finish it off this week or send it to committee?

Second, I cannot believe the minister's speech writers would put a --

[Yvon Godin, NDP, Acadie—Bathurst, NB]

Mr. Speaker, on a point of order, at no time did a member of the NDP say no to sending the bill to committee or to having the bill go through. I just want to correct the record.

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Barry Devolin]

The hon. member for Yukon is an experienced parliamentarian and knows he should not say things that he does not know to be true in terms of who may have voted.

[Larry Bagnell, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

How does the Speaker know it is not true?

However, I will go on with my next question.

I cannot believe the member's speech writer would have put in, although it was not related to this bill, the summer student program this year, which was one of the most disastrous years in Canadian history for summer student employment. I would like to ask the minister what she is going to do to rectify that next year. Would she at least vastly increase the number of student jobs available if next year is going to be as bad as this year was?

[Diane Finley, Conservative, Haldimand—Norfolk, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I really take exception to the hon. member's dismissive attitude toward this bill. He is saying that it is simple and that Canadians do not need or deserve to know the details as to what is in it.

We do have a process in this House. We have a process whereby the House leaders of the various parties meet and discuss what will be on the agenda for the following day.

The opposition was very aware yesterday that we were planning to proceed with debate of this bill. The opposition members had the opportunity to change the plan, if that was their choice. They did not. They are trying to pull a fast one now because they do not want Canadians to realize how dismissive of EI and the needs of the unemployed they have been for the last several months. I take exception to his insinuation that they have a monopoly on caring, because they have demonstrated very clearly that they do not.

Our economic action plan has included many things that have helped long-tenured workers, particularly workers who have not had to lose their job because of this recession. Our work-sharing program right now is protecting the jobs of over 165,000 people. I say that is proof we do care and we are helping create and maintain jobs, and we are very proud of that record.

[Diane Bourgeois, Bloc, Terrebonne—Blainville, QC]

Mr. Speaker, earlier, the minister announced that workers in a certain category would receive employment insurance benefits for an additional five to 20 weeks. A decision like that has to be based on numbers.

Can the minister tell us how many workers in Ontario and Quebec will benefit from this measure?

[Diane Finley, Conservative, Haldimand—Norfolk, ON]

Mr. Speaker, we know that there is a group of unemployed workers who have been severely affected by the global recession: people who were working in manufacturing and forestry. Their industries are just now recovering. That is why it is so difficult for them to find new jobs right away. It is very hard. Many of them will have to look for new careers. To do that, they will need training. That is why we gave them this opportunity to get training with additional weeks of income support from employment insurance benefits.

The program we are talking about today will help 190,000 people. I am sorry, but I do not have the numbers for each province. Across Canada, 190,000 people will benefit from this bill if the opposition members support it.

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

Mr. Speaker, during this time of global recession, I have seen the strong benefits of the job opportunities program in my riding. I was delighted to hear that the student program is being enhanced and moving forward. We make great use of the work sharing program in my riding.

I am delighted to hear today about the changes in terms of unemployment benefits for long tenured workers. In my mind, it is just sort of rounding a key gap that was there. This will be an excellent benefit for my riding that has been hit during this global recession.

I wonder if the minister could talk a little bit more about the temporary nature of this program and why it was created temporarily.

[Diane Finley, Conservative, Haldimand—Norfolk, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is common knowledge that recessions do not last forever, which is a darn good thing. That is why our economic action plan and many of the initiatives in it for infrastructure, for creating jobs, for protecting jobs, and for expanding benefits to the unemployed are of a temporary nature.

When we come out of this global recession, we do not want to have a structural deficit. All of these extra programs cost a lot of money. We want to make sure that Canadians are not burdened with an excessive increase in taxes as a result of programs lasting longer than they are needed.

Coming out of this recession, we are going to need people back at work. New jobs are going to be created and many of those jobs will require skills that do not currently reside in our workers.

We are helping people in these tough times get the training for the new jobs. We are helping them with this program by providing extra benefits, an extra length of time to claim EI only in the short term, so that we can make sure that they do have the opportunity to get back to work. Even now, in some parts of the country, there are skill shortages and employee shortages.

We are trying to help those who are suffering the hardest to get through the tough times without burdening our grandchildren with greater taxes in the future.

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the minister for bringing Bill C-50 forward.

Opposition parties have been working diligently to provide some relief to the unemployed and particularly those who in this case have contributed over a long period of time and never been claimants et cetera. This is an important initiative that will be well received by those in that case.

The point is, and I ask this question of the minister quite honestly, that a mechanism was set up to discuss and entertain proposals on how we could provide relief to the unemployed. The government agreed to this committee and there were meetings. The government's position was that it would never agree to the changes that were being brought to the table by the Liberal Party.

I want to understand from the minister's perspective, why provisions such as these were not presented to the committee that met during the summer, so that we could have entertained this in a more timely fashion on behalf of the unemployed?

[Diane Finley, Conservative, Haldimand—Norfolk, ON]

Mr. Speaker, when the Liberals brought forward their notion borrowed from the NDP and the Bloc last spring that people should be able to qualify for EI benefits after working only 45 days in the year, we made it very clear that was not in the best interests of Canadians and that we would never support that.

When the Leader of the Opposition made an agreement with the Prime Minister to have an EI panel to explore ways that the unemployed could be helped, the Prime Minister made it very clear that the 45 day work year was a total non-starter. The Liberals knew that going in.

Sadly, while Conservative members of that panel presented numerous ideas on how to help the unemployed, including the topic that we are discussing today, the Liberals were fixated on only one thing and that was their 45 day work year.

Canadians cannot afford it. They find it offensive. We will not support it. We will deliver the goods with this legislation that will help those who have been hardest hit by this global recession.

[Michael Savage, Liberal, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS]

Mr. Speaker, I am very happy to have the opportunity to debate, for the second time this week, a bill about employment insurance.

We have heard from the government a bit about the bill. We will hear from the opposition parties how they feel about it, but the sad, overarching fact about all of this which overrides the content, or the lack of content, of this bill is that this is not really about employment insurance at all. It is about politics and about political games.

The Conservative government does not particularly care much about the social infrastructure of this country. We know that and we knew that from the beginning. When it inherited the Liberal surplus, it still cut literacy, the court challenges program, women's groups and many other pieces of the social infrastructure of this country. That is when it was living off our surpluses.

No, this is not a bill about EI. This is about politics and using EI as a tool. To the Conservatives, this is all a parliamentary chess game with politics first and people second.

Let us take a moment to see how we got to this today.

Last year at about this time, the Prime Minister was denying that there was any recession coming down on Canadians. We then had the economic update, which ignored the problem, and a finance minister who referred to the recession as a technical recession.

In January we saw a flawed budget, but there were some investments in things such as EI, extension for benefits and money for training. We said that we did not think the budget was enough but that it was a start. We supported it. The other parties did not. It was qualified support. The day we announced we would support the budget, we said that we needed to see more to continue our support of the government.

Last spring, employment insurance was a big issue. It was needed across the country. Jobs were being shed in many parts of Canada, including many parts of this country that had not suffered job losses in previous recessions.

The Leader of the Opposition indicated the Liberal position, which was regional fairness and a national standard of 360 hours to qualify. He was not alone on that.

The premier of B.C., Gordon Campbell, said Canadian workers, whether they lived in the Maritimes, the north, or Ontario, should be treated the same way.

The premier of Saskatchewan said that instead of 50-plus different treatments for the number of qualifying hours, we needed to dramatically reduce that.

The premier of Alberta said that unemployed families, whether they lived in Nova Scotia, Quebec or Alberta were equally unemployed.

The TD bank said that the truth of the matter was that during an economic downturn, it was no easier to find a job in a region with a lower prevailing unemployment rate than in one with a higher unemployment rate.

Pierre Fortin from Quebec said of the Leader of the Opposition's proposal that 360 hours was no problem, that it was just and fair.

A number of organizations such as the Chamber of Commerce said that a measure to improve the equity of the EI system that would be consistent with longer-term, smart policy would be to immediately and permanently make the duration of and access to benefits the same.

Perhaps my favourite was from the Reform Party of Canada platform's statement of principles which said: “An unemployed worker is an unemployed worker and deserves to be treated the same, regardless of region of residence. We will urge the immediate elimination of discriminatory EI elements such as regional entrance requirements”. The author of that is now the Prime Minister of this country. That is what he said then. We see where he is now.

In the spring, EI was a big issue, a huge issue in this Parliament. There were a number of private members' bills brought forward which Liberals supported as a way of sending a message to the government that this was a serious issue, that we would not agree with everything that was in all these bills that our colleagues from other parties had put forward, but that we supported the principle of investing in people and in the social infrastructure of this country.

Bill C-241, from my friend from Brome—Missisquoi, called for the removal of the two-week waiting period.

Bill C-279, from the member for Welland, called for an enactment providing that pension benefits, vacation pay and severance were not to be included in earnings.

Bill C-280, from my NDP colleague from Algoma—Manitoulin—Kapuskasing, called for a lowering of the threshold for becoming a major attachment to 360 hours, the national standard, setting the weekly payable to 55% of the best 12 weeks and reducing the qualifying period for receiving benefits.

We had an opposition day motion brought forward by the member for Hamilton Mountain, and I am going to read the whole thing because it is interesting to juxtapose the view of the NDP on March 5 and the view of the NDP here in September. This motion said:

That, in the opinion of this House, the government must address the alarming growth in the number of unemployed Canadians and the increasing number of Employment Insurance claimants; confirm its commitment to a social safety net to help regular Canadians through tough times and bring forward reforms to Employment Insurance rules to expand eligibility and improve benefits, including: (a) eliminate the two-week waiting period; (b) reduce the qualifying period to a minimum of 360 hours of work, regardless of the regional rate of unemployment; (c) allow self-employed workers to participate in the plan; (d) raise the rate of benefits to 60% and base benefits on the best 12 weeks in the qualifying period; and (e) encourage training and re-training.

There is nothing in there about extending benefits further.

That was the discussion back in the spring. It was a very long discussion in the House that dominated many question periods. It was called for in private members' bills and in opposition day motions.

Outside of the House, we heard the premiers, economists and labour unions. We heard everyone saying that we had to do something. The first thing they always mentioned was the unfairness of the system, particularly in a difficult economic time, for people who simply were unable to qualify.

As recently as Monday, my colleague on the human resources committee, the member for Chambly—Borduas, brought forward a bill that called for many of those same things.

In June Parliament was paralyzed and the country was on the verge of having an election until the Leader of the Opposition and the Prime Minister said, “Let us try to make an effort. Let us try to take this out of question period and put it into a room where people can discuss ideas”. The two things that were going to be discussed were regional fairness, from the Liberals, and extending EI to the self-employed, from the Conservatives. Those were the two issues.

What happened? On June 17 this EI working group, called a blue ribbon panel, was formed to look at those two issues. I was announced, my colleague, the member for Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine was the other member along with Kevin Chan, a very distinguished member of the office of the Leader of the Opposition. We were the three members. The minister was announced by the Prime Minister.

Two weeks later the other two members of the Conservative Party were announced. That was two weeks after June 17, so we were already into the summer.

We had a tele-conference. The minister said, “I cannot meet for two weeks. I have a vacation”. We were going to meet the next week and the other member of the Conservative Party said, “I've got a vacation too”, so we had to delay it again.

We had our first full briefing on July 14 which was a technical briefing. The minister in the House just said that we only had one position and she had all kinds. The minister presented nothing. There still is not a Conservative proposal to that group. If there is, she knows where my office is. She can send it. We still have not seen a proposal from the Conservatives.

On that day, July 14, in Ottawa we asked a series of questions of the working group. We asked it to cost 360 hours on a temporary basis. We also said, “Give us the cost of going to 390 hours, give us the cost of going to 420 hours, give us the cost of eliminating the three month regional rate system which penalizes people who lose their jobs on the front end of an economic downturn”.

My colleague from Montreal said, “Maybe we should look at the extension of benefits. We could at least look at it. Look at what they are doing in the United States”. That was a Liberal idea on July 14. We have it in writing, Mr. Speaker. I would be happy to send it to your office because I know you are a learned man.

We also asked, “Where is the position on the self-employed, which is your position?”. The Conservatives even promised it in the last election. They said that the Conservative government would extend EI benefits for maternal parental benefits for self-employed people.

The Conservatives said that they could not give us that information. We asked, “You can't tell us what it will cost, you must have cost it for your platform”. They said they could not give us that because it belongs to the Conservative Party of Canada.

I said, “You've got a department and you've got all kinds of people”. Whenever the minister would come to the human resources committee, she would bring a whole boatload of good people in whom we have faith when they are properly directed. The Conservatives said that they cannot give us that information.

We still do not know what that would have cost, concerning the self-employed. That was the Conservative proposal. They said to the Leader of the Opposition, “We want to look at the self-employed based on what we promised in the last election”. We got nothing.

On July 23 we had our first full meeting of the EI working group. We had agreed before that there would be certain protocols followed. The Conservatives would give us documents in advance, we would look at them, and we would all come prepared to discuss them. They would table drafts and we got them at the meeting.

I talked to the minister four or five days before. She was king enough to call when she got back from vacation. She said, “Why don't we present on the self-employed and you present on regional fairness”.

We presented on regional fairness. We had a long discussion and all six members of the working group agreed that we should get information on a number of areas. I will come to the exciting part about that later, which is that we never got that information either. We agreed on protocols and we did not get it.

We had a full discussion. There was no proposal from the Conservatives on the self-employed. We agreed to have three meetings in August. That is what our group did.

The meeting on August 6 was a beauty. We arrived at the meeting. The Conservatives provided their costing of 360 hours. They brought it to the meeting, but they gave it to reporters beforehand. I can show members. I have it here. It indicates on the bottom that it is not for distribution. Maybe they meant they were not going to distribute it to wholesalers across the country or something like that, but they gave it to the media who did not take it seriously. The Conservatives said that the 360 hour costing would be four billion and some dollars. Everybody else said it would be $1.5 billion.

The Conservatives said it would be $4 billion. How did they get to that number? They would not show us the work. When I was in school, I was not great at math and I was always told to show the work. I was not very good at that. It made it harder for me to guess. The Conservatives did not show their work. It was not the department that did not want to show it. It was the minister who did not want to show it. No answers were given to our questions. They leaked a document that was not for distribution. We responded to that.

On August 13 there was another table drop of documents. They brought in new costing for the 360 hours, which again was inflated. They refused to separate the hard, static cost from what they referred to as the estimated potential labour market impact. They said that if EI was changed, there would be an impact on the labour market. There are a couple of problems with that. The Parliamentary Budget Officer picked that one out fairly easily.

The Conservatives said that back in the 1970s the changes made to liberalize EI increased the unemployment rate by 2%. They are saying it will happen again. Let us picture that. Somebody out there who has a job is just itching to leave that job in order to get, for a maximum of 36 weeks, 55% of what he or she was making. It is an insult to Canadians to suggest that is what Canadians would want to do. It is on a temporary basis, not something that goes on forever. In the 1970s people could quit a job and get EI, but that cannot be done now. There is a whole host of differences.

Again, there was nothing on the self-employed.

On August 20 we arrived at the meeting. Again, we were given documents. There was no information in advance. We said that we would have to go away and look at them. That was probably another time the Conservatives suggested to themselves that we would not come back. The Conservatives did not give us information. They were not treating us seriously. There were no proposals. We kept going back, and going back, and going back.

We looked at some points at issue. That meeting, very significantly, was when the minister confirmed that in spite of the protocols of the EI working group which was that we would all submit our questions, the questions would go to the department through a secretariat and the answers would come back, she said that she had told the department not to answer those questions. Why would she tell the department that? Well, we are not going there anyway. We all agreed, including the minister, that we would get questions answered. The minister decided by herself that she did not like that.

That is the EI working group. In 10 weeks there were no serious proposals. Protocols were overridden.

On many occasions we offered to meet more often. It was not just for the joy of the company of the member for Nepean—Carleton and the minister. We felt that this was something serious and we should meet.

We suggested that we meet all day on August 19 and 20, or at least meet in the morning starting at 9 o'clock on the Thursday so we could seriously get at this stuff. We did not meet.

On August 20 we said that if we were not going to get information, we wanted to know to whom we could go for an independent analysis of what is going on.

The Parliamentary Budget Officer is an independent officer of this Parliament. We sent him the information about our proposals. He sent a letter to the department asking if it could back up the information by a certain date. The department could not do that. He did his analysis, and I will quote from that now:

The Government's total cost estimate, including static and dynamic costs, presented to the EIWG on August 14 of $2.425 billion overstates the cost of the proposed 360-hour national standard of EI eligibility as--

The Parliamentary Budget Officer went on to say that he believes that the government's dynamic cost estimate is flawed. He said that only the static cost should be considered because the proposed change to the EI system is in effect for only one year and not longer. In the opinion of the Parliamentary Budget Officer, the $1.148 billion static cost estimate is a reasonable estimate of the costs of the proposed 360 hour national standard of eligibility. I repeat that the $1.148 billion static cost is a reasonable estimate.

[An hon. member]

Where did they get the $4 billion?

[Michael Savage, Liberal, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS]

That is a good question. My colleague asked where they got the $4 billion.

We look at this bill the Conservatives are bringing in today. They say it might affect 190,000 people and it would cost such and such. How do we know that? How do we trust the numbers? Perhaps the Parliamentary Budget Officer could look at that as well. How do we know what they are actually saying? Even if what they are suggesting is reasonable, people are pretty skeptical.

The head of the CAW, Ken Lewenza, said that what Canadians need is a “full loaf of bread”. He said that the plan to extend benefits for workers who have been employed for 7 of the past 10 years will not help the vast majority of the country's 1.6 million unemployed.

[An hon. member]

Crumbs.

[Michael Savage, Liberal, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS]

Crumbs, crumbs.

Armine Yalnizyan is one of the smarter economists in this country. We know Armine; she is very smart. She pointed out that the program's restrictions act against the nature of much of Canada's industry.

Laurel Ritchie of the Canadian Auto Workers said that few laid-off members of that union, “only handfuls”, have been able to meet the long-tenure definition.

CLC economist Andrew Jackson said that his understanding of the new proposal is it would fully apply only to unemployed workers who have initiated a claim to EI benefits since the beginning of this year.

That is where we are. We are debating a bill and we cannot be sure of its benefits in a period of time when EI has been the political football for the government.

The people in Canada who need help are not in the Rolodex of the Prime Minister. They are people such as workers across Canada who agreed to work reduced hours to keep companies afloat when things got tough, and then were laid off and found out they did not qualify for EI because they had worked reduced hours. They are people such as a single mother in my riding who struggles to raise her children, who can only work 20 hours a week, who is laid off and finds out she does not have the required number of hours to qualify for employment insurance.

Workers have paid into the system for years and they do not qualify for benefits, and the Conservative government turns a blind eye to them. At best, these people are mere numbers in the bigger picture.

In fact, to the government, it is all about numbers and not even the right numbers. It is not the 1.6 million unemployed the government pays attention to. It is not the 800,000 workers who have no EI benefits that it pays attention to. It is not the alleged 190,000 who it claims will be helped by this bill or the 60,000 who others suggest might be helped by this bill. It is not the $440 a week maximum weekly benefit, or the 330-hour average weekly benefit that those on EI get. It is not 360 hours. It is not 420 hours. It is not 560 hours. It is not 700 hours. Those are not the numbers that matter to the government.

The only numbers that matter to the government are the numbers 308 and 155, the number of seats in the House of Commons and the number that constitutes a majority.

To make those numbers work, the Conservatives will manipulate, distort and manufacture anything to win. It is always politics before people. This is the game they played with Canadians and the game continues today. We will not play that game. We have no faith or confidence in the government.

[Brian Jean, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Transport]

Mr. Speaker, I listened intently to my friend across the way relay some information and I have to say that I take issue with it.

I come from a riding that serves a large area of Canada. The oil sands are in northern Alberta, and area which employs a tremendous number of workers. Some 40,000 to 50,000 workers have been laid off in that area over the past year. Those people work in many areas in Canada, so I have a pretty good idea of what unemployment benefits are available and what people have had to rely on in the past and, quite frankly, it has been inadequate under Liberal governments. I suggest that even with this new economic crisis, the continuing program is not working. That is why the minister has tabled new legislation to make it work for Canadians who are unemployed, which would allow them to survive this global economic crisis.

Some 300,000 Canadians have already benefited or will benefit from the five extra weeks. The work sharing program which we heard the minister talk about has been very beneficial for employees across the country and, in fact, for taxpaying and non-taxpaying citizens because it helps them.

In an economic crisis like this, why is the Liberal leader and the Liberal Party not working with the government to employ more Canadians? More particularly, why did they walk away from this government's initiative to find more ways to help workers? That is what I would like to know. Why did they walk away from it?

[Michael Savage, Liberal, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS]

Mr. Speaker, we walked away from nothing. We went to every meeting of the EI working group. As difficult and unproductive as they were, every meeting that was scheduled, we went to.

At the last meeting the Conservatives dropped on the table what they called discussion points. We asked if they had a proposal. They said no. We said that if they wanted to meet again, they should give us a proposal and we would have a look at it. That was August 20. The next week I called the minister to ask about the proposals. I called her office and spoke to her assistant on Friday afternoon. She said that the minister would get back to me. I have not heard from her yet about that meeting.

We did not walk away from anything. We brought proposals to the table. We also said that we were prepared to be flexible. We said that they should give us something that works. We think 360 makes sense, as do a lot of other people. Regional fairness is an issue for my hon. colleague, who I know is a serious member. His premier wants the same thing. He wants regional fairness. We asked the Conservatives to give us anything that we could cling to and makes sense. We asked them to give us something. To this day, we have received nothing. We have received no proposals.

I understand people being confused and saying that it is more of the same he said, she said. I tell you, Mr. Speaker and members of the House, we tried to make it work. We kept going back and we got nothing. It takes two, but we were the only ones there.

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

Mr. Speaker, I agree with my colleague from Dartmouth—Cole Harbour. I know that he is sincere when he says that he wants to make things better for unemployed workers, despite his own party's former positions, of course.

Yesterday, I was surprised by the secretary of state's arguments, just as I am by the minister's arguments today about how the program we are now considering, Bill C-50, will fill the gap between the end of employment insurance benefits and the beginning of old age security benefits. But that is not the case. I think that is reprehensible.

My question is about a point that my colleague touched on. How can he explain the fact that the government is not implementing this measure as a pilot project? The program is for a limited time only. What does he make of this measure given that the government decided not to run a pilot project?

[Michael Savage, Liberal, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS]

Mr. Speaker, as my colleague from Chambly—Borduas knows, there is a number of pilot projects on EI that have been brought in since 2000 and which have been extended by governments. This could have been a pilot program, but that does not play into the political game of chess that is existing here.

I do not question the motives of people in the House unless I have reason to do so. Regarding my experience this summer, my own discomfort is irrelevant, but what matters is the discomfort of Canadians who need help. We could have done something. We could have moved the ball. We were prepared to do something and not to let perfect be the enemy of better.

My colleague suggests this could be done as a pilot project. He is entirely correct, but that does not feed into the agenda the government has for this and that is unfortunate.

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

Mr. Speaker, I noted with interest the hon. member's comments about playing political games. The hon. member comes from a party that did walk away from the table. He said the Liberals did not walk away from anything, but it has been noted in various news articles that they did walk away from the table and announced that they would vote against everything before they even saw it in the House of Commons.

I am wondering if the hon. member could comment on whether or not he agrees with his leader. It seems that this is the mission statement now for the Liberal Party. His leader wrote in 2007, “Politics is theatre. It is part of the job to pretend to have emotions that you do not actually feel”. That was the writing of the Liberal leader in 2007. I am wondering if the hon. member agrees with him.

[Michael Savage, Liberal, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS]

Mr. Speaker, on the issue of walking away from the meeting, I have worked with the hon. member on committee before and I ask him to go to his minister and ask her where the agenda for that alleged meeting is. One of the protocols was that we would have the agenda in advance and that the two co-chairs, the minister and I would approve the agenda. They are always very simple. There were two issues, really, regional fairness and the self-employed, and maybe one or two other things. We would approve those the week before they would be sent out. That is when I called the minister to ask her where we were on that. I never got a call back. Where is the agenda for the meeting it is said that we walked away from?

We walked away from nothing. We kept going back time after time. We were prepared to be flexible to find something significant, not like something that is being thrown at us today, but something significant. We never got it. I understand how people would say that this Parliament is dysfunctional and that committee was an extension of it. We tried to make something work. We indicated that we were flexible. We asked them to give us a good idea and we still have not received anything.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

Mr. Speaker, every day we certainly see a lot of theatre from the government. It is all about messaging in terms of what the government tries to do. I have seen the TV shots of the minister and the Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister sitting in the room. That was theatre. It was orchestrated to try and send a message.

However, that message is confusing to the public, because this Prime Minister is all about division and, in my view, deceit.

I have a question for the member on Bill C-50. I know the member is very experienced on the employment insurance issue and has worked very hard on this file, but what will this proposal from the government do for those who do not qualify for employment insurance?

The big issue is the 40% to 45% of people out there or higher who do not qualify under the current system and are left without a job and without funds for their family and loved ones.

[Michael Savage, Liberal, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS]

Mr. Speaker, it does nothing for those who do not qualify, those 800,000 Canadians who have lost their jobs and who are not receiving any benefits, and that is the shame of it.

I want to stress one thing. The Liberal proposal was good on a number of fronts. A lot of people called for the 360 hour national standard. I have gone through the list of people who have. Our proposal was for one year. Why one year? Because now, more than ever, we are in a period of economic crisis and, for the first time that I can recall, Canadians have been talking about stimulus for the last number of months.

EI is perfect stimulus. A 1.61 turnover rate for EI is better than infrastructure and tax cuts. This is the perfect time to do something for Canadians. This is what Canadians need. By the way, the people who get the money happen to need the money an awful lot. They need this combination of a one-year stimulus program and an overall review of the EI system.

This t is not like other recessions. When we cleaned up the last Conservative recession and EI changes were made, we were going into a period of a healthy economy and a robust Liberal recovery. We do not know how far this will go. We are talking about little green shoots in the economy but people are still being laid off. EI is the way to go, both for the people who need help and for this country.

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

Mr. Speaker, I listened to the minister’s speech earlier, and it would have been appropriate to ask her several questions which have not been answered. Despite the briefing session yesterday by officials from the Department of Human Resources and Social Development, certain questions remain unanswered with regard to the persons targeted by this bill. Who does Bill C-50 include and who does it exclude? These questions have still not been answered.

Yet one has the impression that the department is fully aware of the answers, since it has said that 190,000 unemployed persons will be eligible under these measures, for which there is a budget of $935 million. Therefore, we are entitled to specific answers to the type of questions I have just raised. But no, there are no answers. So we must look into the impact that this bill may have on the people who have lost their jobs.

First, let us look at what is not covered in this bill. It does not cover the nearly 60% of unemployed people who do not qualify for employment insurance right now. There is nothing to improve accessibility for all those who do not qualify. Furthermore, according to the department’s own Web site, over 55% of people are presently excluded from the system. So there is nothing for them.

Moreover, this bill excludes young people, women, the self-employed and a good many seasonal workers, for these are the categories of persons who make most frequent use of employment insurance. Let us remember the rule set forth in the bill: one must not have drawn more than 35 weeks of benefits over the last seven years. In other words, that automatically excludes seasonal workers, women and other persons who move in and out of the labour market. So this applies to quite a lot of people.

The minister says that 190,000 people will be able to benefit from this measure. Allow us to doubt this. In fact, the minister accompanies this statement with another, about the cost of $935 million. For a budget of $935 million to be needed, 85% of the people receiving employment insurance benefits would have to use all of their allotted weeks of benefits. But that is not the case, since only 25% of people use them.

So let us remember this: to arrive at the extra $935 million projected in the bill, 85% of people would have to use all their allotted weeks of employment insurance benefits.

Facts are stubborn things, and they shed the brightest light. In this case, the fact is that only 25% of people reach the limit of the number of weeks to which they are entitled. In other words, we come back to between 25% and 30% of the amounts already announced.

We were not given specific information. So we asked in writing how one could arrive at this result, but were provided no answer. So we worked it out and understood that, in fact, this will cover 60,000 persons—at the most—out of 1.5 million or 1.6 million unemployed people in the country. This also changes the number of millions of dollars. Instead of approaching $1 billion, we are closer to $300 million, at most.

Perhaps they can prove otherwise. This they have not done. They make statements without being able to show the method by which they arrived at the results they present. The calculation must be done over again. If you were to do this as well, Mr. Speaker, you would find that you end up with the same result.

My colleague from Dartmouth—Cole Harbour spoke briefly about the shamefulness of the situation, that is, why there is no pilot project.

Usually, when such a project of a specific duration is presented, the government does not have to formally table it in the House. It says that taking steps to set up a pilot project is one of its prerogatives. It could very easily do this. It does not need to come here. On the other hand, the government is well aware of the shamefulness of what it is doing. To introduce such a bill, it has to create a third category of the unemployed, what the Conseil national des chômeurs is now calling “the bad unemployed”. According to the government, there are the good unemployed and now the bad unemployed.

Some people have contributed to employment insurance at such a level that they qualify for the program and have had the good fortune not to have to claim employment insurance benefits. It is the most vulnerable who are excluded. All those who are included are those who have had the benefit—and I am happy for them—of a stable job over the last 7, 8 9, 10, 11 or 12 years, since the bill sets the eligibility rules based on the weeks to which you are cumulatively entitled, on a rising scale. The better a contributor you have been to the fund, the fewer benefits you have received, the more gold stars you earn and the more weeks you qualify for.

Fair enough. Naturally this will favour certain people. In my opinion, the employment insurance system has to be improved from top to bottom, not piecemeal as is the case at present. Some people will see an improvement in their benefits as a result of this bill. This must not be a bill that is discriminatory or arbitrary toward certain segments of society that are being favourably targeted. In fact, it is not a favour, since this it belongs to them as well. But why discriminate against the others? That is the question we have to ask.

Let us return to the idea of a pilot project. What is shameful is having the House and all the parties present vote on and sanction a bill that is discriminatory. Naturally we are not opposed to the principle of this measure. What we do not accept, and what the House must not accept, is discrimination against the majority of unemployed people.

This morning the hon. member for Joliette moved that the bill be referred immediately to committee so that this type of debate can be held and appropriate amendments made for the purpose of removing these discriminatory measures. Why?

In our view, an effort has to be made, even if this is not something that is going to reform the entire system. We believe that it is necessary to make this effort. It must not be done just any old way. We must not abandon those who are in need of the fastest assistance.

This bill also prevents us from debating the crux of the problem—the fact that the employment insurance program has become outdated and does not reflect today's reality. That has happened because it has been drained of the resources required to properly fulfill its mandate of providing benefits equitably and for enough time that people can live with dignity. We know that the former and current governments diverted billions of dollars from the employment insurance fund every year for the past 13 years. The current estimate is that $57 billion was taken out of the employment insurance fund.

A number of people who participated in this debacle would be quite happy if we stopped talking about it. But we never will because it is an injustice. It represents a serious economic crime that was committed against the unemployed, families, and regional economies and communities in every province. In Quebec, people have had to apply for social assistance because almost 60% of those who should be eligible for employment insurance have been excluded.

In recent years, we have proposed concrete measures. We have tried to make this House aware of the fact that more people must have access to employment insurance. We are looking at 360 hours. We are pleased that the Liberal Party has also taken up the cause. The Liberals rallied to our side when we debated Bill C-269 in the last session. We also made recommendations to the Standing Committee on Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities in the last session.

I would like to talk about the recommendations made by the Standing Committee on Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities in February 2005. The committee recommended the measures that we now find in Bill C-308, which I was honoured to introduce on behalf of my party. We had a one-hour debate at second reading this week in the House.

I can list the measures. They include, of course, the 360 hours. We must ensure that everyone, without discrimination, permanently goes from 45 to 50 weeks. We want benefits to be raised to 60% of the claimant's income. This is a sensible measure that immediately injects money into our economy. We are calling for the waiting period to be abolished. That is a measure that costs the government nothing, because the individual receives the money at the beginning of the two weeks instead of at the end. This way, people are able to receive benefits from the beginning, and it puts money into the economy immediately. This spring, the Conservatives promised to introduce changes to allow self-employed workers to voluntarily participate in the employment insurance program. They did not follow up on this, and that is also in our bill. We are demanding that there be no more discrimination against people who work for a family-owned business and are related to the owner.

When we talk about comprehensive reform that truly takes into account the difficulties that unemployed workers are facing, these types of measures are the ones we need to take, and not the piecemeal measures that discriminate against people, as we are seeing now.

A little earlier, I spoke about the fact that the employment insurance system is currently based on two criteria that help determine eligibility and access to benefits, and they are the number of hours worked and the unemployment rate in a given region. The current bill, as it stands, creates a third criterion based on contributions to and use of the system. This is the cornerstone of this bill, and that is what we must focus on in this debate.

That is why, this morning, our House leader made the recommendation to send the bill to committee immediately. However, to our surprise, the Conservatives refused, even though the three opposition parties were in agreement. Why did they refuse? As the others have already said, they were playing politics, petty politics, to stall the debate and put pressure on the opposition parties. By stalling the debate, they are effectively delaying the implementation of this bill. It is hard to find anything worse than that. Once again, they are playing twisted political games with the lives of workers, and that has no place here.

Two examples support what I am saying. The first, which we heard about earlier, is the pilot project. That approach would be perfect. So far, that is how it has always been done, since it is a short term project. The second example is the refusal to debate it immediately in committee. What does the Conservative government have to gain by that? Ultimately, by drawing out the debate, first here in the House with five hours of debate today, and sending the bill through all the normal steps, the deadline, which is mid-October, will not be met. The Conservatives can then say that it was the opposition that was stalling.

This is completely outrageous and unacceptable.

Since this time last year, 500,000 workers have lost their jobs in Canada, including 70,000 in Quebec. We have come back to this House over and over again, trying to have Parliament adopt measures to help these people right away. I cannot help but think of the forestry industy in Quebec, for instance. There is really nothing in this for that industry, which is a shame. We have been refused every time. It has been drawn out. Now the Conservative government is afraid of being ousted, so it comes to us at the last minute with vote-catching measures that take into account only certain needs, and it wants to put all the blame on the opposition for delaying this bill.

In closing, I would like to remind the House of our position from this morning. We remain convinced that Bill C-50 must be immediately referred to the Standing Committee on Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities for study. Otherwise, we will be forced to vote against it, if this course of action is not done properly. I do not see how we could go back to our constituents and say that we agreed to a bill that is discriminatory, arbitrary and that favours one option that will go on for so long.

[Brian Jean, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Transport]

Mr. Speaker, we all know here in this place that the Liberals walked away from the table of compromise to try to find a solution on this. We also know that the Bloc will never be able to deliver the goods for Quebeckers. It is only the Conservatives who can do so. In particular is the addition of five weeks, which will help the 300,000 Canadians in the work-sharing programs and other creative programs.

I have heard this member, in the past, talk about older workers. I wonder, first, whether or not he supports the extra $60 million to help older workers. We in this Conservative government feel there is a real benefit to having older workers continue on and to finding solutions to their dilemmas in this economic global crisis.

In particular, I wonder if the member believes that the 45-day work year that the Liberal government is proposing, which is going to cost at least $4 billion, is really sustainable and long term. Does he believe that will really help Canadians to find employment, to find training and to find education, the things the Conservative government is doing for Canadians? Does he really believe that that is sustainable long term?

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

Mr. Speaker, the member is both right and wrong. He is right when he says that the previous Liberal policies were primarily responsible for the situation in which the unemployed find themselves. He is wrong to claim that the 360-hour eligibility threshold, if implemented, would cost $4 billion.

Even the House economic adviser—I do not remember his exact title—who was given a study, or a 20-page report, refutes that claim and has told us what this measure will cost. It was estimated at $1.2 billion in 2005 when the House committee reported to Parliament. That is a fourfold difference. Here is their theory: if you want to get rid of your dog, just say that it has rabies; if you want to kill a measure, say that it will cost four times as much.

[Keith Martin, Liberal, Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC]

Mr. Speaker, we all know that when a person loses his or her job, it is one of the most traumatic things to endure for the individual, his or her family and the community.

I want to correct my colleague from the government who said that the Liberal plan was going to cost $4 billion. In fact, the Parliamentary Budget Officer actually took the government to task by saying that the government was flat-out wrong. He said very publicly that the Liberal calculation saying that our proposal would cost $1 billion was indeed correct and that the government's figures were dead wrong.

Workers from across Canada pay into the EI fund equally and yet the benefits that they accrue can be very, very different. In my province of British Columbia a person has to work almost twice as long to receive lower benefits than someone, for example, in the Maritimes would receive. Does my friend not think it would be fair and equitable for workers from across Canada to be able to receive the same amount of EI for the same length of time?

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

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his very pertinent question.

He should refer to Bill C-308, which we introduced and which contains the 360-hour eligibility threshold, with a general reduction of 70 hours in the number of hours required to qualify for employment insurance.

Regional factors should also be reviewed periodically to ensure that they truly reflect the new reality. With regard to the level of employment, it naturally changes a great deal especially in these times. That has been the case for Ontario in particular. In the past, this province was not as hard hit by unemployment. Now look at the unemployment rate in Ontario. The member is right about that. The committee is also looking at that issue.

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

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to ask a couple of questions on this very important item we are discussing here this morning.

Off the top, I would like to ask the member for Chambly—Borduas who has worked very hard on this file over a number years whether it was not a bit ironic that the member for Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca asked about these regional differences in the number of weeks to qualify when in fact it was his government that brought in that regulation in the first place and it is perhaps something he and his party might want to do some soul-searching about.

I know the member for Chambly—Borduas and the member for Dartmouth—Cole Harbour feel very passionately and strongly about this issue, and we have worked together on the human resource committee to try to put in place a national anti-poverty strategy. There has been a lot of work and I appreciate the sincere efforts of everyone at that committee to try to get this done.

What worries me, and I put this on the table at my caucus meeting before we left for the summer, is the number of people who, if we do not do something, will fall off employment insurance, if they have not already, in the next short while and then end up on welfare, which as we all know is not a very happy place to be. Having spent the summer back in Quebec, how many people does the member expect, if we do not do something about employment insurance right here right now, will fall onto the welfare rolls and the responsibility of communities and therefore create a terrible situation for provinces, municipalities and of course the families themselves?

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

Mr. Speaker, I just want to say how much I appreciate the work my colleague from Sault Ste. Marie has done on this issue. He is very concerned about poverty and takes every opportunity to improve people's understanding of its impact and how it should be addressed.

Earlier on, I demonstrated tremendous courtesy toward my Liberal colleague. It is absolutely true that these measures were implemented by the Liberal Party. We must remember that. It is great that the Liberals are now choosing to cooperate and change some of these measures. However, the measures they have proposed are temporary. They believe that the 360-hour eligibility threshold should be in place only until the end of the crisis. All they would have to say is that we are recovering from the crisis, and then they would not have to implement the measure. We have to be very careful here. The Bloc has a lot of reservations about the way the Liberal Party is framing things when it comes to employment insurance.

Once again, I would like to thank my colleague for his question.

[André Bellavance, Bloc, Richmond—Arthabaska, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to congratulate my colleague from Chambly—Borduas not only on his speech, but also on the excellent work he is doing on issues that affect unemployed workers in Quebec and, by extension, in the rest of Canada.

My colleague has been on the committee that deals with unemployment issues since he first came to the House of Commons. Yesterday, in his question for the minister, my colleague said that it was cruel of her to introduce a bill that included such obvious discrimination. I would go so far as to call it cynical. Since coming to power, the Conservative Party has never shown any sensitivity or interest in doing anything to help unemployed workers. Then when everyone starts talking election, they suddenly come up with a new measure. They are even trying to convince older workers that this bill will help them.

I would like my colleague from Chambly—Borduas to clarify things. Personally, I see nothing in Bill C-50 that looks like an income support program for older workers.

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

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Richmond—Arthabaska. He also does an excellent job on agriculture.

What is happening is that the government is trying to make older workers believe that this measure will provide them with income. Older workers are those over 55 who were previously covered by the POWA. Most of these people have already used up their benefit time and will not be eligible. The program for older worker adjustment is completely different. It is misleading to compare the two programs. It is a red herring, and that is unacceptable.

[Yvon Godin, NDP, Acadie—Bathurst, NB]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise today to speak to Bill C-50, An Act to amend the Employment Insurance Act and to increase benefits.

I have 20 minutes to talk about this bill, but it is not very long, so I will give a brief history of employment insurance.

I would like to start by emphasizing the extent of the employment insurance problem in Canada. Workers are unable to qualify for EI and receive the necessary benefits. There are more bills currently before the House of Commons that target employment insurance than for any other program. I was just counting the number of bills that have been introduced in the House and are under study.

The NDP has 12 bills on EI before the House. The Bloc Québécois has six, and the Liberals, two. Maybe they do not believe there are many problems with the system. The Conservatives have one. The Bloc Québécois has only six bills, but each one addresses a number of problems, which makes for fewer bills.

In 1986, the Auditor General said that employment insurance funds should be placed in the consolidated revenue fund. That is when the employment insurance problems began. That is when the government's cash cow was created. The government began to realize that employment insurance funds were going into the consolidated revenue fund. It was easy to tell Canadians to tighten their belts, that there was a deficit and that it was impossible to balance the budget. Subsequently, however, EI funds arrived by the shovel full. It was a good place to get money, which had been placed where it should not have been.

I recall a demonstration was held in 1988 when Prime Minister Brian Mulroney visited Inkerman, New Brunswick. The people were already demonstrating against the changes being made by the Conservative government of the day.

I cannot repeat enough that on July 31, 1989—I remember it well and it can be verified in the archives of L'Acadie nouvelle—the Liberal opposition stated in the papers through the former member for Acadie—Bathurst that all New Brunswickers should fight all of the changes to EI made by the Conservatives because they were disastrous for New Brunswick.

I think it is important to speak of the past. In the spring of 1993, the Liberal leader at that time, Jean Chrétien, sent a letter to a group of women in Trois-Rivières telling them that the problem was not the unemployed but the economy. The economy had to be fixed and assistance to the unemployed could not be cut because they were becoming victims.

Surprisingly, in the fall of 1993, with the election of the Liberals, the changes continued. I cannot say that the changes were any worse than those made during the Conservative era, because we did not know how far the Conservatives would have gone, but the changes continued under the minister responsible for human resources at the time. I think Mr. Axworthy was heading what was known as Employment and Immigration at the time

Then, there was a new appointment, that of Doug Young, the member for Acadie—Bathurst. It was the period of the great changes in 1996. We reached a point where only 33% of women and 38% of men qualified for employment insurance under the Liberals.

Let us talk about economic crises. I do not want people to forget the past. Do you think there was no crisis for plant employees and fishermen in 1992-93 when groundfishing was banned and fishing stopped in the Atlantic? At the time, they were labelled lazy in Atlantic Canada. People said they did not want to work. They said that they were going to put them in their place. That is what the Liberals did at the time. And then they began to build surpluses at the rate of $7 billion or $8 billion a year. They were EI surpluses. Where did the money go? It went into the consolidated revenue fund, under the fine formula of Brian Mulroney, who was Prime Minister of Canada in the 1980s. They put the money from EI into the consolidated revenue fund.

It was not workers who were depending on employment insurance any more, it was the government so it could boast that it was paying off the deficit and balancing its budget. On whose backs? On the backs of the workers.

I was elected in 1997 because people had had enough of that in my riding. They had had enough of someone from the area who should have understood the problem and the plight of seasonal workers. If he had understood the situation, he would not have made the changes, or most importantly, he would have told the Prime Minister to get him out of there and put someone else in if it had to be done. I am talking about cutbacks. That is what happened.

They said here in the House that the problem existed only in the Atlantic provinces and not elsewhere in the country. At that point, I went to meet working people all over Canada, from Newfoundland to Whitehorse. I visited 10 provinces and Yukon, 21 municipalities and regions. I took part in 52 public meetings in two months. The people told us what the problem was all over the country. That was when I made 13 recommendations. We are in 2009 now and still talking about the same problems.

The Liberals want to appear now as the saviours of employment insurance, but it is only temporary. It is clear, that is what they said. But it is temporary. Supporters of their party or ours who think the Liberals are going to made big changes to employment insurance and make them all eligible tomorrow morning should forget it. It is just temporary.

When the NDP tabled a motion in the House of Commons in June 2005 to make it the best 12 weeks, it was the Liberals who voted against it. The Conservatives were in favour of the best 12 weeks.

Some people may know that I am the last in a family of 11 children. In 1972, I had to leave home and go to work in northern Ontario. I was not the only one who had to leave home and go to work in the north of this province. The 11 members of my family left New Brunswick. If anyone knows how tough it can be in the regions where there are no jobs, I think I am one of those people. I was fortunate enough to work, to get a job. I was fortunate enough to be able to return home and get a job in the Brunswick mine. I was lucky. I was fortunate enough to work for the United Steelworkers, to act on behalf of workers, and defend local people who were destitute because of what the Conservative and Liberal governments had done. I had that opportunity.

I had the honour and privilege to be elected by the local people to come and work for them here in Ottawa.

We have always supported employment insurance bills in the House of Commons so long as they were moving in a positive direction. I am not talking about budgets because some people will say we may have voted against budgets that made changes.

Some people say now that there is nothing for seasonal workers in this bill, and that is true. It is a bill for long-tenured workers, those who have worked 17 years or more without ever drawing employment insurance benefits, or very few, under 35 weeks over the last five years. That is what the bill is. Some people are saying that they were ignored. Yes, seasonal workers were ignored. However, we are talking about Bill C-50 currently under study.

When the government introduced the criterion of the 14 best weeks, that was of no benefit to people in Ontario, where unemployment was low. Nonetheless, the majority of Ontario members did not vote against this measure, and it was adopted. When the government wanted to extend benefits by five weeks, not everyone in Canada was able to benefit, since this measure targeted the regions where unemployment was high. All the same, the others gave their support.

For my part, I would not be ashamed to vote today in favour of Bill C-50, but I do not want us to simply take this bill and make it law tomorrow morning. That is not our responsibility. It would be our responsibility if the bill were complete. That is why, this morning, I liked the position of the Bloc Québécois that this bill be sent immediately to committee so that it can be studied and amendments can be made, and if possible, be changed. That is what Parliament does. That is what the people have sent us here to do: make bills and changes to improve the lives of citizens, of Canadians and Quebeckers. That is what the people have sent us here to do. That is our responsibility.

On the other hand, if Conservative or Liberal governments do not want to grant employment insurance benefits to persons in need who have lost their jobs because they consider them lazy slackers, we shall say no to that.

Our Canadians and Quebeckers are brave people who want to get up in the morning to go to work, to earn good pay and a good income so they can feed their children and their family, and send their children to school so they can receive a good education, so the next generation is better than the one before. They have a right to that.

For example, in France, if a person loses his job, he receives 80% of his salary. When I raised this matter in France last July to some parliamentarians, they told me that this was the workers’ program and it was the workers who contributed to it. If the people want their money, that is fine; it is money that goes back into the community. I said this to the House last week, or earlier in the week.

The idea that a change in employment insurance would be an inducement not to go to work is an insult to workers. It is as if GM were given $10 billion and then the company did nothing more and closed its doors because it was not given enough money. It is as if the government were to decide to give billions of dollars in tax reductions to big corporations, and after receiving it, those corporations stopped investing because they had received enough money. Yet the government has no hesitation about granting tax reductions to the big corporations and those persons.

Since we have such a large deficit today, perhaps the government should eliminate the huge tax reductions it is offering the big corporations that have made money. Perhaps it should instead assist the corporations experiencing problems in times of economic crisis, like the forestry and fisheries sectors, for example, where the price paid for lobster has fallen to $2.75 for small lobster and $3.50 for large.

In the fisheries, for example, the price paid for lobster has fallen to $2.75 for small lobster and $3.50 for large lobster. The amount of $65 million was injected into the fishing industry, but fishers were receiving only $15 million. The money did not go to the fishers. We must inject money for changes to employment insurance and to bring in the 360 hours we have been demanding for so long. It is not true that this would cost over $4 billion. It is more like $1.148 billion to help out these workers who are having difficulty making it through to the time when they start working again.

We have to accept the fact there are seasonal jobs in this country. Parliament has to accept that reality. This is what happens to us. We do not all have the good fortune in this country to go to work in a mine that is there for 45 years. I had that opportunity, but not everyone does. Not everyone has the good luck to go to work in a paper mill that lasts 100 years. All the same, though, the Bathurst paper mill lasted nearly 100 years but it went down too this time because of the economic crisis. As a result of the global way of doing things, the forestry mills lost money and closed their doors. People have to be prepared for that. They need training, and we encourage it. We want people to be able to change jobs and continue working, but at the same time, employment insurance is there so that people are not thrown onto welfare. This program belongs to the workers and employers who contributed to it. They pay for the system themselves. The government does not pay a penny. Actually, it steals money from the system. Fifty-seven billion dollars was taken from the employment insurance fund belonging to working people. Those who are really dependent on employment insurance are governments, both current and previous.

Last month I met some fishers from my riding who said they would not even qualify for employment insurance benefits this winter. It is the same in the Gaspé, where I spoke with some fishers. The problems in the fisheries and with lobster are well known. These people would not qualify for employment insurance. What is being done to help them?

This all amounts to saying that we are here to work hard to ensure that changes are made to employment insurance. Regardless of who is in power, we will work hard for change. I can say, though, that the Conservatives and Liberals have never exactly been the friends of the unemployed. The economic crisis in the Atlantic region started in the early 1990s. That was when the biggest cuts to employment insurance were made, with the support of the Conservatives.

The question about the bill before us today is whether we are going to vote it down. Are the figures accurate? We do not know. We do not know whether it is 190,000 workers. I hope not, because we do not want people to have lost their jobs. It might cost a billion dollars, but so what? It is their money. There is a $57 billion surplus in employment insurance, and so what? We want the government to think about these things and have a heart.

We are here in Ottawa to represent Canadians. Everyone wants to have a job and never lose it. We need to have this much respect for our workers and not treat them like lazy slackers who will not go to work any more once they get employment insurance benefits. That is unacceptable.

We will support this bill so that it can be studied. We are going to work hard to improve it so that workers are treated fairly and we will continue to make other changes for working people.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

Madam Speaker, I am really surprised at the member for Acadie—Bathurst getting up and basically supporting a bill on employment insurance that would do absolutely nothing for fishermen in his riding. And he admits that. That absolutely amazes me. Usually we can count on the member to stand up and be counted in terms of people facing unemployment.

I have a double question for the member.

First, with respect to the fishermen who have had poor prices this year, would the bill do anything for them? I would like him to be specific on that.

Second, where is the rationalization plan that the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans announced which would help substantially as well? This plan has not been delivered in my area of Prince Edward Island in terms of actual cash. Is there any delivery on that in his riding in New Brunswick?

[Yvon Godin, NDP, Acadie—Bathurst, NB]

Madam Speaker, the member asked how I could support a bill that would not help the fishermen of our region. If the member had been listening, clearly I said it would not help and I said it was sad. The bill would not help. Bill C-50 is like many of the bills the Liberals brought in. Did they help all Canadians? No.

When it came to the extra five weeks, was that for everybody in the country? Are we not here to help all the people in this country, or are we here to help people just here and there? In areas where the level of unemployment is high, only 420 hours were required. In areas where the level was not high, 700 hours were needed.

Where were the Liberals when people lost their jobs? They were in power for 13 years. Where was my colleague from P.E.I. when I introduced a private member's bill and a motion on the best 12 weeks to help workers in his region and mine? He voted against it. Where was the member that day?

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

Madam Speaker, the argument made by the hon. member for Acadie—Bathurst is very clear and fits in with what he has always maintained here in the House. The Bloc completely agrees with him regarding Liberal politics.

The Bloc is a little surprised by the conclusions on which he is basing his decision to vote in favour of the bill. This morning the Liberals and the NDP agreed with us that this bill should be referred to committee immediately so we can amend it. With things going the way they are right now, amending the bill will be rather difficult. Our colleague summarized his speech by saying that this bill was an insult to workers. Major unions—like the CAW, the CSN and the FTQ, with whom we have been in discussions since yesterday—agree. They think the same thing, namely, that this is an insult to workers. Those major unions do not want us to vote in favour of this bill.

I would like to hear his opinion of that. Like me, he comes from a labour background and I would like to know what he thinks of the unions' position.

[Yvon Godin, NDP, Acadie—Bathurst, NB]

Madam Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague, the member for Chambly—Borduas.

There is not a big difference between saying that we will support the bill today so that it can go to committee and voting for it or unanimously voting to send it to committee. It is the same thing. The Bloc Québécois rose and asked that it be sent to committee right away so we can work on it. The Conservatives refused. Now, what shall we do? Do we say no or do we send it to committee?

What are the unions saying? That is not what they want. However, they are not telling us to vote against it. This morning the president of the Nova Scotia Federation of Labour told the newspapers that we must accept positive changes to employment insurance, even though they are not enough.

When I say that it is an insult, that is true. We have always maintained that it is not enough. We want real change. However, when we are in the House and a bill makes positive changes, are we going to vote against it? That is what we have to ask ourselves.

Should we accept our responsibilities, study it in committee and try to make the necessary changes? That is what we must do. So, that is exactly what I said earlier or even what the Bloc Québécois said. The Bloc said that it should go straight to committee and the Conservatives refused. Since we cannot send it immediately, let us vote to send it to committee and then work on this bill, call witnesses, experts if necessary, to say that other changes also need to be made. There are some things that need to be fixed in this bill.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for all the work he has done on this. It certainly is not the full buildup we want but it is a start.

One thing that will be raised is how we can afford this $1 billion bill. What I want to point out is that with the redistribution of the Canadian economy, the Conservatives and Liberals have voted to reduce corporate tax cuts right now so that in 2012 they will be down to 15%. I had the parliamentary research division, which consists of independent economists, do an analysis of what this will cost and they have project that it will cost Canadian taxpayers an additional $86 billion.

I would remind the public that as these tax cuts are taking place and we now have a deficit, we are borrowing money from ourselves and our children to give tax cuts to profitable companies, like the banks, the oil industry and the pharmaceutical companies, while at the same time other struggling industries do not get any benefit whatsoever.

I would like to ask my colleague whether we should be again looking at freezing those large corporate tax cuts and redirecting some of that money back as stimulus to workers and ensure we can expand the actual provisions for communities. That is one of the opportunities we still need to seize. If not, we will need to continue to borrow money for tax cuts for corporations and pass that debt on to our children.

[Yvon Godin, NDP, Acadie—Bathurst, NB]

Madam Speaker, the money would be much better spent if it were directed to the communities and the regions. Instead of cutting corporate taxes, the government should spend the money in the communities. That would help people make changes to their infrastructure or correct problems in their cities or towns, which would create employment. When people work, they pay taxes, and that money comes back to the government after providing work for people and giving them a living. It would have been much better to take that route.

Ask the towns and municipalities or talk to mayors across the country, and they will all say the same thing. They need to repair their infrastructure, whether it be water lines or sewers There is a lot of renovation work to be done, enough so that people who have lost their jobs can find work and will not have to live on welfare.

That would have been much better for the economy than just sending the money to friends who already have enough. Only big, profitable corporations are going to benefit from the tax cuts. Companies that do not turn a profit will not benefit from tax cuts because they are not paying much tax to begin with. No profit, no tax. Why should some companies that are making a profit be rewarded when others are in need? They are the ones the government should be helping. These people who are in trouble today are able to help the economy.

Regarding the $1 billion, I have to say that the EI fund has a $57 billion surplus. There is money in the EI fund, and that money belongs to workers and employers. The government has the money to make the necessary changes to employment insurance.

[Jean-Pierre Blackburn, Conservative, Minister of National Revenue and Minister of State (Agriculture)]

Madam Speaker, I am here this morning in the House to support Bill C-50, which the government wants to have passed. We are hoping of course to have the support of the opposition parties.

Why do I support this bill? The economic recession has hurt our country. It is a worldwide economic recession. We have tried, through various initiatives, by stimulating the economy and by establishing programs, to help workers facing difficult times. We have put a variety of measures in place.

This morning, we are adding another. What do we want to do? We want to protect long-tenured employees. We want to ensure that employees who have paid EI premiums for 10 or 15 years, for example, or even longer and who have worked for the same company may benefit from more weeks of EI benefits if the company has to close. We want to give them 5 to 20 weeks more than they would usually have.

In principle, those who pay EI premiums for a number of years should be entitled to nearly a year of benefits. So it is to a year of benefits the 5 to 20 weeks are added, according to various criteria. One of the criteria requires that the claimant not have received EI benefits for over 35 weeks in the past five years.

Why are we choosing these figures? Because the line has to be drawn somewhere. The cost associated with this initiative—that is, $935 million—must be measurable. We can call it $1 billion. It is estimated that 190,000 people in Canada could benefit from this new measure, which will help them through these most difficult times. It will ensure other opportunities for employment as the economy recovers.

The schemes of the Bloc members are bothering me somewhat. They are trying to play down what we are doing here and to confuse people. Let me give an example. They are saying that seasonal workers are not included. That is true, because this is a measure intended to help long-tenured workers who have paid premiums for years.

Seasonal workers, however, are currently protected. They receive EI benefits under the usual criteria. They are entitled to them after working between 420 and 700 hours. It depends on the region they live in. This measure is in place for seasonal workers.

Today, a specific measure applies to people who have contributed for a long time and find themselves in a much more difficult situation.

What sectors are affected? There are of course the forestry, automobile manufacturing, manufacturing and mining sectors. There are others as well. We want to help them and others like them during these difficult times.

I would also like to mention something else. This week I heard Bloc members saying that many people who paid EI premiums were not eligible. Statistics were compiled in 2008 and show that 82% of those who paid EI premiums and had to draw benefits were indeed eligible. That is an important statistic.

We want to help people in the sectors we have been talking about who have contributed to employment insurance for a long time. Some 190,000 people should benefit from nearly $1 billion. This is in addition to the other steps we have taken. It is not all we have done over the past year.

First, we extended the employment insurance period by five weeks. The Bloc Québécois wanted to drop the two week waiting period, but we thought it was better to tack an additional five weeks onto the end because it might take longer to find a job. It is estimated that 290,000 people will benefit from these additional five weeks, at a cost of $1.15 billion.

We did things as well with work sharing. Employers told our government they had good employees whom they did not want to lose and whom they wanted to keep with the company four days a week rather than five. They asked the government if it could upgrade its work sharing program. We listened, and the answer was yes.

These employees used to be entitled to 38 weeks. We increased that by 14 weeks, making it 52. People who share work are protected now for a year and we give commensurate funding to the companies. How many companies are taking advantage of this? At present, 5,800 employers are taking advantage of it, together with the 165,000 employees who benefit from our improved work sharing program.

There are other things as well. Take, for example, someone who works in a plant and is laid off. He had been doing the same job for 10, 15, 20 years. There are no new opportunities in his region in his traditional job. If he wants to get some training, therefore, we will let him have two years of training paid through employment insurance. Some of those workers who were unable to benefit from employment insurance may well be able to take advantage of this program. About 150,000 people should benefit at a total cost of $1.5 billion.

I also want to mention our most recent measure, the one for long-tenure jobs, from which 190,000 people will benefit. The total number of Canadians who will benefit from all these initiatives is 790,000.

What more have we done? We are protecting our workers for sure, but we also needed to stimulate the economy. To do this, we first reduced taxes by $20 billion this year and for the next five years. Canadian taxpayers will have an additional $20 billion in their pockets.

Then we turned to infrastructure. We are going to try to make Canada one big construction site. Why? The private sector has reduced its investments and so we, as the government, must shoulder our responsibilities. We need to think about protecting our workers and Canadians. We said there are infrastructure projects that need doing in any case. We are going to speed them up. We will inject a total of $33 billion to replace bridges, build new roads, and carry out major projects in various communities in Quebec, in the regions, and all across Canada. That is what we are doing.

With the renovation credit, we want to ensure that people who need to renovate their home or their cottage are able to do so. To that end we are granting a credit of $1,350 on an investment of $10,000 that people make in renovation. This program is administered by the department which it is my honour to manage, the Department of National Revenue. It is working incredibly well. At present, we are even seeing contractors who previously were working under the table now deciding to get their licence and do things officially, because to benefit from our measure, a Canadian has to obtain a receipt from the contractor doing the work on the home. We are giving them $1,350. That has made it possible to hire plumbers, electricians, carpenters, joiners and others. We estimate that $3 billion in credits will be allowed on the next tax return of Canadians who have renovated their homes.

I touched upon another aspect when I visited the regions and, indeed, much of the country recently. I want to talk about scientific research and experimental development, since this too is managed by the Department of Revenue. The fact is that the reason we have such a high standard of living in Canada is not because we are called Canada, but because we produce a lot and we export 80% of what we produce elsewhere in the world. If we produced just for our own needs, we would not have this standard of living. What do we do to be able to keep on exporting? What do we do to ensure that our entrepreneurs have the best possible product at the best possible price, with the latest technology? We encourage them to engage in scientific research and experimental development. In recent weeks I have visited different companies and have spoken to the press about our scientific research and experimental development credit. This credit now stands at $4 billion annually. There is no cap. If more businesses of whatever size want to carry out scientific research, they are eligible for this program. They can take a look at the website of the Canada Revenue Agency. These are some of the measures.

Where does the problem lie? There is always something, somewhere. One has to draw a line. When you draw a line, someone who is missing a few hours or a few weeks may be disadvantaged. It is impossible not to draw a line.

Even if the Liberals proposed 360 hours, that is, 45 days of work, there would also have been a line. There is always a line. Some have the advantage of finding themselves inside the line and so can benefit. There will be 190,000 people who will be able to benefit from the measure that I am now discussing. There is no perfect system, but we are a government that wants to help the most vulnerable and those who are experiencing hardship during this more difficult economic period. In the month of June, for the first time in a very long time, economic growth was 0.1%. This is not a lot, but the numbers show that what we are doing is working. Thanks to the infrastructure program, more and more projects will be starting up. These projects will have to be implemented by March 31, 2011.

The other thing I would like to mention is the contribution rate. We are freezing premiums for employees who are legally required to pay employment insurance contributions. For 2009-10, the rate is frozen at around $1.73 per $100. We have seen to it that our employees, who need to hang on to their money in this difficult times, are protected.

There is another thing I would like to bring to the attention of the House. The newspaper Le Soleil said the following, “The downward spiral of the job situation in Canada could be nearing an end, according to the Conference Board of Canada. In the month of August, the help wanted index showed that the number of jobs posted online in Canada increased by 2.6% over the previous month.” That means that there are more job offers and more opportunities for work. Employers are gradually getting their confidence back. The article continues, “This is another sign that the worst of the recession is now over, according to the Conference Board. According to the Conference Board, the recovery can be seen from coast to coast. In Quebec, the help wanted index rose by 3% in August.” So there is progress.

I would like to talk about the number of hours that an individual must work based on the regions. There are 58 regions in Canada, and the number of hours required depends on the economic activity in the region. We feel it is reasonable to require fewer hours to be eligible for EI in a region like Gaspésie or Saguenay—Lac Saint-Jean, compared to Quebec City or the greater Quebec City region. It is easier to find a job in the greater Quebec City region than in the regions I just mentioned. That is why the system is the way it is. Once again, there will always be a line. If someone accumulated 320 hours, they would be 40 hours short. We calculated the cost, we have an idea of what is needed, and we are trying to help people as much as possible. In Canada, 190,000 long-tenured workers will be able to benefit from this measure.

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Madam Speaker, I have noticed that the debate has morphed into a discussion of more than just what this bill offers but in fact virtually everything to do with addressing the economic needs of Canadians at this time of financial duress.

There were three areas on which I wanted to ask the member for his input.

I, unfortunately, did not get a chance to go to the government's briefing on this thing. The bill was tabled only yesterday after question period. There was not very much time to give notice. I was not even back in my office until late last night. I wonder, since there are so many questions about the computation of how one comes up with $900 million, or almost a billion dollars, for 190,000 people--and I assume the briefing provided the basis for that calculation--if the minister would undertake to table in the House a copy of the calculation so that we could understand where it came from.

The second item on which I would ask for his input is that the member, in his speech, actually did say that this bill is just one more item, that it is just one more thing that they are going to do, that they are not fixing the EI system, that they are not addressing the qualification periods or, as the member for Acadie—Bathurst was concerned about, little technicalities, and that they have a computation of additional benefits for long-term workers who have paid over a longer period but have not claimed.

I wonder if he could explain why the government refused unanimous consent to either send this bill to committee or deal with it at all stages before the end of the week if it is so straightforward and he really supports it.

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

Madam Speaker, I should ask the members of the Liberal Party this question: why did they walk away from the bipartisan committee, which they asked us to form, in order to not bring down the government last spring? Why did they not participate in that bipartisan committee? Why did they decide to walk away in the middle of things, when we wanted their support—

[The Acting Speaker, NDP, Denise Savoie]

Order, please. Those people who continue to heckle will have difficulty being recognized. The minister is speaking. I would like to allow the minister to complete his response.

[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, 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.

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister and to the Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs]

Madam Speaker, I thank you for this opportunity to contribute to the debate on employment insurance and the Conservative economic action plan.

Hon. members, many Canadians and their families are facing the real and immediate effects of the global recession. It is important for people to be aware of the action this government has taken to help men and women who have lost their jobs during this global recession, through no fault of their own. These Canadians who, as the Minister of Human Resources and Skills Development said, have worked hard and paid taxes their whole lives and have found themselves in economic hardship and need a hand up. That is why our government is extending EI regular benefits nationally for long-tenured workers through this legislation. This extension of regular benefits would range from between five and twenty weeks, depending on the number of years they have contributed to the program.

This new measure is in stark contrast to the reckless scheme proposed by the coalition parties. The Liberals, the Bloc Québécois and the NDP had proposed that someone collect EI after working only 360 hours, or 45 days. That is why we call it the “45-day work year”.

Noted American thinker, Jeane J. Kirkpatrick, once said, “History is a better guide than good intentions”.

I have no doubt about the good intentions of my distinguished friends across the way. The 45-day entrance requirement returns us to the failed Liberal policies of the 1970s. These policies had a catastrophic effect on the economy, and they would have the same effect today. The 45-day work year proposal would cost billions, balloon the deficit, accelerate turnover of workers and suppress job creation.

Beyond that, the problem with the 45-day work year is that it forgets the deep-rooted Canadian value of hard work.

The Prime Minister's economic action plan values hard work and it rewards it, too. It helps families invest in their future, with the Conservative tax-free savings account. It lowers income taxes for the average family by roughly $500. It creates jobs, with construction projects that will help in communities across the land, like the Strandherd-Armstrong bridge for which I secured funds. It lets people put their tax dollars back into their homes, with the Conservative home renovation tax credit. This Conservative tax credit creates jobs for painters, builders, roofers and carpenters. It creates new demand for wood products that helps our troubled forestry sector. It lets Canadians increase the value of their most important asset, their homes.

The Prime Minister's economic action plan not only creates new jobs, it protects the ones that we already have, by expanding work sharing aid for businesses to 52 weeks and simplifying the program to help businesses get it faster. Work sharing programs, for those members who are not aware, are programs that help workers who accept reduced a work week, while their employer recovers from the effects of the global recession. Right now, there are close to 5,800 work-sharing agreements across the country, protecting the jobs of 165,000 Canadians. This measure allows businesses to retain employees, thereby avoiding expensive rehiring and retraining costs. In turn, employees are able to continue working, keeping their skills up to date and holding on to the pride of a good job.

Finally, we have frozen EI premiums for two years during the period of this economic action plan, to help businesses create jobs and to award workers by letting them keep more of their own money.

That is why I would call on all members of the House to put aside the Liberal leader's obsession with an immediate election that would waste tax dollars and disrupt the recovery and focus instead on the economic action plan that the Prime Minister has initiated to create jobs right across the country.

I thank my distinguished colleagues for their attention and I encourage them to support this bill and the economic action plan of which it is a part.

[Alan Tonks, Liberal, York South—Weston, ON]

Madam Speaker, having listened to the speech of the hon. member, I feel compelled to stand and ask this question. The question is predicated on challenging the premise that the member has used, which underscores the government's approach to the use of employment insurance: “the deep-rooted Canadian value of hard work”.

I come from a constituency where people and many new immigrants are involved in seasonal and contract work. They are involved in absolute bare-essential work that is at minimum wage. They contribute to employment insurance and they have that deep-rooted value. However, the member is acting on the premise that the employment insurance fund is the only fund that can be tapped up on the basis and tapped into to create new opportunities.

I challenge that and the House should challenge it as well. There are many resources available to government, including employment insurance, that can be used to give incentives. That is what the 360-hour work year is about, and I would like the government and certainly the member to consider that.

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Nepean—Carleton, ON]

Madam Speaker, my distinguished friend raises the important point about the various resources that we have in our country to create jobs and opportunities for Canadians of all walks of life.

Our economic action plan does exactly that. It lowers taxes for families so they can spend and invest more and create jobs. It brings in a Conservative tax-free savings account that allows families to save for their future, independent of the government. It creates a Conservative home renovation tax credit that allows families to redirect their tax dollars back into the value of their most important asset, their homes. At the same time, they create jobs for carpenters, painters, roofers, landscapers and others, while creating new demand for forestry products and helping that troubled sector.

That is the Conservative economic action plan. I invite the member to be a part of it.

[France Bonsant, Bloc, Compton—Stanstead, QC]

Madam Speaker, since this morning, I have been listening to the Reform-Conservative government talk about Bill C-50. I have a question for the parliamentary secretary.

If the government really cares about what happens to unemployed workers, why introduce a bill? A bill has to get royal assent, and that takes time. Why not just implement a pilot project, which will produce swifter results?

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Nepean—Carleton, ON]

Madam Speaker, I would like to thank the member for her question.

The Conservative Party wants to act swiftly. That is why we have an economic action plan that respects Canadian labour values and helps families that need help.

That economic action plan is not only helping people who have lost their jobs but helping them find new ones. I hope the member would support us rather than support an election.

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

Madam Speaker, we have to recognize that the government inherited the EI rules left to them by the 13 years of Liberal government. With this bill, the Conservatives have clearly agreed that EI is broken and needs to be fixed.

New Democrats have long proposed additional changes like dropping the two-week waiting period, removing severance pay from EI calculations and increasing the amount of benefit received. Could the member opposite comment on these proposals?

[The Acting Speaker, NDP, Denise Savoie]

The parliamentary secretary has 30 seconds to reply.

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Nepean—Carleton, ON]

Madam Speaker, I thank the member for making proposals. We do not always agree in this place, but that does not mean we cannot work together.

I appreciate that the member will be supporting this Conservative measure to help long-term workers get through a difficult period brought on by the recession. At the same time I respectfully disagree with the 45-day work year proposal that would cost billions, balloon the deficit and suppress job creation. That is a coalition proposal and I respectfully reject it.

[Michel Guimond, Bloc, Montmorency—Charlevoix—Haute-Côte-Nord, QC]

Madam Speaker, it is my pleasure to rise on behalf of my colleagues in the Bloc Québécois on the bill to amend the Employment Insurance Act and increase benefits for certain categories of claimants.

First I want to tell the House and the people listening to us that it is false that the Bloc Québécois is going to engage in demagoguery on the backs of people who get employment insurance benefits. The Bloc Québécois has said—and its leader has repeated ad nauseam—that when bills are introduced by the Conservative government, the Bloc will react like a reasonable, responsible opposition party and will study each bill and each motion that is introduced on a case by case basis, regardless of any background noise related to minority government, pre-election periods or election alerts.

The Bloc Québécois cannot support this bill as it now stands. To avoid all demagoguery from the Conservatives—of the kind only they are really capable of—I will explain why this is so. I want to warn the House, though, that the Conservative big wigs will launch huge media attacks claiming the Bloc Québécois is against unemployed people.

The Bloc Québécois opposes this bill because it does not get to the heart of the problem, that is to say, the ability of the unemployed to access benefits. The problem—as everyone knows—is accessibility. If the government wanted to act in good faith, it would first resolve the accessibility issue. There is no point in having the best of programs if people cannot qualify for them. That does not do any good. This is why we cannot support the bill.

Together with the committees of the unemployed, the mouvement des Sans-Chemise and the labour unions, the Bloc Québécois wants 360 hours in order to qualify for employment insurance. The problem is that when workers who have paid their premiums ask for EI benefits, they are told they do not qualify yet because the do not have enough hours. It is a bit like someone who pays for fire insurance and then suffers a total loss. He goes to his insurer to make a claim and rebuild his house, but the insurer says he failed to read the fine print saying that the insurance does not cover the first total loss, just the second. What would we call this insurer? We would call him a fraud, a thief. That is the big problem.

In my riding of Montmorency—Charlevoix—Haute-Côte-Nord, especially in Côte-de-Beaupré, the Île d'Orléans, the greater Charlevoix area and Upper North Shore, there is a category of workers who are nowhere to be found in this bill. The government could provide 300 weeks of benefits, these workers would still not get anything. I am talking about the situation of seasonal workers.

My colleagues here know very well that seasonal workers face a very unique situation in our regions in Quebec. Even if they wanted to do some planting, some reforestation or silviculture work, I am sorry, but in February when there are four feet of snow in the forest, people cannot go around planting little spruce trees.

Even if we do manage to develop winter tourism in our regions—with Europeans, for example, coming to snowmobile, or dogsled or whatever—there is one fact. Most of our inns in the regions close after Thanksgiving. Our innkeepers are hospitable. They would like to remain open year round. The problem is the lack of business. When you work in an inn and there are no guests, the employer does not pay you to sit around and knit. The employer has to lay people off.

I see my colleague from Gaspésie—Îles-de-la-Madeleine. In the winter, when the river is locked in snow and ice there is no fishing. Fishermen are another category of seasonal worker. If this government, then, which claims to be sensitive and attentive—let me say that we know how the Conservative government operates—had a single ounce of sensitivity, it would have taken account in its bill of the reality faced by seasonal workers. It has been shown that the EI plan in its current form, with the initial cuts made under the Liberals and more made by the Conservatives, is unacceptable. That is why we say that Liberal or Conservative, it amounts to the same thing.

The plan is unfair to certain categories of workers. I mentioned the seasonal workers. I could say exactly the same thing about women, young people and older workers. The current system is unfair. The government should have taken this into account and really corrected the situation and not made cosmetic changes in order to use the coming week off to say in the media that the Bloc does not support the unemployed. The people in our regions know that the Bloc is the only party defending the unemployed in this House.

The best proof that the Bloc wants to change and improve this bill, which is totally unacceptable as it is written—and this is why we will vote against it—is that we said that, before a vote is taken in the House, the committee should hear from the groups concerned. We should invite the Quebec forestry industry council. We should invite the representatives of committees of the unemployed, unions and the Conseil du patronat du Québec to tell us where the bill is unacceptable and how it could be improved.

That is why this very morning the House leader of the Bloc Québécois sought the unanimous consent of the House to send this bill to committee before second reading so the groups concerned, those directly involved, could inform parliamentarians from all parties and tell them why this bill, as worded, is not acceptable.

The government will tell us that 190,000 unemployed individuals will be eligible for the new program. I am convinced that they examined the eligibility provisions. They apply to workers who have had a job for a long time and find themselves unemployed, but what about the categories I mentioned earlier? One industry in Quebec has been hard hit by layoffs for five years. In my riding, they are still happening, and i am talking about the forestry industry. Those workers will not be eligible for the measures in Bill C-50.

The Globe and Mail, a paper not known for its sovereignist leanings, spoke about the bill. Does the Globe and Mail support sovereignty for Quebec? It pointed out that the bill proposed measures that will apply to workers in the automobile industry.

Which automobile industry is that? It is the one in Ontario, because there is hardly anything left of the auto industry in Quebec.

There was one assembly plant left in Sainte-Thérèse, but it closed. There was a Hyundai plant in Bromont, but it is closed too. We have parts subcontractors, I admit, but the automobile industry is concentrated in Ontario, for the most part. So this bill is custom made for Ontario.

We members of the Bloc proudly representing the regions and workers of Quebec cannot support a bill that provides additional benefits to 190,000 people who are unemployed, but practically nothing to Quebec. It is not designed for our forestry workers.

In conclusion, I would like to thank the two groups in my riding that are working very hard to stand up for the rights of the unemployed. I am thinking of Lyne Sirois of Mouvement Action-Chômage on Haute-Côte-Nord and Danie Harvey, who is behind the Sans-chemise movement in Charlevoix. I am certain that these people agree with the Bloc Québécois position that Bill C-50 does not address the needs of the unemployed in Quebec. For these reasons, the Bloc Québécois cannot support the bill.

The Bloc Québécois invites the other parties—because there are talks under way among the parliamentary leaders—to think seriously about the Bloc's offer to hear from the groups directly affected by this bill, before a vote is held, so that they can give us their perspectives. In light of these presentations, the government might listen to reason and amend its bill.

I repeat that we need real reform of the employment insurance program.

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

Madam Speaker, there is a targeted initiative for older workers of $60 billion which the member is not totally happy with. There are 190,000 people who are being helped and he is not happy with that. There is a work sharing agreement that helped 160,000 people which he is not happy with. He is not happy with the five extra weeks.

Using his logic, if he were to vote against the bill and it failed, what would he tell the 190,000 people? Would he tell them that the bill did not have everything he liked and he did not support it because of some reason? Would he say to each one of those 190,000 people that he knows they need additional assistance but he will not help them because he does not like everything in there? How can he justify that to the 190,000 who need the support? It does not matter where they live in the country; it is better that they have that benefit than no benefit at all. The member's logic escapes me.

[Michel Guimond, Bloc, Montmorency—Charlevoix—Haute-Côte-Nord, QC]

Madam Speaker, my colleague's remarks show the Conservatives' contempt for and insensitivity to the situation in Quebec and especially in the regions of Quebec.

He mentions talking to the 190,000 unemployed in Ontario, but what will the government say to the unemployed in our regions who have been suffering for five years because of the forest industry crisis? Plants are closing left and right in Quebec. People have paid employment insurance premiums.

I think the member should also stop being paternalistic and more or less implying that this money is coming out of his pockets. These workers pay taxes. This money is not coming from Conservative members and ministers. Employment insurance benefits come out of the EI fund, which is made up of employer and worker contributions. The Conservative government and the Liberal government, under Paul Martin, boasted about—

[The Acting Speaker, NDP, Denise Savoie]

The hon. member for Gaspésie—Îles-de-la-Madeleine has the floor.

[Raynald Blais, Bloc, Gaspésie—Îles-de-la-Madeleine, QC]

Madam Speaker, I do not know if I can put as much passion into it as my colleague just did but at the very least I will say this: with regard to the 190,000 eligible people, when it was time for questions the member for Chambly—Borduas asked the Conservatives where they are. With respect to Gaspésie and Îles-de-la-Madeleine, one of the Quebec regions, I have a great deal of difficulty finding unemployed workers who might be part of this group of 190,000.

Is it possible that this figure of 190,000 has been exaggerated just like so many other things presented by the government? I believe that the member who just spoke, the Bloc Québécois whip, is surely very aware of the fact that the figures mentioned by the Conservative government are, for the most part, wrong.

[Michel Guimond, Bloc, Montmorency—Charlevoix—Haute-Côte-Nord, QC]

Madam Speaker, this would be a good opportunity in the debate. If the government is talking about 190,000 persons, that number is not coming out of thin air, it has not been reached at random. You do not say, “Oh, I just pulled out the number 190,000!” I would like some member of the government who will be talking about this bill to give us the geographic breakdown of the 190,000 unemployed persons. We shall see if we are right. If there are 189,000 of them in Quebec, I will withdraw my words and make a statement in the House. However if it is true that the great majority are auto workers, I hope this government has the courage to say so to our faces.

[Michael Savage, Liberal, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS]

Madam Speaker, I congratulate my colleague for his speech. I have enjoyed working with him and his great colleague from Chambly—Borduas on issues like this.

We do not agree on everything, but I think we agree on some of the basic issues. One of the things that are particularly annoying and frustrating about the government is its insistence when referring to the 360-hour work year or the nine-week work year is a lack of respect for Canadian workers.

I want to ask the member if he believes, as the government does, that Canadian workers will purposely put themselves in a position to be unemployed so they can get all these great benefits from employment insurance.

[Michel Guimond, Bloc, Montmorency—Charlevoix—Haute-Côte-Nord, QC]

Madam Speaker, my colleague represents a riding in Nova Scotia. Ridings in the maritime provinces are similar to those in maritime Quebec, in Gaspésie, the Magdalen Islands and the Lower St. Lawrence. The reality of seasonal jobs is not unique to Quebec: it exists in other provinces. I am sure that if someone goes to my riding or those of my colleagues in the Bloc Québécois and asks people if they would rather have a year-round job or go through periods of unemployment every year, the great majority would say they do not want charity, they want the dignity of work. They want to work rather than receive employment insurance benefits. Quebeckers are proud people.

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

Madam Speaker, it is fairly clear that this bill must be amended in committee. I would like to ask the member what type of amendments to this bill he would like to see brought in committee.

[Michel Guimond, Bloc, Montmorency—Charlevoix—Haute-Côte-Nord, QC]

Madam Speaker, I believe I have said that the main problem with this bill on the employment insurance system is eligibility. The number of hours to qualify should be reduced to 360. Another problem is the duration of benefits, to avoid what is called “the spring gap”. The seasonally unemployed are not receiving sufficient employment insurance benefits to support them until the next work period. Third, to provide people with a decent income the benefit level must be increased from 55% to 60%.

In addition, on account of the economic crisis, the Bloc Québécois has written two reports—in November 2008 and April 2009—in which it suggests improvements to the government. We call for the abolition of the waiting period so that those unfortunate enough to find themselves unemployed can start receiving money immediately. When you receive employment insurance benefits, it takes two weeks before you see a cheque; meanwhile, the bills keep coming in. The credit union continues to send out its mortgage bill, Visa Desjardins does the same, and people have no income for two weeks.

To continue supporting the plan, the waiting period must be abolished. This is a concrete proposal made by the Bloc Québécois for the benefit of the unemployed.

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

Mr. Speaker, I certainly listened with respect to the great deal of passion that the hon. member brings to representing his constituents.

I think I need to make mention that our economic action plan recognizes that there is not just one solution to the global recession that we are facing, which is why we have the community adjustments fund. That is why we have created retraining opportunities and that is why we have job opportunities. There has to be a very complex approach during this global recession.

While this EI bill, Bill C-50, is going to help some people in the province of British Columbia, it is not the perfect solution, but how can the member look at the people that it will help in his province and say, “No, I am not willing to provide you with an extra 20 weeks. I voted against that”?

[Michel Guimond, Bloc, Montmorency—Charlevoix—Haute-Côte-Nord, QC]

Madam Speaker, my colleague can respond when a member of her party, a minister or a parliamentary secretary, takes the floor on the subject of this bill and gives us, province by province, the breakdown of the 190,000 unemployed persons who will be affected by this measure. She mentioned British Columbia. It is our claim, and in this we are in agreement with the Globe and Mail, that the majority of the unemployed affected by this new measure will be workers in the Ontario auto industry. My colleague asks what I will say to the unemployed in Quebec who are affected by this measure. As there will be next to none, I will have nothing of much interest to say to them.

I will tell them that this program, in spite of all the misinformation by the Conservatives in all the media, does not apply to them. That is why it is not working.

[Patricia Davidson, Conservative, Sarnia—Lambton, ON]

Madam Speaker, I would like to say that I will be sharing my time today with my colleague, the member for Oshawa.

Today I am very proud to express my support for Bill C-50 which will extend EI benefits for long-tenured workers.

Through Canada's economic action plan, we have been helping Canadians in all walks of life to get through a difficult time in our economy. For those who have lost their jobs, we are now providing longer EI benefits and more efficient service. For those who are at risk of being laid off, we have made it easier for companies to participate in work-sharing agreements. We are helping young people get a start in the job market and we are giving them incentives to get certified in the skilled trades.

We are helping older workers make the transition to new careers. We are ensuring that newcomers to this country can get their credentials recognized. We are working to create more job opportunities for aboriginal people. We are making record investments in skills and training to enable Canadians to prepare for the jobs of the future.

Moreover our actions with respect to the employment insurance program are working for Canadians. The actions we are taking are having a positive impact and we are seeing positive results.

Our government is taking further action to ensure the EI program responds to the needs of those workers hit by this global economic downturn such as long-tenured workers. Many of these workers have spent many years in industries that have been hit hard by this recession. Many of them are forestry workers from many provinces. Many of these workers are in the manufacturing sector and in the auto sector, especially here in my home province of Ontario and in my own area.

These hard-working Canadians have put in many hours over the years. They have paid into the EI system for many years. They are out of work through absolutely no fault of their own and they have seldom if ever collected benefits until now. Now a good number of them need some additional time to get back into the workforce. Bill C-50 will give them that support.

[The Acting Speaker, NDP, Denise Savoie]

The member will have approximately seven and a half minutes after question period.

Statements by members, the hon. member for Niagara West—Glanbrook.

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]

Prior to question period, the hon. member for Sarnia—Lambton had the floor in the debate. There are seven and a half minutes remaining in the time allotted for her remarks.

The hon. member for Sarnia—Lambton.

[Patricia Davidson, Conservative, Sarnia—Lambton, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to be able to continue my remarks on Bill C-50, this very important bill that we are proposing which will do even more for long-tenured workers under the EI program.

These Canadians deserve our continued support while the economy recovers. Bill C-50 will provide between 5 and 20 weeks of additional EI regular benefits to unemployed long-tenured workers. It will help Canadians who have worked hard and paid EI premiums for many years and who now find themselves in need of a hand up.

It does not represent permanent change in the duration of EI regular benefits. It is a temporary response to a temporary situation. We think that that is prudent.

What is unfortunate is that the opposition members continue to advocate for the 45-day work year scheme which is both irresponsible and unaffordable. What is worse is that they walked away from the table and away from efforts to help the unemployed.

Now they are playing political games here in the House today, again without taking proposals to the table where these things are usually worked out.

This side of the House is focused on Canada's economic recovery and on helping Canadians come through this rough time. Further to the help we are proposing for Canadians in Bill C-50, we have already taken other measures to help long-tenured workers.

Long-tenured workers who need a transition to a new industry can get help through the career transition assistance initiative introduced in Canada's economic action plan. Through this initiative our government is providing help to long-tenured workers who have been laid off to upgrade their skills. This initiative has two main parts.

First, we have extended the duration of EI regular income benefits for long-tenured workers who participate in long-term training. They can collect benefits for up to two years or 104 weeks. Second, it allows earlier access to EI for long-tenured workers who invest all or part of the money from their severance package in training. Thousands of long-tenured Canadians could benefit from these measures.

We are working with the provinces to help Canadians with this initiative. I would also like to remind the House that while all long-tenured workers are not necessarily older workers, for those who are we have other programs in place to help those older workers.

The targeted initiative for older workers, or TIOW, is not a new initiative. It has been around since 2006 when our government introduced it. It has done a lot to help older workers in this country, and now with the global economic downturn it is needed more than ever.

Through our economic action plan we are investing an additional $60 million over three years in the targeted initiative for older workers to enable people 55 to 64 years of age to get skills upgrading and work experience so they can make the transition to new jobs.

We are doing this because we believe in the skills and experiences of Canada's older workers. We believe they can be retrained and get back into the workforce if they want to continue working.

We are also building on this successful program to extend its reach and scope. The targeted initiative for older workers was designed to meet the needs of people in what we call vulnerable communities; that is, communities with a high rate of unemployment or a high reliance on one employer or industry affected by a significant downsizing or closure.

This year we expanded the number of communities that are eligible for the program to include more cities. Why did we do this? Well, because the recession has been difficult for everyone, but it has been particularly hard on people over 55. In fact, with this change an additional 250 communities could be eligible.

When older workers lose their jobs, we want to help them get back into the workforce as soon as possible. We know it is not easy for an older person to start a new career; however, through TIOW projects unemployed older workers can acquire the skills they need to find and keep new jobs or even start up their own new businesses.

These projects typically offer services such as skills assessment, job search strategies, work experience placements, skills upgrading and income support. This new federal-provincial joint investment will help older workers across the country build their skills and find work.

There are many other success stories from this program. They all involve older workers who had to face a major life change, a change that could have been devastating, but they were able to regroup and retrain for a new career. Thanks to the TIOW, they were able to do that in the company of people their own age. The new funding we are putting into the TIOW will enable more older workers to receive the specialized support they need to make the transition to new jobs. With practical help from the TIOW, older workers can continue to contribute to their communities and to the Canadian economy.

Our government is demonstrating its commitment to supporting all Canadians who are affected by the downturn but especially older workers and long-tenured workers. We do not want an unnecessary election. We want to continue to work to help Canadians. That is what the bill would do. I urge everyone in the House to support Bill C-50.

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I have a simple question for the member regarding this important bill. The minister responsible for the Canada Revenue Agency described the bill as being one more way in which we can add to other things that have been done with EI. It is a very straightforward bill. There was a request for unanimous consent to complete this work by tomorrow. The Bloc recommended that we send the bill to committee immediately before second reading. This would allow for some latitude in terms of the scope of the bill to make substantive amendments at committee stage.

In both instances, the government denied unanimous consent and rejected those proposals. I wonder if the member could explain why.

[Patricia Davidson, Conservative, Sarnia—Lambton, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I have been listening to this debate since we first introduced Bill C-50 and started the debate this morning. Certainly that question has been asked many times and it has been answered many times.

Bill C-50 is an extremely important bill. We, as the Conservative government, have been focusing on what matters to Canadians. We have been helping those who have been hardest hit. We know that the global recession has caused a great deal of concern to many Canadians and we are providing the support to Canadians when they need it.

Bill C-50 is just another part of the support we are providing for Canadians. We have introduced legislation today to provide extra support for long-tenured workers. Prior to that we had support for other Canadians who need it through the economic action plan. The best way to help the unemployed, their families and the economy is to get people back to work. We need the extra program to help those long-tenured workers who want to work, who have worked for years and now find themselves unemployed. This program will give them that extra time to find work. It will give the extra time for the economy to rebound and those workers who want to work will be back to work.

[Roger Pomerleau, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I have the same question for the Conservative member, because it seems as though she did not at all understand the question asked by my Liberal colleague.

My question is: why did the government choose to proceed by vote in the House, by introducing a bill, when it could have done what it wanted to do for the unemployed, or what it claims to want to do for the unemployed, through a pilot project that would not even have had to go through the House, and that could have been approved in five minutes by the minister himself? Now, it will take one month, two months, or even three months of discussion to make it through the legislative process. Meanwhile, unemployed workers have nothing.

My colleague said that this bill is here to help the unemployed, but the best way to help them is to take immediate action and to put this in place right away. Why did they choose the legislative route over a ministerial decision?

[Patricia Davidson, Conservative, Sarnia—Lambton, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I will repeat that we have been having this debate since this morning and this question has been asked many times and answered many times.

Certainly the Conservative government is focused on what matters to Canadians. We are helping those who are hardest hit. We are investing in training. We are creating jobs.

If there were another process the opposition parties wished to pursue, there is an avenue by which they could have pursued it. They chose not to.

We are bringing forward this bill in very good faith. We believe we need to benefit the Canadians who need it most and we will continue to do that.

[Colin Carrie, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Health]

Mr. Speaker, as the member of Parliament for Oshawa, it is with great pleasure that I extend my full support for Bill C-50.

This bill will provide further assistance through employment insurance to workers particularly affected by the economic downturn.

The new temporary measure we are introducing through the bill will help Canadian workers who have contributed to the economy for years and years and who, through no fault of their own, find themselves unemployed.

Bill C-50 offers the right and fair way to ensure that the EI program is responsive and responsible. It is responsive to the needs of those long-tenured workers, like the ones in Oshawa, who have contributed to the EI program for a long period of time and have made little if any use of it. It is responsible to all Canadian taxpayers.

Let me follow up on some of assertions made today by one of my hon. colleagues across the floor.

The member for Dartmouth—Cole Harbour stood in the House and with great flourish tried to assert once again the Liberal monopoly on compassion. He went on to say that the Liberal Party scheme to create a 45-day work year was sensible, adding that the government was playing political chess.

The only people playing political games in the House are the members of the opposition who are refusing to be forthright with the Canadian people. This government is taking action to help Canadians after the member opposite walked away from the unemployed. The member for Dartmouth—Cole Harbour walked away from 190,000 long-tenured workers. That is shameful. He may call this nothing but this government finds that notion offensive.

I would like to remind the member that it was his party that implemented the failed EI policies of the 1970s that had a catastrophic effect on the Canadian economy. Thirty years later in a blatant political positioning manoeuvre, it was the Leader of the Opposition who proposed similar measures during a global economic downturn. I ask, who is playing political games?

This government is protecting unemployed workers. The Leader of the Official Opposition has shown once again he is in this for himself. Here is the action this government is taking with Bill C-50.

Long-tenured workers will now get the additional support of extended weeks of EI while they look for work. The proposed temporary measure would extend nationally regular benefits for long-tendered workers by between five and twenty weeks. Depending on the length of time claimants have paid EI premiums, the more weeks of benefits they will receive.

Our goal is to ensure that people get these extended weeks of benefits as soon as possible. Through this bill these workers who have contributed to the economy, many of them for decades, will have a longer time to seek alternative employment.

The temporary measure that we are introducing today shows that the EI program is able to provide support to those most in need when they need it most.

We have a record of making fair and timely improvements to EI. Through Canada's economic action plan alone we have provided longer EI benefits, more efficient service, support for training, and protection of jobs through work sharing agreements. We have also have introduced the career transition assistance initiative that provides two timely measures. One extends EI benefits to a maximum of two years while workers participate in longer term training. The other provides earlier access to EI to long-tenured workers who invest all or part of their severance packages in training.

Let us also remember that a key component to our action plan provides five additional weeks of EI benefits to regular beneficiaries. In areas of high unemployment, the maximum duration of benefits has been extended from 45 to 50 weeks.

The work sharing program is another way we are helping workers stay in the labour force. It does so by offering EI income support to workers who are willing to work a reduced work week.

Under Canada's economic action plan we have made changes to the program that allows more flexibility for employers' recovery plans. Agreements have also been extended by an additional 14 weeks to maximize benefits during this economic downturn. This measure allows employers to retain employees, therefore avoiding expensive rehiring and retraining costs. In turn, employees are able to continue working and keep their skills up to date. These are people who would rather work a shortened work week and get a little less income than to be laid off. Work sharing makes that possible. Right now there are close to 5,800 active work sharing agreements across this country benefiting more than 165,000 Canadians.

We know that good programs and service are especially important in difficult economic times. Our government has acted quickly on both counts.

Our government is also helping older workers make the transition to new careers. Through the targeted initiative for older workers the government is providing an additional $60 million over three years to help workers aged 55 to 64 years get the skills upgrading and the work experience necessary to make the transition to new employment.

We have also expanded this initiative's reach so that the communities with a population lower than 250,000 are now eligible for funding. With this change an additional 250 communities could be included in the program, depending on provincial and territorial participation. This is especially valuable for my area of Oshawa.

Under the economic action plan, workers will also benefit from an increase in funding for skills training. With our strategic training and transition fund, we will be investing to help individuals, whether or not they are eligible for employment insurance, get training and other support measures.

Our economic action plan offers an additional 2,000 apprenticeship completion grants to apprentices who successfully complete an apprenticeship program in a “red seal” trade. This builds on the existing apprenticeship incentive grant. An apprentice could now receive a total of $4,000 in grants through both these programs. Up to 20,000 Canadians could take advantage of this latest grant. This is great news from my community in Oshawa.

The Government of Canada is also protecting jobs and supporting businesses in key sectors of our economy that are in difficulty, such as forestry, farming and mining, and the automotive industry. To help them we are providing a two-year community adjustment fund that will support economic diversification in communities affected by the decline in their local industries.

This bill is another example of how we are taking action to help Canadians now. We are responding quickly with measures to meet current needs. I ask members to join me in supporting Bill C-50 and helping these workers.

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

Mr. Speaker, New Democrats are pleased that the Conservatives are bringing forward much needed changes to the EI system, but there is much more that needs to be done on this file.

The report commissioned by the Conservatives on EI recommended that severance pay should not be treated as earnings, moving assistance should be provided to help Canadians find new jobs, and wage assistance should top up low-paying jobs.

Can the member tell this House why these important measures were not included in this particular bill?

[Colin Carrie, Conservative, Oshawa, ON]

Madam Speaker, in my area of Oshawa a lot of workers have been affected through this economic downturn. We have different industries and different companies. What is important for this government is that we give workers choices.

The member mentioned severance. Some people who are laid off may choose to keep their severance and move on with that. What we are doing as a government is strategically offering workers choices. During this tough economic time, they are going to be able to move in a way that they see as appropriate. In my community we have a wonderful community college and a university. Some workers may choose to get retraining.

The purpose of this bill and all the other measures we have put forward is to help communities like mine in Oshawa that have been severely affected through this economic downturn and need choices for different people at different times in their life.

I would really encourage this member, and I hear that perhaps the NDP would be supporting this bill. We are hopeful that they do support this bill, because this bill and this type of reform are very important for people in my community of Oshawa.

[Keith Martin, Liberal, Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC]

Madam Speaker, several days ago the finance minister came into our town of Victoria and proceeded to tell Victorians, indeed Canadians, in the furthest outposts of our country that the government has lost control over the public purse, and that the deficit that was originally not going to exist at the end of last year is now $59.5 billion.

I am asking this because at the heart of the responsibility of any federal government is the ability to control the public purse. The Conservatives have lost control of the public purse, and therefore the ability to pay for programs like EI.

I would like to ask my hon. colleague from the Conservative Party when his government is going to tell Canadians what the deficit reduction plan is going to be for our country.

[Colin Carrie, Conservative, Oshawa, ON]

Madam Speaker, I do not know where the member has been. The minister has actually done that. He has outlined how the deficit will decrease over the next few years.

It is almost humourous, because anybody who has been paying attention in the House knows that the Liberal Party wants more spending. They want more unaccountable spending.

They are willing to take this government down or are proposing to. They would like to have a 45-day work year. Just imagine what would happen to the system if this actually happened. The cost to the public purse would be unsustainable.

I mentioned in my speech that back in the 1970s the Liberals proposed a similar change to the Unemployment Insurance Act and it took years for our economy to recover.

We are putting these temporary measures in so that once the economy is increasing and moving forward, we will be able to respond with balanced budgets, because that is what this government is all about, accountability and responsibility to the—

[The Acting Speaker, NDP, Denise Savoie]

A very quick question from the hon. member for Vancouver Kingsway.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Madam Speaker, 1.6 million Canadians are unemployed. This winter that number will grow. Many will run out of EI and risk ending up on welfare, and we have a responsibility to help.

New Democrats have long called for improvements to our EI system, particularly during this time of economic recession, and we are pleased that the government has moved forward on this.

With this bill, the Conservatives have clearly agreed that EI is broken and needs to be fixed, and New Democrats have long proposed additional changes, like dropping the two-week waiting period and increasing the amount of benefits received. Can the member opposite please comment on these proposals?

[The Acting Speaker, NDP, Denise Savoie]

The hon. parliamentary secretary has 30 seconds to respond.

[Colin Carrie, Conservative, Oshawa, ON]

Thirty seconds for a politician is very difficult, Madam Speaker, but I will do my best.

He mentions people running out of EI. I had the opportunity to talk to people in my community, particularly laid-off auto workers. That is exactly the situation they are facing right now and that is why this is so important. That is exactly what this bill does. It allows auto workers in Oshawa who are running out of benefits to extend them while they continue looking for work.

[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, NDP, 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, NDP, 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, NDP, 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.

[Tom Lukiwski, Conservative, Regina—Lumsden—Lake Centre, SK]

Madam Speaker, I understand you gave admonitions to people with heckles. Maybe we could do the same on the Liberal side.

It is widely known and quite correct that the previous Liberal government took approximately $50 billion in excess payments from the EI fund and put it into general revenues. By anyone's standards, I would believe that would have to be considered unacceptable. Nonetheless that was the situation of the day.

The Liberals had also put in a formula based EI program, which various regions of the country would react to needs of the unemployed in different fashions. What I mean by that, is in certain regions unemployed workers could qualify for EI after 420 hours of work throughout the year. In other regions of the country they could only qualify for EI benefits after up to 700 or 720 hours.

That certainly was not a perfect system because of the overcharging of employees and employers to the tune of $50 billion. However, the formula itself had some merit at its time.

However, what happened about a year ago, as we all know, there was an unprecedented economic meltdown throughout the world. This was precipitated not by any actions of our government or our country, but because of the sub-prime mortgage crisis that occurred in the United States.That hit all countries in the industrialized world quickly, swiftly and without precedent.

In fact, every country in the G20, as well as many other countries throughout the world, were reeling from the effects of that sub-prime mortgage crisis. It affected so many countries in a manner in which number one stock markets started to crash, unemployment made drastic increases, economies almost collapsed in some jurisdictions and banks did collapse.

In fact, which I will speak to later in my presentation, Canada was the only country I believe in the G20 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 all be proud of it. However, that is how severe the economic downturn, the global crisis was.

It affected every country with which we do business. All our trading partners were affected and the G20 was reeling.

One of the many things we did, once the realization of how severe and how widespread this economic downturn was, was to start making plans to change the EI program. We realized that many hard-working Canadians were losing their jobs through no fault of their own. Employees in the auto sector, the forestry sector and the manufacturing sector were losing their jobs because their companies were going bankrupt because of this global economic downturn.

Therefore, it was imperative for our government, and I believe governments throughout the world, that fundamental, substantive and necessary changes were made to employment insurance programs to protect those workers, to give them the benefits they required and they needed so desperately as they tried to recover and transition from this economic downturn that was affecting all of us.

What did this government do? The first thing we did was to start consulting widely and broadly with Canadians from coast to coast to coast and people who had an interest and an expertise in employment insurance. We wanted to find out from average Canadians and the experts what they believed was necessary in EI reforms, what could we do as a government, what changes could be implement in the employment insurance program that would best serve the Canadian people and Canadian workers.

We heard from thousands of Canadians from coast to coast to coast. They told us the first thing that needed to be done was to extend the benefits because the benefit period was not long enough. Many workers had been working for 15 and 20 years and had suddenly lost their jobs. They were out on the street, as it were, trying to transition and find new work, but they did not know how long it would take them. This economic crisis was so severe and so widespread that job loss was rampant across the country and countries across the world. It would not be the easiest thing in the world for anyone who had lost a job to find new employment quickly. Therefore, we extended the benefit period for EI.

The second thing we heard was that we needed to put more money into skills training and upgrading so workers who were laid off or lost their jobs in an industry, where they had worked for perhaps 15 or 20 years, could get the necessary training to transition and find work in a different industry. We did that.

I am proud to say we put over $1.5 billion into training programs. People who could qualify and even those who did not qualify for EI could access these training programs so they would be ready when the time came to take a new job, or perhaps start a new career to be able to fend for themselves and their families. The dollars that we put in were helping approximately 150,000 Canadians. We know that because that is how many Canadians have accessed these training programs to date.

However, that is not all. We expanded a work-sharing program. It was a program currently in place but we expanded the number of weeks that employers could access it. That allowed Canadians to keep their jobs, approximately 200,000 people, Canadians who were able to continue in their jobs because of expanded work-sharing opportunities.

That is one other thing in which our government should take great pride. Canadians, again, from coast to coast told us that is what they required.

We did more than just that. We decided we would freeze EI premiums for the next two years. We understood that employers and employees needed to keep more of their money in their pockets to help them through these troubled times.

All of this was done swiftly. We consulted with Canadians, they told us what they needed and we acted. We put these provisions into place as quickly as possible and they passed in the House. Those provisions are now helping hundreds of thousands of Canadians.

However, there was one other thing we said quite clearly and forcefully. We recognized there might be more required. No one could tell at the time how long this worldwide recession was going to last, how long this economic downturn, which has affected millions of people around the world, was going to last. We stated we would keep monitoring and observing the EI program to determine whether more changes were needed.

I must point out that during this time we heard from members of the opposition who gave their input and suggestions as to what was required to further improve the EI program.

What did we hear consistently, first from the NDP and then the Liberal Party of Canada? We heard that they felt the panacea to all the problems with the EI program could be solved by one single course of action. What was that? They suggested we lower the threshold on which individuals could access employment insurance to 360 hours.

Were there more suggestions? Absolutely not. That was it. That was the single suggestion that we heard. Again, as I mentioned, in their minds that was the complete solution, the panacea to all of the ills.

However, let us examine that a little closer. What does lowering the threshold to 360 hours really do? Does it help those workers who have worked for the last 20 years in the automotive industry and who suddenly found themselves out of a job because one of the big three auto manufacturers was going bankrupt and laying off workers by the thousands? Of course not. Did it help the forestry workers who have worked for 10, 15 or 20 years in the forestry industry and who put in literally thousands of hours in full-time employment year after year? Did it help them to lower the threshold to 360 hours? Absolutely not.

In fact, one could argue that the only people who would be helped by lowering the threshold to 360 hours might be part-time workers or students perhaps, but it certainly did not do anything to assist those workers who had been in the workforce for almost all of their adult life working 40 hour weeks, month after month, year after year. It did nothing to help them.

That is why, as many of my colleagues this afternoon have already observed, we thought it rather, to put it bluntly, silly and counterproductive to accept a suggestion that would do nothing to help those people who desperately needed help. That is why when we offered five weeks of extended benefits it was received universally well by workers across this country. When we decided to put billions of dollars into skills training and upgrading programs, it was universally applauded by workers and industry leaders across this country. When we decided to increase the work share program so that thousands of Canadians who were on the precipice of losing their job would be able to continue to work at their places of employment, it was cheered.

However, never did I hear from any people who had a full-time position, who had worked for years in their industry and had lost their job, that lowering the threshold to 360 hours was what they wanted.

I only point that out to the members of this place because, while it is a legitimate debate point, I have yet to hear a member of the opposition, who had been advocating lowering the threshold to 360 hours, fully explain to me how that would best serve Canadians who had been working for the last 15 to 20 years in full-time employment. The reason they have not been able to articulate an answer is because it does not help them. Workers needed more than just lowering the threshold. They needed money in their pockets and they needed extended benefits, which is why we took the actions that we did.

However, we recognized, as this recession and the global downturn kept churning along relentlessly, that there may still be other improvements that could be made. Again, I reiterate that for 13 years under the previous government there were absolutely no changes made to the program except for the fact that it kept siphoning off money from employers and employees.

In consultation with the official opposition, we decided to set up a bipartisan group of parliamentarians to examine the EI changes that we have currently made and to examine what additional changes and improvements to the EI program could be made to better assist workers. This working group of parliamentarians started their work but, unfortunately, somewhere down the way it was derailed because the Liberal members of that group walked out. When they were attending the meetings, they were still advocating a 360 hour threshold for employment insurance benefits and that was all.

We, on the other hand, wanted to go further than that. We felt there was much more that could be done. Therefore, even though our colleagues in the Liberal Party had walked out of that committee, we decided that we would go it alone.

We again consulted with Canadians from coast to coast to coast and we brought forward some further improvements that are contained in Bill C-50. What are those improvements? Quite frankly, they were targeted at those long-tenured workers that I was referring to earlier in my remarks, those hard-working Canadians who perhaps had been at the same job, but at a job nonetheless, in usually full-time employment, or close to full-time employment in almost all cases, for years and years.

We have all heard the stories. I am sure every person in this place has heard stories from constituents in their own ridings that have almost ripped their hearts out. We have had men and women, age 50, 55 or older, coming and pleading with their parliamentarians for help because they had been working at a job for 20 or more years and found themselves unemployed. They needed assistance because they were not sure how long it would take them to find a new job. They needed our help.

Even though we extended the benefit period by five weeks for those who were collecting EI premiums, we felt there were some special needs for those Canadians who were in that category that we would consider to be long-tenured workers because they were the most vulnerable.

I think we all know that for Canadian men or women who are middle aged or getting close to retirement and they lose their job, it is not easy for them to find a new job. These people would come in with stories of anguish, relating to me, and I am sure every other parliamentarian, stories of their fears and their concerns, not only for themselves but in almost all cases for their families. How do they feed their families? How do they keep a roof over their heads? How do they clothe and feed their families? They feared that in a number of weeks or perhaps up to a year their benefit period would run out and they still would not have new employment.

What could we do for them? We decided to act. As we did when we made our first improvements to the EI program, we decided to specifically target long-tenured workers. We have come up with a program, the provisions of which are contained in Bill C-50, that deals with exactly that.

Bill C-50 purports to change the EI program to deal with long-tenured workers so that an additional five to twenty weeks would be available for those workers who are in the situation of being unemployed after working most of their adult lives.

I can say from personal experience, and I think all of my colleagues on this side of the House can say the same, that when we proposed those changes, they were universally applauded. I have had workers in my riding phone me, write me and tell me face to face that this was something they thought might ultimately save their families' futures.

At the same time we were bringing forth these changes, we wanted to get clear acceptance from members of this House. What did we hear once again? We heard members of the official opposition, through the Leader of the Opposition, state that they would oppose absolutely every initiative this government brought forward. I understand the opposition leader's need to justify his existence by forcing an election but I do not understand why any member of any opposition party could possibly stand in this House and argue against the initiatives that we have brought forward.

We are doing what we feel is in the best interests of Canadian workers. We have heard from Canadian workers, those unfortunate souls who have lost their jobs through no fault of their own, and they have told us loud and clear that we are on the right course. The actions we are taking to improve the EI system are necessary and they are appreciated by working families all across this country.

[Scott Simms, Liberal, Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL]

Madam Speaker, I thank the hon. member for talking about the strong banking system that we have. On behalf of the Liberal Party of Canada, I say that he is welcome.

I would like to discuss some of the issues. He talked about the notional deficit and general revenues. The general revenues were used at the time to erase what was a $50 billion deficit. No, I think it was $42 billion back then, was it not? It is hard to keep track. However, that was the deficit back then as opposed to the deficit the present government has today.

I would like to touch on one subject. He talked passionately about long-tenured workers and the forestry industry. I would like to show him an illustration, based on Bill C-50, of what we are talking about. There are a few gentlemen in my riding who have called and they are loggers. The logging situation is that it is primarily a seasonal industry. If he is so concerned, and he says that this bill would do so much for people in the forestry industry, what about a logger?

This is the situation. Subclause (2.1) states quite clearly that over the past 260 weeks, “If a claimant was paid less than 36 weeks”. Hopefully my math does not fail me, but that is about 7.2 weeks per year over a five-year period, which basically means that Bill C-50 means nothing for that logger he speaks so passionately about. They are out.

I would like him to comment on that. When it comes to seasonal work, why will those people he speaks so passionately about not be accepted by Bill C-50?

[Tom Lukiwski, Conservative, Regina—Lumsden—Lake Centre, SK]

Madam Speaker, my hon. colleague started his comments by talking about the deficit that the Liberals inherited. This is revisionist history that members of the Liberal Party continue to purport. I would point out to the member opposite that the actual deficit that has crippled this country at times was first started in the 1970s under former Prime Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau. In fact, as history proves, at the end of that prime minister's tenure—

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

How much did Mulroney have?

[The Acting Speaker, NDP, Denise Savoie]

Order, please. If the hon. members expect to be recognized, I would ask them to refrain from heckling or making comments while there is someone speaking who has been recognized.

[Tom Lukiwski, Conservative, Regina—Lumsden—Lake Centre, SK]

Madam Speaker, as history has shown, at the end of former Prime Minister Trudeau's reign, for every dollar in revenue that the Government of Canada was bringing in, that government was spending $1.03. Can anyone imagine trying to run a government while it was spending more money than it was taking in? That is why we had such crippling deficits.

The following administration reduced that at the end of its tenure. We all know that once a program is in place in governments, it is very difficult to cut off the tap. However, at the end of the following administration, that government had cut down revenues to the point that the government was only spending 97¢ for every dollar it was taking in. In other words, it was cutting down on the massive debt left by the former Liberal government.

We need to ensure we have history straight.

With respect to his specific question on those workers who are working less than 35 weeks a year, whether they are in the forestry industry or other industries, Bill C-50 deals specifically with long-tenured workers. The provisions in that bill do exactly that.

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

Madam Speaker, I do not think the government member is on very solid ground when he tries to lecture the Liberals about deficits and debt. At the end of the Mulroney period, when there was a huge increase in the debt, it was followed by the Mulroney years, which put us into as big a debt as was there under the Liberal years. He is not on good ground there.

The government member has certainly come a long way when it comes to the issue of EI, from the days of the old Reform Party, when it basically operated on the basis of a pull-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps mentality, to the point where we now have a party looking at bringing in a $1 billion improvement to the EI program. I think we should be applauding that. Rather than complaining, the Liberal Party should be coming up with some amendments for the committee to try to make the bill even better than what it is right now.

Could the government member tell the House why his party voted against the New Democratic bill, Bill C-279, which would have removed severance pay from the calculation of EI benefits, especially since the Conservatives' own report recommended that severance pay should not be treated as earnings?

[Tom Lukiwski, Conservative, Regina—Lumsden—Lake Centre, SK]

Madam Speaker, number one, I want to congratulate the New Democratic Party for having the wisdom to support our initiatives on EI reform. I think it is obviously in the best interests of all Canadians to do so.

However, I would point out a couple of things that the hon. member may not quite realize; that is, when I spoke of the former Trudeau administration creating this massive debt that we are still paying the price for today, that is absolutely true. In fact, the following Progressive Conservative administration had reduced the debt. That is fact. That is something we can find in the history books.

However, the other thing I would point out, and this is something that has confused me mightily. On one hand, members of the New Democratic Party seem to be now applauding the initiatives we brought forward, but at every single time previous to this, its members voted against any EI reforms. In fact, I think we all recall our last budget we brought in, the members of the NDP said they would vote against it without even reading it.

So, how does anyone, how does any Canadian put any credibility into anything the NDP says when we know its members are taking such an irresponsible course of action as to start opposing budgets before they even read them?

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Madam Speaker, I heard several times during the debate and questioning references to get this bill to committee so we can make some changes, and of course other matters we can deal with, like other benefits, et cetera.

I think that is very noble to suggest that we could do that. However, I think maybe the deputy House leader for the Conservative Party, as a learned man on these matters, knows about scope of the bill and knows that when a bill passes at second reading and is referred to committee, it is approval in principle for that bill for the purpose for which that bill was set up, which is to deal with long-tenured employees.

As a consequence, it would appear to me, and I am asking the hon. member if he would like to also share his views with the House, that changes or proposed amendments, such as self-employed worker changes and other things that we have talked about, in fact, would be beyond the scope of the bill being referred to the committee and, in fact, would be out of order.

[Tom Lukiwski, Conservative, Regina—Lumsden—Lake Centre, SK]

Madam Speaker, I think in all cases our government has taken the position that if changes and improvements can be made at committee, to any piece of legislation, we would welcome it. Clearly, substantive changes that would fundamentally alter the act or the legislation brought forward to committee would not be procedurally correct if it were done after second reading. Sometimes bills are referred to committee, as my learned colleague knows, before second reading, and then substantive changes could be made.

What we are suggesting here is that this bill deserves consideration and deserves consideration of all parliamentarians and all members of this place swiftly. Swiftly, we would like to see this placed into law. That obviously means we have to get the consent of our colleagues on the other side of the House and their colleagues in the Senate. However, if we can do that, we would welcome any changes that would improve this piece of legislation. If committee can come up with those changes, fine, we will welcome it; but above all, let us get this bill passed swiftly.

[The Acting Speaker, NDP, Denise Savoie]

Order, please. It is my duty, pursuant to Standing Order 38, to inform the House that the questions to be raised tonight at the time of adjournment are as follows: the hon. member for Gatineau, the Public Service; the hon. member for Malpeque, Agriculture.

[Malcolm Allen, NDP, Welland, ON]

Madam Speaker, I will be splitting my time with my colleague from Sault Ste. Marie.

It is time for leadership. It is time to help unemployed Canadians before they are literally left out in the cold. Presently, 1.6 million Canadians are unemployed and this winter that number will grow and many will run out of EI and risk ending up on welfare. We have a responsibility to help.

New Democrats have long called for improvements to the EI system, particularly during the time of this economic recession, and we are pleased that the government has finally moved forward. These changes will help workers now and New Democrats are more interested in helping the unemployed than we are in provoking an election. Make no mistake, New Democrats are supporting this EI proposal, not the Conservative government.

The NDP plan for EI of reducing the hours needed to qualify to 360, including the self-employed, eliminating the waiting period and raising benefit rates has been passed by the House, and until now largely ignored by the Conservative government. The changes proposed in this legislation are a step in the right direction, but there is much more to do.

New Democrats believe that the best way to effectively use the balance of power Canadians have given to us is not to force another election but to rather force more changes to EI that would see the government work to enact the New Democratic Party plan. It is the responsible thing to do.

I have heard Liberals and Conservatives talk about their economic management and what they think is good. They toss it back and forth like a tennis ball. One party feels it is a better economic manager than the other.

Canadian workers are good economic managers because they contributed to the EI plan for a rainy day. They learned that from their parents. They learned to save for a rainy day. Their savings plan was the EI account and they contributed willingly and dutifully. They thought it would be there for them when the rain came. The rain has come, not as a sprinkle, not as a downpour, but as a torrent.

Where do we find 40% of those Canadians who contributed to the rainy day fund? They are standing in the rain, shivering, freezing, destitute, and without the rainy day fund that they pledged their money to because it was absconded with. Fifty-seven billion dollars would have looked after this torrent.

Canadian workers are asking where that money went. The unemployed are asking what happened to the money they saved. The response, of course, is that someone spent it and unemployed workers want to know what it was spent on. Was it spent on unemployed workers before them? Of course, the answer is no.

Under the changes of Brian Mulroney in the late eighties, continued on by the Liberals in the nineties, the system was gutted so that most folks did not get employment insurance. They simply had to do without.

As that money simply amassed, someone had the bright idea to spend it, and it was spent. First the Liberals spent the bulk of it and the Conservatives spent the rest. The Conservatives are saying they really cannot afford to look after the unemployed because they are running a deficit.

The last number that the finance minister threw out just last week was $56 billion. If the Conservatives had kept the rainy day fund, they would have a balanced budget and that would be good financial management. Neither one of those parties has been a good financial manager. Workers figured out how to actually be good financial managers because they are the ones who saved.

We owe those workers that money. It was not ours to keep. It was not ours to spend on the things that the Liberal government and the Conservative government thought they could spend it on. The pledge to the workers was to collect it for employment insurance to make sure that when they were unemployed they were protected, that they would receive what was due to them. The pledge was not to have it absconded by someone else who simply spent it on whatever. Unfortunately, that is where we find ourselves.

We should not be debating who is the best financial manager because clearly neither the Liberals nor the Conservatives are good at it. We ought to be debating how we intend to protect those workers who, for no fault of their own, find themselves in this torrent, this huge downpour, standing out there freezing in the rain, looking to us for help. The money might only be needed for a while because workers intend to get back on their feet. These individuals have worked for a long period of time and this money will help some.

However, as my hon. colleague from the Liberals said earlier about the loggers, let me point out what happened to auto workers who got laid off last October for seven weeks and then got laid off again permanently in February. They do not have enough hours between the layoff periods to get a new claim in February. They must go back to October 2008. They have worked for 25 years and have never been laid off before. The government plan does not qualify them.

The government's plan says they had to be laid off and have a claim as of January 2009. Their claim will be October 2008. Yet, they are long-tenured workers. They have worked 25, 30 years at a workplace and never collected a dime from the old UI system, which is what it should still be called, unemployment insurance, because it is about insurance for the unemployed, not insurance for the employed.

What it really should be about is making sure that long-tenured workers are covered. The government is not going to ensure that they are covered. Those people are going to go without simply because a temporary layoff happened in 2008 just prior to a permanent layoff in 2009, for which they will not qualify.

What will it say to long-tenured workers, I ask the government, when it looks them in the eye and says, “We made a program for you. Yes, we know you never collected before. I'm sorry, we put the wrong date. Should we have reconsidered the dates”?

I heard my hon. colleague, the parliamentary secretary, talk about taking the bill to committee to perhaps amend it and look for ways to do some things that can improve it. Indeed, we are going to have to do that because as much as it is well intentioned, it falls short. It falls short for long-tenured workers who indeed fit the scenario I have just laid out. There are other cases, as well, that will fall short of what has been set up.

We need to look at all of those things because clearly workers are looking at us and asking, “Why aren't you helping us? That is your role, is it not, as parliamentarians? Is that not what you told us you would do when you collected our money”? We have an obligation to them. We have a debt to them. We ought to repay that debt. That is the solemn promise we made to them when we collected their money.

I hear the idea that we cannot do 360 hours because they have only paid for a short period of time. I can hear the car insurance companies rubbing their hands with glee saying, “If you buy a new car, you pay your first premium and you crack the car up the following week, sorry, your car insurance does not cover it because you have only paid one premium”.

I wonder how many people have had the great pleasure of having teenage drivers in their households who happened to have a fender-bender and find out, indeed, that their insurance would not cover them because they only paid one premium. Insurance is insurance for a reason. It is there to protect people when they need it. It is not there to deny them because they fell on hard times.

The rules are clear in the EI system. I hear the government incessantly saying, “We are not going to give money to folks who don't want to work. If you quit, you don't get anything”. It is clear. The legislation has been clear for years. If people quit their jobs, they do not collect. If they get laid off, that is not their choice. They do not choose to get laid off because if they did, they would be quitting. When people get laid off, they should collect. That is what insurance protects them against. It protects them from being unemployed.

It is there to bridge the gap and make sure they can get from that period of unemployment to a period of employment because that is what the vast majority of Canadians do. When Canadians are asked if they want employment insurance or to go to work, they say they want to go to work.

Let me explain what the benefit level is. Even if people are making minimum wage in the province of Ontario, let us say $10 an hour at 40 hours a week, that is $400. If they go on employment insurance, they do not get $400. Why would they stay home to get 55%, basically $225 or so a week, rather than $400 if they are working? Clearly, no one goes home for less just because they can collect a cheque. People want to work, they will continue to work, and Canadians are proud to go to work. It is our obligation to make sure we see them through these hard times.

We expect this to pass with some changes and we expect the government to bring forward more EI changes that are going to benefit the laid off workers who are waiting and looking to the government to say when it will bring it forward. They need it, they need it now. Let us get on with the job of doing it.

[Roger Pomerleau, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

Madam Speaker, I am certain that my NDP colleague will recall—he will be reminded many times in the weeks to come—that the Liberals took out $57 billion from the employment insurance fund to balance the government books. To accumulate this amount, they had to exclude about half the people who were entitled to unemployment benefits.

Today, we see that the Conservatives have a similar problem. They are accumulating as much debt as the Liberals had paid off. They are implementing measures for the unemployed. However, in order for these measures to help they cannot be given to everyone because we have too much debt. Thus, they are creating two classes of unemployed: the good and the bad. The good are those who have always been employed without missing a day of work. The seasonal or part-time workers, or workers with two jobs who cannot accumulate enough hours, are the bad ones. So you see there is a special class of people among the unemployed.

While we focus on the problem of the unemployed, we no longer pay attention to tax evaders, those who use tax havens, those who file tax returns ad infinitum without paying any tax and white-collar criminals who commit fraud at every turn.

I would like to hear my colleague's comments on this matter.

[Malcolm Allen, NDP, Welland, ON]

Madam Speaker, my hon. colleague is absolutely correct to ask who took money and where it went.

Regarding part-time workers and seasonal workers, this primarily has affected women. When we look across the board, it is women in the economy who have suffered the greatest with the new changes.

I have heard the government complain time and time again that it was the Liberals who gave us the system. I say to my friends across the way to fix it. It is pretty simple. If they got a bad system from the guys across from them, then fix it. It is that simple. It is not that hard. All they have to do is enact the changes. The changes are before them. Take them to committee. In fact some of them are there. The Conservatives opposed the ones I proposed around severance and vacation pay, as did some of the my friends in the Liberal Party. They turned them down.

Vacation pay, which is earned in the year in which people work, is not new money. It is earned in the previous year, the year they were actually working, and it was taken away from them. Why? It is because you have not thought about the unemployed. What you have thought about is collecting the money, and that is not what the employment insurance is about. Employment--

[The Acting Speaker, NDP, Denise Savoie]

I would like to remind the hon. member to direct his comments to the chair. I am sure he does not think I do not think about the unemployed.

The hon. Minister of State for Science and Technology.

[Gary Goodyear, Conservative, Minister of State (Science and Technology) (Federal Economic Development Agency for Southern Ontario)]

Madam Speaker, I appreciate getting up to acknowledge that I support this bill. There are a lot of folks in my riding of Cambridge who have lost their jobs. This will definitely help them.

On the one hand, I do want to thank the NDP for coming to its senses, reading a bill for once, and deciding to vote for it. The member for Welland made a comment that Canadians want to work and sometimes they have to collect unemployment. I could not agree more with that.

This government has brought in a number of initiatives outside of employment insurance: economic stimulus programs that are creating jobs. In his own riding, this government made an announcement for the community adjustment fund and the member voted against money for his own area of Welland to create jobs.

The member never once asked me to help get money into his riding. Other members around Welland did that. We were able to help his riding despite his intervention and despite the fact that he--

[The Acting Speaker, NDP, Denise Savoie]

I would like to give the hon. member the opportunity to respond. There are 30 seconds.

On a point of order, the hon. minister of state.

[Gary Goodyear, Conservative, Cambridge, ON]

Madam Speaker, I have been here all afternoon and I have noticed there is often a tendency to cut off the question. I do appreciate that there is only 30 seconds. In fact, I think you are justified in this case.

This is my first opportunity to stand up and ask a question. You did not recognize me the last time and you went to the Liberals. I wonder if you could pay some fair attention and give people proper time to ask their questions so we can have a debate that is democratic.

[The Acting Speaker, NDP, Denise Savoie]

I can assure the hon. member that I will recognize him in a proper, appropriate rotation as much as I can.

The hon. member for Welland has 30 seconds to respond.

[Malcolm Allen, NDP, Welland, ON]

Thank you, Madam Speaker, for allowing me the 30 seconds.

Clearly we are talking about employment insurance and how to make the system correct. A hodgepodge fix of this and that to cobble together a system that is broken and needs to be fixed will not work.

What will work is revamping the system and making it work for Canadians. They expect no less of us. That is exactly what we are saying. To layer the system with more inconsistencies, to put one piece on top of the other in a broken system will not fix it.

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

Madam Speaker, this past summer I was one of those people who was quite disappointed in two things. One was that there was a very important discussion in Ottawa between the Conservatives and the Liberals on EI that two duly elected parties to this House were not privy to. We were not invited. We were not included. It was not a complete and inclusive process.

With that in mind, I am pleased we are having this conversation, however limited, about an issue that affects so many across this country. It will continue to affect many people as the recession we are in continues to roll on and more and more people find themselves unemployed.

It was unfortunate that more of us were not engaged in that conservation this summer. I think if more of us had been engaged, there might have been more potential for an agreement.

I have been privy to, and part of, many negotiations, discussions and efforts to bridge gaps and bring people together. I have always found that when there are two people it is difficult, particularly when the divide is obvious and the reason for coming together in the first place is so political, not really looking directly at those who would benefit most.

If others are brought in who can water that down a bit and bring a different perspective to the table, we often find agreement where otherwise it might not be possible.

I was disappointed that we were not invited. There are many in the House, the member for Chambly—Borduas who spoke earlier today and the member from New Brunswick, who have led the fight on EI for so many years. I, and others, have tremendous interest in this, and we have a lot of experience and knowledge. We have been around this issue a number of times. We could have contributed in a significant and important way to that discussion and to the end result, which I think would have gone a long way to assist all our constituents who are struggling with unemployment.

I was disappointed that we were not invited, and I was disappointed that the two parties who came together, as we got reports through the media, seemed to choose to play politics as opposed to getting down to work, rolling up their sleeves and getting something done for unemployed workers and their families in this country.

It was unfortunate and sad that given the amount of time from the middle of June until the middle of September that we were not able to get to where we could say to the people of Canada that we have come together with goodwill, worked hard and this is what we think we can provide, what we think is necessary for the people of the country.

That is why it is important that we have this opportunity, all of us together in this place, and hopefully at committee, to sit down and seriously discuss what has been put in front of us so we might assess its value. Then, in assessing its value, if it falls short, all of us can come to the table with our best game, bring our best ideas forward.

There are a lot of good ideas out there. There have been a number of EI bills brought forward to the House by individual members, their staff and caucuses, who have worked hard to improve the lot for workers and their families in this country. There is no shortage of good ideas and ways forward that would be helpful to the workers, particularly the unemployed workers of this country.

That is why it is so important that we take full advantage of this moment, that we do not continue, as happened this summer between the Conservatives and the Liberals, to play politics at a time when that is not what is needed--as a matter of fact at a time when it is needed least--and that we do something that will be helpful for those hundreds of thousands of unemployed workers and their families.

That is why members of the New Democratic Party want this work done before considering the possibility of an election at some later date. Getting to the meat of the matter, there are hundreds of thousands of people who are unemployed and will continue to be unemployed, and there are more to come. The economists who are looking at this recession as it moves forward are saying on one hand there are signs that perhaps the recession is over, but it is not over for the workers of the country and it will not be over for a number of years.

There will not be a stalling of the rising unemployment we have experienced over the last number months. They are telling us that actually the number of unemployed is going to increase substantially. It is incumbent upon all of us to make sure that those supports and resources are in place so that those people and their families are looked after, in order to allow them to participate in the economy in a way will that will stimulate the economy. If we do not do that, we will be failing those who will not qualify for the unemployment supports that they need to look after themselves and their families, and we will be contributing to the worsening of this recession.

In June I was at a breakfast meeting in Sault Ste. Marie and listened to an economist from the Export Development Corporation. He told us that this recession is coming at us in waves. He described three of the waves we had already been through. He knew what he was talking about. He said that the third and perhaps most damaging and difficult wave for us to manage as a society and as an economy, is the wave that will see hundreds of thousands of people who have been unemployed fall off the unemployment rolls and on to welfare. Those hundreds of thousands of people would then begin to default on their mortgage payments, car payments, student loan payments, and many other things. Many men and women who have children, families and homes are trying to keep body and soul together, who are working to make their communities well will find themselves in a position where they will have little or nothing. Anyone in this country who has ever had to live on welfare will understand that it is not a happy situation.

I ran a soup kitchen in my community for about seven years before I got into politics. I say in all sincerity that there is no one in this country who of their own will would want to be on welfare. It is a debilitating, mind-numbing, paralyzing experience for anyone who has been forced to be on it. It alienates people from the workplace and eventually from their family and friends. In order to get back into the workforce and participate as they previously had would cost society, government and the community in which they live millions of dollars more than it would if we had simply made employment insurance available to them in the amount necessary for them to provide the basics for themselves, to pay the rent, feed their children, send their kids to school, participate in their community.

Because of the very difficult economy we are in, today in this place we speak about that which is of most importance to the people we represent. I ask all members in this place to work together to do the right thing on behalf of their constituents.

[Harold Albrecht, Conservative, Kitchener—Conestoga, ON]

Madam Speaker, my colleague made a great speech. From my personal interaction with him, I know of his hard work and compassion for the less fortunate in our communities.

One of the things I worked on since first being elected was the issue of providing increased opportunities for skilled trades workers. Recently I was able to participate in announcements at Conestoga College for the expansion of opportunities for skilled trades workers through the knowledge infrastructure program. In addition to that, my colleague will know that our government has made significant strides in encouraging apprenticeships with the incentive grant and the completion grant. These are important initiatives to address the issue of skilled trades labour.

With those provisions and all of the great provisions in Bill C-50 to reach long-tenured workers and provide additional training opportunities, I wonder if my colleague from Sault Ste. Marie could comment on what he thinks the reasons are that the Liberal Party has chosen to ignore the plight of the workers which my colleague has outlined so well.

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

Madam Speaker, I am not going to impugn motive on the Liberal Party.

I will say that even though the government has put in place some initiatives, and I give the Conservatives credit for putting this bill on the table because it certainly is a door we can all walk through and hopefully make some changes and improvements, it will only help, I think by the government's figures, 190,000 people.

There are literally hundreds of thousands of people right now who do not qualify for EI and there are more to come. We need to do more. We are not doing enough. That is my message to the House this afternoon.

[Alan Tonks, Liberal, York South—Weston, ON]

Madam Speaker, the House has a great deal of respect for the opinions and the justifications for supporting this bill that both the member for Sault Ste. Marie and the member for Welland have put forward.

I wonder if I could characterize the situation as being in a profound way like the proverbial joke, if it could be a joke, that the operation was a success, but the patient died.

Is it not clear that if there is a sarcastic and cynical attitude toward the approach of 360 hours on qualification for EI that has been suggested as the right approach to dealing with seasonal and regional disparities, with workers on low fixed incomes, with dealing with the issues of the thousands of people who will go on welfare because we do not have the right approach, are we not falling into that cynical approach where it was quoted, and I say this with respect to one of the members from the government side, we are suppressing job creation with this 45-day work year, we are undermining the deep rooted Canadian values for hard work?

We agree with those, but by supporting this are we going to encourage the government away from the right solution, the very solution that we share in common? How can we avoid that if that is the kind of cynicism that exists on the other side?

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

Madam Speaker, again, just as I did not impugn motive on the Liberals, I am not going to impugn motive on the Conservatives.

I will say that it is not enough, and it really is not enough, and there is a lot more that can be done. I spoke in my speech about the tons of work and ideas that have been brought before this House through the various bills that have been tabled to reform EI. We really need to sit down and look at that and do something with it.

This is an opening to bring forward our best ideas, without cynicism, with great hope. and to spend at least $1 billion on the unemployed in this country rather than $300 million on an election that would not give us anything at the end day, or at least would not give it to us quickly enough. It may give us more if the makeup of this place were different after the election, which we can all only hope for.

At this point the question is whether we take advantage, at this moment, of $1 billion to spend on unemployed workers with the possibility of some improvements when we consider this bill in committee, or whether we simply say we will go to an election and spend $300 million, which, at the end of the day, would not help those who are unemployed in our communities.

[Navdeep Bains, Liberal, Mississauga—Brampton South, ON]

Madam Speaker, I rise today to speak to Bill C-50, An Act to amend the Employment Insurance Act . This enactment seeks to amend 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 seeks to increase the maximum number of weeks for which benefits may be paid to certain claimants not in Canada. That is in the summary of the bill.

I believe, and members on this side of the House in the Liberal Party believe, that it is too little too late for Canada's unemployed. Because this is a confidence matter, I and the Liberal Party will be opposing the bill.

It did not have to be like this. Back in June, the Liberal Party was able to convince the Conservatives that we could work together on this issue. We struck an employment insurance working group. However, the Conservatives were more interested in playing games than actually helping Canada's unemployed.

We had agreed to discuss two key issues as part of our mandate. The first was to allow self-employed Canadians to participate voluntarily in the employment insurance system and the second was to improve the eligibility requirements in order to ensure reasonable fairness.

Despite this, the Conservatives did nothing to bring forward any meaningful proposal. Instead, they spent the summer attacking our ideas with fake number that the Parliamentary Budget Officer has confirmed as incorrect.

The Conservatives' total cost estimate, including static and dynamic costs of $2.4 billion, presented to the employment insurance working group on August 14 overstates the cost of the proposed 360-hour national standard of EI eligibility.

As the Parliamentary Budget Officer believes, the government's dynamic cost estimate is flawed. More important, the Parliamentary Budget Officer also believes that only static costs should be considered in costing the proposal, given the structure of the program and since the proposed changes to the EI system are in effect for only one year.

Based on the material presented to the EI working group, the Parliamentary Budget Officer's calculations show that the government's own estimate of the static cost of the proposed 360-hour national standard is about $1.148 billion, and that includes the administrative costs.

In the opinion of the Parliamentary Budget Officer, the $1.14 billion static cost estimate is a reasonable estimate of the cost of the proposed 360-hour national standard of EI eligibility. According to the Parliamentary Budget Officer, the government's total cost estimate in excess of $4 billion presented on August 6 is not consistent with the proposed 360-hour national standard, as it includes unemployed individuals not covered by the proposal, for example, special beneficiaries, new entrants and re-entrants to the labour force.

It was Liberal members who brought forward these ideas on how we could truly and meaningfully help long-tenured workers. Yet the minister stands in the House and says with a straight face that we walked away from the table. There was nothing to walk away from. The Conservatives had made up their minds right from the start that they would be unwilling to co-operate.

The government says one thing and does another. How can we work with that? How can we trust that?

Just today, as I heard the minister speak in the House, I was astonished to hear the minister state that no Liberals attended a briefing on the bill which she held yesterday. I would have been delighted to attend such a briefing, but I was never invited. None of my Liberal colleagues were invited either.

How did we get to this situation? It did not have to be this way.

This again raises questions about how can we believe the government, how can we have confidence in the government.

After all, the Prime Minister himself broke his promise not to tax income trusts, which hurt many seniors and others in my riding. He promised he would never appoint senators and yet, in one year, he has appointed more people to the Senate than any other person since Confederation. He promised fixed election dates, but he broke his own law and called an election anyway. He promised not to raise taxes and right after being elected, he raised personal income taxes. Now, he will be imposing a $13-billion job-killing payroll tax, breaking yet another promise.

This flip-flopping and a trail of broken promises would be funny, but this is a very serious matter. The government claims that it wants to help workers, but just as it tries to extend a few crumbs to the unemployed with this bill, it will simultaneously raise taxes on middle-class families and small businesses. How does this help our economy as it struggles to recover through this recession? By the way, it was a recession the Prime Minister would not even acknowledge until it was impossible to ignore. Just over a month ago the Minister of Human Resources and Skills Development herself said:

We have to make sure, also, that when we come out of this recession that we are not going to be burdening employers and employees with huge increases in payroll taxes.

How does this reconcile with her comments and her increase in payroll taxes? Have her beliefs changed so quickly? This is the reason. This is an example of why we have lost confidence in the government. We cannot believe a single word its members say.

What is more surprising than the government's position and the lack of confidence that we have in it is the fact that the Conservative's coalition partner, the NDP, has decided to give up on its principles just for partisan positioning. There was rarely a time in the past two Parliaments when the NDP members did not remind us all about how many times they opposed the Conservatives. The NDP members have not been interested in making Parliament work. In fact, they blamed the official opposition whenever we did work with the government. Any time we worked in a meaningful way to help Canadians, to move the agenda forward, they mocked us. They made fun of us. They thumped their chests. They opposed budgets and other money bills seconds after they were tabled. Yet as soon as the Liberal Party made up its mind that we had lost confidence in the government, the NDP always changed its mind. When their vote really mattered, when their vote really counted, they panicked.

Did their supporters ask them to do this? No. In fact Canadian Auto Workers president has described the reforms that are being presented today in Bill C-50 as crumbs for the unemployed, dismissing them as doing little to help the vast majority of the unemployed. Perhaps then they have found some common ground with the Conservatives. Perhaps the government has given into their demands. Not at all. In fact, the Globe and Mail calls this offer thin gruel for the NDP. Why would the NDP members sell out their supporters and their beliefs? I think the Toronto Star summed it up best yesterday when it wrote:

...the New Democratic Party, watching its political fortunes tumble and its financial contributions trickle in, is simply trying to stave off another election even if it means breathing life into a right-wing government.

The NDP, which claims to be the voice of Canadian workers, has abandoned those same workers just because it is too afraid to take a stand.

Let me give another example. The member for Windsor—Tecumseh, a well-respected colleague of ours, said, “the bill could be a particular letdown for many in Windsor because contrary to the human resources minister's claim workers having paid in seven of the previous ten years would see extended benefits, the actual time period is much longer”.

There is a reluctance, a hesitation, a lack of conviction, so why are they supporting the bill?

I want to share a few stories in my riding about the importance of EI, because the economic crisis has hit people in Mississauga—Brampton South very hard. Our unemployment rate hovers around 11%, compared to a rate of about 6.5% when the Conservatives came to power. Within four years we have seen the unemployment rate in that region almost double. Nationally, over 1.6 million Canadians are unemployed, and as of June we had 816,000 Canadians collecting EI. That is an increase of 39,500 people over the previous month.

To put that in perspective, Mississauga—Brampton South has 44,000 households. That is nearly one job lost for every home in my riding, and that is in just over one month. This is a situation unprecedented, yet the Conservatives propose only piecemeal changes and only then when they are backed into a corner.

Are people better off today than they were four years ago? That is the question I ask people when I meet them in my riding, and the answer is no.

I have heard heartbreaking stories from constituents who have fallen on hard times and have been treated very poorly by the government. For example, one gentleman was laid off last September but he was too proud to apply for EI right away. Yet when financial circumstances finally forced him to apply, he was told by the government that he only qualified for $68 a week because he no longer had enough hours. I doubt anyone could survive on such an amount.

Another woman in my riding took a voluntary package from her employer and left her workplace in order to save a colleague's job. The government told her that she would have to wait until her package ran out before she could apply for EI. When she did, which she was told to do, she was denied her benefits because they had given her bad advice. These are all documented cases in my riding.

As another example, a woman struggled to make ends meet with a new baby in the house when maternity benefits were delayed for three months after she had given birth.

One especially tragic story is of a constituent who was denied EI benefits because he was literally one hour short of the standard. Yet, if he lived in Burlington, a short drive from his home in Mississauga, he would have qualified. None of these stories seems to matter to the Conservatives, because they did nothing to bring forward meaningful legislation or proposals on EI reform.

In our critique of Bill C-50, I have been very clear about our concerns and why we in the Liberal Party are opposing it. What is our plan? What is our proposal? What is it that we are willing to present as an alternative?

Having 58 different standards for eligibility for EI is an obvious problem. Every Canadian should have equal access and not be judged based on his or her postal code. This speaks to Liberal values, a belief in fairness and equality, which underpins all of our policies. That is why the Liberal leader has been advocating for one national standard.

We propose the 360-hour standard of eligibility. If implemented quickly and in a timely manner, this proposal could help another 150,000 people out of the 1.6 million Canadians who are unemployed.

We even indicated that we would be flexible in terms of what that standard would be, but again the Conservatives have responded by ignoring our ideas and replying with propaganda and misinformation. We hear that time and time again. They continue to attack our ideas and misinform and mislead Canadians as opposed to having meaningful dialogue and debate on the substantive matters of our policy proposals.

I demonstrated that very clearly when I talked about our cost estimates, which were verified by the PBO, as opposed to their outrageous cost estimates, which were part of their propaganda and misinformation exercise.

This is not a Liberal way. We have proposals to fix EI and provide the support that Canadians need to weather this financial storm. The government has proven it cannot be trusted to look out for the interests of its citizens. It has lost our confidence and the confidence of Canadians. Canadians do not deserve crumbs. They deserve real, meaningful reform and help.

I have outlined very clearly why we have lost confidence and why we cannot trust the government. I have also very clearly articulated some examples that I have seen first-hand in my riding of how the EI system in its current form is not helping people and how people are falling through the cracks.

We will continue to work hard to earn the trust of Canadians, because I believe the proposal that I described, that Liberals have been advocating for months and months now, on which we tried to work with the government and other parties, is a proposal that makes sense and will really help people.

We can do better, we will do better and I am confident that with the trust of Canadians, whenever the next election takes place we will be able to earn that trust and form a Liberal government that will be able to implement real, meaningful EI reform.

[Mike Wallace, Conservative, Burlington, ON]

Madam Speaker, I enjoyed listening to the speech of my colleague across the way and I have really just one fundamental question.

I am on the finance committee. Yesterday, we had the Canadian Labour Congress in front of us. The Canadian Labour Congress was talking about employment insurance, the length of time to qualify, and so on. They indicated that they were interested in a qualifying time of 350 or 360 hours. I cannot remember the exact number.

I asked the member from the Canadian Labour Congress who was presenting in front of us the direct question how long they had been asking for this change to EI. I asked if they had been to the budget deliberations before the budget process. They had been here for years and years.

The Canadian Labour Congress have been asking for years and years, long before the Conservative government took office. Why did the Liberal Party not implement the 360-hour EI requirements when they were in power?

[Navdeep Bains, Liberal, Mississauga—Brampton South, ON]

Madam Speaker, I am very proud of our track record when we were in government. We extended paternity and maternity benefits under EI. Not only that, we fixed the fiscal house that the Conservatives had left in complete disarray when Mr. Mulroney left a $42 billion deficit. We worked hard with the rest of Canadians to balance our books.

However, the question being asked is why we need a national standard today. Why do we need a national standard that can really help Canadians? The answer is very simple. We have an unprecedented number of people who are unemployed. People need assistance. There are over 816,000 people collecting EI. We are fighting for regional fairness.

Now is the time to do it, because when they get that money, they spend that money. Not only does it help people, but it also helps us during our economic recovery. That is why we are advocating for that proposal today.

[Richard Nadeau, Bloc, Gatineau, QC]

Madam Speaker, I have a question for the member who is boasting about his party.

How can he stand here today giving advice on employment insurance? We know that when the Liberals were in power, they squandered the money of workers and took more than $50 billion. That was not the government's money; it belonged to workers and employers. The Liberals took this money to pay down the massive federal government debt. Not even Mulroney's previous Conservative government did that. It did not have the audacity to take money from workers and employers in a misguided effort to run the country. It continued to run the country without taking money from workers.

Today, I would like to know how he can rise in this House and tell us he has recommendations, when the Jean Chrétien government, with finance minister Paul Martin, squandered the money of workers? What nerve. Shame on him.

[Navdeep Bains, Liberal, Mississauga—Brampton South, ON]

Madam Speaker, last time I checked, I thought we were debating Bill C-50, a bill that the Conservatives have brought forward.

Speaking to that bill, the flaw that we have seen and clearly demonstrated is that it lacks regional representation. It does not deal with regional fairness, fairness that would help forestry workers in the province of Quebec and fairness that would help seasonal workers across this country.

It is surprising to see the NDP flip-flop. It is also surprising that the Bloc is so outraged. We are making our position very clear. We are opposing the government and we would count on their support in our proposal.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Madam Speaker, my hon. friend talked about propaganda and misinformation. Liberals promised a national child care system. They promised a national housing program. They promised to pull out of NAFTA. Talk about propaganda and misinformation.

This member has the audacity to talk about breathing life into government. They did it 79 times because they were cowards and afraid of an election. Now, the NDP is supporting this because it is good for people and because Canadians do not want an election. He talks about the importance of EI. They ignored this program for 13 years and did nothing. I worked and helped unemployed workers for 13 years and sat across from them when they got their pittance of a weekly allowance that the government did nothing to improve.

They did nothing to change the rules that disqualified people if they quit or were fired. The Liberal government did nothing for that. They talk about regional differences. The Liberal government brought in the regional differences for EI and they say they cannot survive on the amount of EI today. The Liberal government did not raise the amounts of EI for 13 years. There was only a $50 difference in 13 years.

They did not care a whit about unemployed workers and he stands up and deigns to criticize the New Democrats in the House. The sweet stench of a hypocrite is something else.

[The Acting Speaker, NDP, Denise Savoie]

I would ask the hon. member not to use unparliamentary words such as that and to withdraw that particular word.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Madam Speaker, I will withdraw my last comment.

[Navdeep Bains, Liberal, Mississauga—Brampton South, ON]

Madam Speaker, I can understand why NDP members are so frustrated. They are supporting a right wing government. They are supporting a bill in which they do not believe. That is clearly reflected in a comment that I made earlier, and I will repeat it once again. I hope the NDP members understand. This comment is from a very well-respected member of their caucus, the member for Windsor—Tecumseh, who said:

—the bill could be a particular letdown for many in Windsor because contrary to Human Resources Minister's...claim workers having paid in seven of the previous 10 years would see extended benefits, the actual time period is longer.

There is a reluctance, a hesitation and a frustration, but nevertheless for their own partisan purposes those members are supporting a right wing Conservative government and they are letting down their constituents. Hence why they are frustrated and hence why they are making those comments. They are panicking and they are nervous. I understand that. They can still change their minds.

[Mike Wallace, Conservative, Burlington, ON]

Madam Speaker, the bill extends the number of weeks by 20 for long-tenure employees who find themselves laid off. They can get further benefits.

Does the member agree that they should be getting benefits? Does he agree with this extension, yes or no?

[Navdeep Bains, Liberal, Mississauga—Brampton South, ON]

Madam Speaker, the fundamental question, as I said in my remarks, is this. Do we have confidence in the government? I gave a litany of examples of why we have lost confidence in the Conservative government.

I raised a second point that we had an EI working group. We put meaningful proposals forward. What did the Conservatives do? They mocked them, they started a campaign of misinformation, but they had no alternative proposals.

When there was speculation of a campaign, the Conservatives panicked, became nervous and created this EI reform in the form of Bill C-50, which would do very little to help Canadians. That is unacceptable and that is why we oppose it.

[Joe Comartin, NDP, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

Madam Speaker, this morning the House leader for the Liberals brought a motion wanting unanimous consent to pass this legislation. Unanimous means the Liberals have to go along with it. That is how the system works. Then this afternoon, they are against the bill. I wonder about the flip-flop in less than five hours.

Where is the logic? Where is the consistency? Why the flip-flop? I would like some rationale behind that.

[Navdeep Bains, Liberal, Mississauga—Brampton South, ON]

Madam Speaker, I have a lot of respect for my colleague and I can understand why he is upset. I can understand why he is frustrated. He is now supporting a government that he has not supported in the past.

I would like to quote again because I want to ensure it is on the record. The member for Windsor—Tecumseh said this legislation “could be a particular letdown for many in Windsor”. That is the constituency he represents. He knows he is letting his constituents down.

That is why those members are frustrated. That is why they are panicking. That is why they are standing in the House and attacking us. They have to go back to their constituents next week and explain to them why they supported Conservative Bill C-50, which lets them down.

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

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to speak today in support of Bill C-50, which will temporarily provide additional regular EI benefits to unemployed, long-tenured workers.

The bill would provide a temporary solution to the temporary challenges now faced by many workers who have contributed many years to the EI program. Through no fault of their own, these workers have faced an extended period of uncertainty in the wake of a recession.

Our Conservative government is focused on what really matters to Canadians and helping those hardest hit during this recession by investing in training and creating jobs for those who are suffering. We are providing support to Canadians when they need it.

We have introduced legislation, Bill C-50, providing this extra support to the long-tenured workers. Canadians who have paid premiums for years and are having difficulty finding new jobs now can get an extra five to twenty weeks of EI. That should help about 190,000 long-tenured workers, while they try to seek new employment. This is fair and it is the right thing to do.

We are also moving forward with our campaign promise to provide maternity and paternal benefits to the self-employed, something that is very popular in my riding, especially with all the small businesses in our communities across my riding.

Canadians are already benefiting from the economic action plan that we introduced earlier this year. The best way we can help those who are facing unemployment, and their families and the economy, is to help Canada get back to work. That is our number one priority. That is why our economic action plan included unprecedented investments in training for Canadians, whether they qualified for EI or not. We provided an additional $1.5 billion to help approximately 150,000 Canadians. We also provided an extra five weeks of coverage under the current EI program and that has benefited over 300,000 Canadians.

We are also extending the work-sharing program, protecting jobs for about 165,000 workers across Canada, and that has been really popular. By extending the duration of the work-sharing agreements by 14 weeks to a maximum of 52 weeks, manufacturing and forestry companies have been able to adjust to the temporary slowdown in the economy. Their workers can now make work-sharing arrangements that will keep their skills up to date and help employers avoid the expense of rehiring and retraining when they have to find new people.

In my riding of Selkirk--Interlake, the steel mill and the tertiary industries in Selkirk have made use of this program and it has been extremely effective in helping them through this economic slowdown.

We introduced a career transition assistance initiative that extends the EI benefits of long-tenured workers to a maximum of two years, while they participate in longer term training. The program also gives early access to EI if long-tenured workers use all or part of their severance package to invest in training.

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Barry Devolin]

I must interrupt the member at this time. When we return to this matter, the member for Selkirk--Interlake will have 17 minutes remaining.

It being 5:30 p.m., the House will now proceed to the consideration of private members' business as listed on today's order paper.

The House resumed from September 17 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]

When the bill was last before the House, the hon. member for Selkirk—Interlake had the floor and he has 17 minutes remaining in the time allotted for his remarks.

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

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to continue to speak today in support of Bill C-50, which would provide temporary and additional EI regular benefits to unemployed long-tenured workers.

Canada did not create the financial storms that have hit the global economy. Canada is better placed than other countries to recover. That is small consolation to the many workers who have dedicated their careers to an industry and who now find that this particular industry can no longer sustain their jobs.

Unfortunately, there are many examples of such industries across Canada.

The forestry sector has been hit very hard. Forestry has provided the economic backbone of hundreds of communities across Canada. When a paper mill or a sawmill shuts down, workers who have spent decades in that sector now find that they really have few options for employment in that community.

The challenges are particularly tough for long-tenured workers, many of whom have become highly skilled in this industry. They need more time to find other work.

The manufacturing sector has also been hit very hard during this recession. Perhaps the most obvious examples come from the automotive sector, but many other manufacturing industries are also facing tough times, including the steel industry in my riding of Selkirk--Interlake.

Like forestry, manufacturing has sustained the wealth, prosperity and quality of life of Canadians for generations. It contributes close to 14% of Canada's GDP and employs close to 1.9 million workers across Canada, mostly in full-time jobs. Like forestry, our manufacturing industries have a tremendous spill-over impact, providing jobs for suppliers and service industries and integrating them into global supply chains.

In the 1990s Canada's manufacturing sector grew rapidly as manufacturers took advantage of recent trade agreements and a low valued dollar. Over the past decade manufacturers have faced both structural and cyclical pressures. In the past few years manufacturers have been hit by a series of challenges.

Manufacturers compete with lower cost producers in other countries. They contend with dramatic fluctuations in energy and commodity prices, making it difficult to plan for the long term.

The value of the Canadian dollar has risen and fallen, making our exports harder to price. In the wake of American concerns over security, delays at the Canada-U.S. border have hurt the ability of manufacturers to deliver on time to U.S. customers.

Now we have a recession that has hit the global economy very hard. Across the Canadian manufacturing sector the story is the same: consumers are buying less; investors have less capital to invest; credit is tightening; buyers take longer to pay; and inventories are rising.

The government has taken steps to address the challenges faced by the manufacturing and forestry sectors, and it has taken special care to address the needs of the workers caught in this economic storm, those workers who have put in a long time in their industry.

Let me remind the House that this government was addressing the challenges faced by the forestry and manufacturing industry even before this recession hit. We moved on many fronts: from tax relief to accelerated write-offs for machinery and equipment; from support to the financial system to increasing the flow of trade at the Canada-U.S. border; and from cutting red tape to helping develop a skilled labour force.

As far back as 2007 Canada was one of the first countries to inject major fiscal stimulus into its economy to offset a downturn when we introduced $65 billion in tax reductions. These tax reductions have taken effect just when they are needed most. That is just one example of the prudent planning and strong economic leadership shown by this Conservative government.

In last February's budget we introduced Canada's economic action plan to ensure a quick recovery and long-term economic growth.

The action plan provided $12 billion in new infrastructure stimulus funding over the next two years. This creates jobs in the short-term and for the long-term it builds an infrastructure with the capacity to handle a vibrant economy in the future.

Canada's economic action plan extended the temporary 50% straight line accelerated capital cost allowance rate. Capital intensive industries like forestry and manufacturing can restructure and retool to position themselves for long-term success.

The action plan eliminated the tariffs on a range of machinery and equipment. This will provide over $440 million in savings to Canadian industry over the next five years.

To help companies gain access to financing during these tough times, the action plan provided a coordinated package of measures totalling $200 billion under the extraordinary financing framework. We increased the financing available through Export Development Canada and the Business Development Bank.

These are measures to help the industrial sectors, like forestry and manufacturing, to recover from the recession and retool for the future. These are measures that will help maintain Canada's jobs and create more jobs in years to come. We have also taken steps to help the individual workers affected by the slowdown in these industries.

We launched our Canada skills and transition strategy as well. We introduced the wage earner protection program. If an employer goes bankrupt and cannot pay, the program provides eligible workers with guaranteed and timely payments of the remaining wages, severance, termination and vacation pay.

We extended the targeted initiative for older workers with an additional $60 million over three years to support older workers and their families, and to expand the program to include workers in small cities.

The House will also be aware that we have introduced many changes to employment insurance as part of Canada's economic action plan. Those changes are helping workers and their families get through difficult times. They are helping in the communities where these workers live.

Many programs and initiatives work together to make this happen. For example, we increased funding for training delivered through EI. We are providing five additional weeks of EI regular benefits for all unemployed Canadians and in areas of high unemployment, we increased the maximum duration of EI benefits from 45 to 50 weeks.

Yesterday I talked about the extension in duration of the work sharing agreements by 14 weeks to a maximum of 52 weeks. This has worked so well in my riding of Selkirk—Interlake in the steel industry. We also introduced the career transition program initiative that I talked about as well yesterday.

As the House can see, the government has adjusted the EI programs to respond to the needs of those workers who are hardest hit by the economic downturn.

Now it is time to make another adjustment to address the challenges faced by long-tenured workers who need to find a new job. Many of these people have paid into the EI program for years. Often they have worked in the same industry, sometimes at the same job.

Over the decades they helped strengthen the program with their contributions. Now when these long-tenured workers need help the most, we want to ensure that the program is there for them.

In the bill before us the regular benefits of long-tenured workers would be extended between 5 and 20 weeks. The amount of the extension will depend on the number of years these workers have contributed to the program.

The provisions will remain in place for those who claim EI benefits until September 11, 2010 and the benefits will continue until the fall of 2011. By that time we have every hope that the worst of the economic storm will have past. Workers will be finding new jobs, sometimes in new industries.

The measures in the bill before us will not permanently change the duration of EI benefits. They are temporary responses to a temporary, yet difficult, situation faced by long-tenured workers in certain industries.

With our experience with the career transitions initiative for long-tenured workers, which has been in place since last May, we know that EI claimants from all sectors will benefit from this new measure.

Bill C-50 demonstrates that our government is making responsible choices to support Canadians now and we are not the only ones who think that this type of measure is good for workers and good for the economy.

A couple of weeks ago in the Canadian Press on August 25, Don Drummond, the 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.

This is precisely right. Many Canadians who have worked and contributed for years have been laid off, caught up in the global economic turmoil, and they are having trouble finding new jobs.

As we move toward recovery, job prospects will improve, but until then many unemployed workers will be able to take advantage of an extension in the duration of their benefits through Bill C-50.

Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty said, “It was a step in the right direction”.

Back on June 22, Ken Lewenza, the 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.

Action to help tens of thousands, in fact close to 200,000, long-term workers by our estimates, is exactly what we are providing. We are taking the action needed to extend their EI benefits.

In this month's Policy Options, Jeremy Leonard of the IRPP, the Institute for Research on Public Policy, said that the narrow focus on 360 days was unfortunate because the more serious issue was how to deal with the large number of long-term unemployed who are no longer eligible for EI. Duration of benefits is exactly what we are addressing here today with this bill.

Also, in this month's Policy Options, Janice MacKinnon, the former social services minister of Saskatchewan, said that instead of 360 days, it would be better to expand coverage and improve the benefits of those who have paid into the program for years but find themselves unemployed.

Again, that is exactly what we are doing. We are taking reasonable, fair and affordable actions to help Canadians who have worked hard and paid their taxes for a long time.

The president of the United Steelworkers in our human resources minister's own riding said in Wednesday's paper that, “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”. I agree that the measures in Bill C-50 are a good thing and they will be a good thing for Canadians who need them.

What is unfortunate is the Liberal fixation on its unaffordable and irresponsible 45-day work year. What is even more unfortunate is that the Liberal opposition has decided it is not important enough to help the approximately 190,000 long-tenured workers who will be helped by this bill.

No, helping the unemployed is not important enough to the Liberals on the other side. Their own political ambitions, some might say their own sense of entitlement, seems to have taken the driver's seat. They just cannot work with this government and other parties in the House to ensure that help gets to all Canadians who need it. They just want to oppose us and get back into power.

I know that back in my riding my constituents appreciate the work of this government to ensure that unemployed Canadians are getting the help they need and that we do not send Canadians into an unnecessary election that no one wants.

Our government will remain focused on the economy in 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. We are going to keep working on Bill C-50 to help long-tenured workers.

The minister has indicated that our government is working on measures for the self-employed, as we promised to do, and is moving forward on other parts of our economic action plan to help move Canada toward economic recovery. We are going to keep working toward recovery and I encourage all members to work with us, especially with respect to Bill C-50.

[Brian Murphy, Liberal, Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe, NB]

Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to rise on Bill C-50 and ask the hon. member a question about what the bill does not cover.

This is particularly apt in light of the spring and summer that my native province of New Brunswick that I represent experienced. While my riding does not have a lot of lobster fishermen, it is a centre for distribution of the lobster industry. For all lobster fishers and people working in the industry, it has been a horrible year and season.

That is in addition to the downturn with respect to the forest industry in my province. My province is home to the Irving company and hosts many companies that work in forestry. It has been a disastrous year for seasonal workers and the only crumb from the government provides no real benefit to the seasonal workers of my province who feel completely insulted and left out by what is offered in Bill C-50.

My question to my friend, whom I respect and know is a man of the terroir, who has made a living off of farming and cattle ranching, who knows the people involved in our first primary industries, is this. What will he say on behalf of the government about what this bill does not have for the fishermen and the foresters in my province of New Brunswick?

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

Mr. Speaker, the member may be surprised that I actually represent a great number of commercial fishermen in the freshwater fishery, a very seasonal fishery. In my riding of Selkirk—Interlake there are over 1,200 commercial fishermen. They are telling me that EI is working for them and they appreciate the support they get through EI.

Since the rules have been extended, they can get extra coverage now if they have an unfortunate downturn as a seasonal worker through the EI program. That has always been available to our fishing industry. That is important and something that needs to continue to be there for resource-based industries.

As a matter of fact, we are going to continue to look at expanding EI so that self-employed Canadians, those who make their living off the land, like farmers or small businesses up and down our main streets in small rural communities, are going to be able to get it as we move forward with the additions of maternity and paternal benefits. That will be available to those who are self-employed, which right now does not exist. That is a great way to support women in business and entrepreneurs.

I just finished a tour of my riding and everybody is excited to hear about these changes that we are making to EI.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

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

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

I wonder if the member would correct the record—

[The Speaker, Liberal, Peter Milliken]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[Serge Cardin, Bloc, Sherbrooke, QC]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Mr. Speaker, we know that the Bloc has worked very hard on the whole issue of EI. In fact, it has a bill before the House which would attempt to remove the two-week waiting period, which, by the way, the NDP certainly supports.

However, this is a bill that is aimed at 190,000 workers, a billion dollars, and is intended to help in another way to solve the EI problem. There is nothing stopping the Bloc members from supporting this bill in principle, getting it to committee, trying to make the amendments they want at committee, supporting the bill and getting it through, and at the same time working on getting their existing legislation through the House.

We too have bills on EI before the House. We are not going to give up on those bills just because the government wants to pass this one. If this bill passes, we are going to keep working on these bills that are parallel to this one. Why would the Bloc not do the same thing?

[Serge Cardin, Bloc, Sherbrooke, QC]

Mr. Speaker, recently, the Bloc Québécois offered to put this bill on the fast track, but the government did not want that.

Personally, I remain convinced that the employment insurance system can be improved in a much more efficient manner. The debate and the work in committee will allow us to do that. I am confident that someone across the floor, on the government side, will finally understand. Common sense is important. The Conservatives will have to start using their common sense. Hopefully, they will seize the opportunity with this bill and start showing that they do have some common sense.

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

Mr. Speaker, I want to congratulate my colleague for his excellent speech and for his clarity. I would like to ask him a specific question.

This morning, I saw the headlines in the newspapers saying that the Liberals wanted to speed up the adoption of the bill in order to annoy the NDP. The Liberals hold a grudge against the NDP. I was surprised to read that. In fact, the Liberals oppose the bill for partisan reasons, not because of their convictions. I would like the member to tell me what he thinks of the Liberal position on employment insurance. I think he has much to say about that.

[Serge Cardin, Bloc, Sherbrooke, QC]

Mr. Speaker, time does not permit me to say everything I would have to say about the Liberals' position, and what they have done or not done while in government. I came to this place 11 years ago, in 1998. At the time, the hot topic, the most popular one, was employment insurance. It was a topic of discussion 11 years ago. I once told colleagues who had been here for a while that, while EI was admittedly an important issue, it was raised rather often. In light of the answers provided by the Liberal Party at the time, I came to realize that questions had to be put repeatedly.

I will never forget the time when the then Prime Minister, Mr. Chrétien, answered a question about employment insurance. He said he was eligible for benefits. A minister gestured to him that he did not. Then, he indicated that perhaps he did not need any. In itself, this goes to show that, from the Prime Minister to the then human resources minister, the Liberals were completely out of touch with what a good employment insurance scheme for the people should be. The economy was doing well then, so much so that the government could afford to pay down the debt on the backs of the unemployed, even though the unemployment rate was not very high at the time. The fact remains that the money used to pay down the debt belonged to the unemployed. The Conservative government will run up a $57 billion debt. I am afraid to think about what the next—

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Barry Devolin]

Resuming debate. The hon. Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Public Works and Government Services and to the Minister of National Revenue.

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

Mr. Speaker, thank you for the opportunity to speak in favour of this bill, which will extend regular benefits for long-tenured workers who are unemployed. Many such workers have a hard time finding a new job after working for the same employer for most of their working lives.

I am particularly pleased to take part in today's debate because it allows me to speak on behalf of people who have worked hard their entire lives, who have paid their taxes and their EI premiums, and who have never or rarely had to rely on support from the government.

For the purposes of this new measure, long-tenured workers are defined as those who have paid into the EI system for years, who have rarely had to rely on it, and who come from all sectors of the economy. It is estimated that approximately two-thirds of those who pay into the EI system across Canada correspond to this definition of long-tenured workers. A little more than one-third of those who have lost their jobs across Canada since the end of January and have filed a claim for EI benefits are long-tenured workers. Thanks to their hard work and commitment to their employers, these workers have contributed to the success and prosperity of Canada and Quebec.

In a time of greater economic prosperity, these workers could have finished up their career with the same employer, eventually enjoyed a well deserved retirement and benefited from the corporate pension plan they have contributed to for decades. However, as we all know, the current economic situation is a problem. The current global downturn has devastated economies all over the world, and Canada is no exception.

We only have to look at the morning papers or watch the evening news to see that another company is cutting jobs, laying off employees or closing its doors. Although such events are sad for our country and the communities where they occur, they are a tragedy for those who lose their jobs through no fault of their own. These are very serious circumstances for long-tenured workers who must now face a job market that has changed dramatically and often requires completely different skill sets than they possess.

Although long-tenured workers are being laid off throughout the country, certain Quebec communities have been particularly affected because they are dependent on manufacturing and forestry, two industrial sectors that have been hit hard. For that reason, as a Quebecker, I am proud to see the government taking decisive action to ensure that long-tenured workers in Quebec and the rest of Canada will obtain the additional assistance needed to face the challenges.

Therefore, what proposals does this bill contain and why are they so important to workers who find themselves in this situation? In a nutshell, with this bill the government will provide additional assistance to people who have paid employment insurance premiums for a long time and who, up to now, have not often collected benefits. To be eligible, a claimant must have paid into the system at least 30% of maximum annual premiums in at least 7 of 10 calendar years. They must not have collected regular employment insurance benefits for more than 35 weeks during the past 5 years.

The definition allows up to 35 weeks of regular benefits during the past five years because, in recent years, workers from some industries, including manufacturing and forestry, have received employment insurance benefits during temporary work stoppages.

It is estimated that approximately 190,000 workers, one-quarter of whom live in Quebec, would benefit from this temporary measure.

Once promulgated, this legislation would extend by 5 to 20 weeks the benefits for long-tenured workers, depending on the number of years they have worked and paid EI premiums.

For workers to benefit from this measure as soon as possible, it would be accessible to claimants who are long-tenured workers and whose benefit period was established on January 4, 2009, or nine months before this bill comes into force, whichever is later. The measure would apply to all claims from long-tenured workers established before September 11, 2010, which means that the extended benefits could be paid until the fall of 2011.

This is good news for people who have spent most of their lives working for the same employer in Quebec or in the rest of Canada.

As useful as this new initiative is, it is just one element in a much wider effort to improve the fairness of the employment insurance system and its ability to help workers and their families deal with the present economic downturn.

Canada's economic action plan contains several measures to provide employment insurance benefits to individuals for a longer period of time, together with more efficient service.

The career transition assistance initiative may be very valuable for long-tenured workers.

It extends the benefit period for up to two years while long-tenured workers participate in long-term training. In other words, it enables eligible long-tenured workers to access employment insurance more quickly if they use some or all of their severance pay to cover the cost of training.

The work-sharing program also helps people remain in the active population by providing employment insurance income support to workers who agree to work fewer hours per week while their employer recovers from the economic crisis.

In Canada's economic action plan, we have changed the program to give employers more flexible options to help plan their recovery.

In addition, the agreements can be extended by up to 14 more weeks to optimize the benefits during the economic slowdown.

With this program, employers will be able to avoid hiring new employees and retraining laid-off workers once the company recovers, and employees will be able to continue working, thereby keeping their skills up to date.

As of September 6, 2009, some 165,000 Canadians were benefiting from more than 5,800 work-sharing agreements across Canada.

In addition, as part of the economic action plan, we are investing $60 million more over three years in the targeted initiative for older workers to help workers between 55 and 64 years of age update their skills and gain the work experience they need to get new jobs.

To broaden the scope of the initiative, communities with fewer than 250,000 inhabitants are now eligible for funding.

Under the economic action plan, the government is also providing an additional $1 billion over two years under existing labour market development agreements with provinces and territories to help employment insurance clients acquire the skills they need to get and keep new jobs.

Also, under the strategic training and transition fund, we are investing $500 million over two years to help individuals benefit from training and other support measures, whether or not they qualify for employment insurance.

Since the provinces and territories are in a better position to meet the needs of their own labour markets, this money was delivered through the existing labour market agreements.

Furthermore, the action plan offers an apprenticeship completion grant of $2,000 to apprentices who successfully complete their apprenticeship training in a red seal trade. That is in addition to the existing apprenticeship incentive grant.

Through these two grants, an apprentice could receive $4,000. Up to 20,000 Canadians could benefit from this brand new grant.

The Government of Canada also protects jobs and supports struggling companies in key sectors of our economy. This applies to sectors such as forestry, agriculture and mining, sectors that are particularly vital to Quebec, given their large share of the Quebec economy.

We are helping them through the community adjustment fund, which will provide $1 billion over two years to help promote the economic diversification of communities affected by struggling local industries.

The government is also supporting aboriginal people in Canada with a $100 million investment over three years in the aboriginal skills and employment partnership program. This program offers job training in sectors such as tourism, construction and natural resources, through partnerships between employers and aboriginal organizations.

In addition, the aboriginal skills and training strategic investment fund gives aboriginal people access to important skills training so that they can fully participate in the economic recovery.

Lastly, we recognize the importance of temporary income support for people who are experiencing difficulties, and we are extending regular employment insurance benefits by five weeks—the maximum length of benefits in regions with high unemployment has been extended from 45 to 50 weeks.

All of this means that the Government of Canada will spend some $5.8 billion more than it did last year on employment insurance benefits for Canadians.

It gives me great satisfaction to note that recent statistics have confirmed the effectiveness of the EI system in reacting to Quebec's changing economy. This is proven by the fact that more than 70% of Quebec workers can access the EI system more easily now than one year ago. This is due to the variable entrance requirement, which gives the EI system the flexibility needed to automatically react to changes in local labour markets. When unemployment rates increase, eligibility criteria are relaxed and the duration of benefits is extended.

These standards are adjusted every month, to take into account the latest local unemployment rates. So, the amount of assistance provided increases as the unemployment rate rises, which means that funds are directed to those regions and communities that need it most.

These are just some of the measures introduced by this government to help Canadians and Quebeckers cope with the current global recession. However, despite everything we have done, there is much more to do, such as ensuring that long-tenured workers obtain the additional weeks of support they deserve, and need, to find another job during this difficult time. That is the goal of Bill C-50 before us here today.

Recognizing the importance of this matter, I will vote in favour of this bill, so that long-tenured workers can obtain the assistance and support they need. I strongly encourage all members of the other parties to do the same.

[Scott Simms, Liberal, Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL]

Mr. Speaker, I acknowledge that it is very important for Quebec, but it is also very important for Newfoundland and Labrador. Why? Because we are talking about forestry.

The member talks about long-tenured forestry workers. I want to clarify something with this bill when he talks about long-tenured workers because that seems to be the message we are getting from the government.

There is one classification of forestry workers who are considered long-tenured and they are the loggers. On average, they claim two or three months of EI benefits per year. They have been loggers for a good deal of time, in some cases up to 30 years, on average 10 to 15 years. Certainly, for this particular legislation, over the past five years, they have accumulated more than the required 36 hours.

Here is the problem. I would consider loggers to be long-tenured, but they do not qualify under this particular legislation. What am I supposed to say to these individuals who say, “The Conservatives told us it was fair”? It is, however, not fair to these people. Perhaps specifically, the member from Quebec would like to tell me how I am supposed to deal with that situation?

[Jacques Gourde, Conservative, Lotbinière—Chutes-de-la-Chaudière, QC]

Mr. Speaker, forestry is a very sensitive sector and one that was deeply affected by the global economic crisis. As we know, it is all about markets. Demand for wood products is down and so are prices. This has created tremendous difficulties for many firms, both upstream and downstream from the industry. This has seriously affected those who cut and transport logs, the suppliers and others.

Some mills in the forestry sector have had to close and may one day reopen. Those who have worked there all their lives—for 10, 15, 20 or even 30 years—and who are just about to leave the job market because they are at the end of their working lives—not their actual lives—know that their benefits are about to run out.

Long-tenured workers will receive an additional 5 to 20 weeks and benefit from other measures, such as workforce training, to help them find a new job or wait for the mill to reopen. Those 20 weeks are of vital importance to these workers.

[Gérard Asselin, Bloc, Manicouagan, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I do not accept the hon. member's premise that he is first and foremost a Quebecker and proud to stand for that within the Conservative Party. Personally, I cannot accept that because, in my riding of Manicouagan, we have workers who become unemployed from time to time due to the fact that industries in our region rely heavily on natural resources. There is the forestry industry, the fishing industry and the tourism industry. Legislation cannot divide unemployed workers into the good and the bad. That cannot be done.

The bill states that claimants are not eligible for benefits if they have not contributed at least 30% of the maximum annual premium in 7 of the past 10 years, or in 12 of the past 15 years. The same bill also states that claimants who were paid more than 35 weeks of benefits over the past 5 years, or an average of 7 weeks of benefits per year, are not eligible either.

Who is this bill meant to help, then? It is directly geared toward Ontario's automotive industry, an industry that has seldom had to make massive layoffs, although it is having to do so during this economic crisis. It is tailored to fit the automotive industry in Ontario and does nothing for the workers in the riding of Manicouagan and many other parts of Quebec.

[Jacques Gourde, Conservative, Lotbinière—Chutes-de-la-Chaudière, QC]

Mr. Speaker, let me reiterate that I am proud to be a Quebecker and to sit on this side of the House to be able to really help Quebeckers.

As far as seasonal workers, like those in the tourism and fishing industries who work during the summer, let me tell my colleague that they are still eligible for every other EI measure. There is no problem in that regard. The bill is aimed at long-tenured workers whose EI benefits are running out. They will get 5 to 20 more weeks. That is what being a proud Quebecker is all about. That is what serving Quebeckers means.

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

Mr. Speaker, I am somewhat confused by the approach that my friends in the Liberal Party are taking on this issue. While they were the government for 13 years, they pretty much rammed the EI system and restricted the number of people who could collect. They built up a big surplus in the EI system and then used that $57 billion surplus to pay down the debt. Now they have decided that they want to make improvements in the EI system and have been trying to introduce legislation in the last little while.

Finally, the government has come up with an approach that would deal with 190,000 workers at a cost of $1 billion. We have a choice between supporting that or causing a $300 million election and the Liberal Party has chosen the $300 million election. That to me does not make sense if the Liberals really want to improve the EI system.

[Jacques Gourde, Conservative, Lotbinière—Chutes-de-la-Chaudière, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his excellent question.

My answer it that this measure for long-tenured workers will cost in excess of $900 million, close to $1 billion, but all the initiatives for EI included in our economic action plan amount to $5.8 billion more for Canadians, for mothers and fathers who need this money this year.

That is what we call taking the initiative on this side of the House. That is what being a proud Quebecker is all about.

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

Mr. Speaker, I listened carefully to the answers the parliamentary secretary gave to the member for Manicouagan, and I was completely dumbfounded.

What I understood is that he was saying that a worker who is unfortunate enough to be a seasonal worker, to work in the tourism or forestry industry, will have access to regular EI benefits, but not to the extended benefit period. The government is telling them, “too bad“. They are not fortunate enough to work in a factory that has never shut down.

It is inconceivable that a member from Quebec is in such denial about the job situation in the regions of Quebec. There are many seasonal workers there. Furthermore, this year, there was probably less work in some regions because tourism was affected by the economic crisis.

How can the parliamentary secretary be so stubborn about his position when he knows very well that many unemployed workers in the regions of Quebec will not be eligible for this measure?

[Jacques Gourde, Conservative, Lotbinière—Chutes-de-la-Chaudière, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to remind my colleague that workers in the tourism and fishing sectors and other seasonal industries have surely been working this summer and are thus eligible for EI.

Our bill is aimed at long-tenured workers, people who lost their jobs after working for 10, 15 or 20 years for the same employer. Because of the economic crisis, their jobs are no longer available or their plant is closed indefinitely. Accordingly, these workers will receive between 5 and 20 more weeks of EI benefits.

These people are men and women, fathers and mothers who really need the benefits. We are pleased to put forward this bill for them.

[Kevin Sorenson, Conservative, Crowfoot, AB]

Mr. Speaker, during this global recession Canadians are looking for a couple of things. First of all, they are looking for a government that responds in times of need, and Bill C-50 shows that this government is very responsive. We also want an insurance program that is going to work. There is no use putting something together that is not going to work.

I wonder if small businesses in the member's constituency are speaking the same language as they are in mine. The CFIB and others have told us not to fall for the 360-hour work year, 45-day work year, because it would be too costly to employers, to the economy, to productivity and everything else. Is my colleague hearing that message?

[Jacques Gourde, Conservative, Lotbinière—Chutes-de-la-Chaudière, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am happy to answer my colleague's question.

In my riding, business people are very dynamic. Despite the present economic crisis, the unemployment rate is approximately 5%. Employers keep their employees as long as possible in spite of the economic crisis because they have a hard time finding new employees. When employees leave a job, they find another job in another company. In my region, things are going well in the private sector because the job market is very strong.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I particularly want the opportunity to join the debate on Bill C-50 because it has such a profound effect on the working people in my riding.

I want to start with a bit of history. When the Liberals gutted the EI system, and I mean gutted--they cut and hacked and slashed the EI system to the point where it was a shadow of its former self and completely ineffective as an income security machine--it took $20 million a year out of my riding in income maintenance that used to flow from the EI system.

In that one riding of downtown Winnipeg, $20 million a year of federal money that used to flow into my riding no longer did because they changed the rules so that no one qualified anymore. Then they started milking it like a cash cow, spending the money that was obviously going to accumulate. Workers had no choice but to pay into the program, but nothing was getting paid out. They spent that money that was supposed to be for income maintenance of unemployed workers on the--

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Barry Devolin]

Order. On a point of order, the hon. member for Sherbrooke.

[Serge Cardin, Bloc, Sherbrooke, QC]

Mr. Speaker, bilingualism no longer exists at the Olympic Games, and it seems to have temporarily disappeared from the House of Commons, as well. I would ask the interpreters to push the right button so we can hear the translation.

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Barry Devolin]

I am not sure that is a point of order. Apparently there is a problem with the translation.

Resuming debate, the hon. member for Winnipeg Centre can continue. All his colleagues can hear him now.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I will try to speak slowly for the translators, if that is the issue. Some members are saying that I should start from the beginning, but in the interest of time I really cannot.

I thought it was important that we revisit some of the historical context of the need to reform the EI system, because when the Liberals gutted the system they made a devastating impact in the riding I represent.

There was $20 million a year of federal money that used to come into my low-income riding. The same was true for Winnipeg North, represented by my colleague. She lost $25 million a year. Some ridings in Newfoundland lost $50 million a year of unemployment insurance money that used to come into their communities and was spent locally.

The Liberals gutted that system. They changed the rules to the point that virtually nobody qualified anymore. It ceased being an insurance program and it became an income tax again. It was a payroll tax that they used as a cash cow to pay for anything they could think of.

This is why we welcome this opportunity to try to flow some of that unemployment insurance money into the pockets of unemployed workers, where it properly belongs. That was the intent, purpose and mandate of the unemployment insurance fund. It was to provide income maintenance, not to be a cash cow for the Liberal Party. We wonder where that $54 million of accumulated surplus went. This is the shocking thing.

Now we have an opportunity to do the right thing. We have workers who, through no fault of their own, find themselves unemployed due to the economic downturn. Their unemployment insurance is going to run out. The last thing we want to do is have an election now. That would preclude the possibility of any EI reform, because we would be on the hustings instead of in Parliament facing the legitimate problems our constituents are dealing with.

We welcome the opportunity to make Parliament work. It is said so often here that it is almost a cliché, but that is why we were sent here. If we lose sight of that, we do not deserve to be here. I can say with complete comfort and confidence that we are doing the right thing by enabling this $1 billion to flow into the pockets of the unemployed.

That is not to say that we will stop seeking unemployment insurance and other program reforms. The NDP has 12 private members' bills in the system calling for the reform of various other aspects of EI and those will percolate through the system. We can debate them, bring them to committee and discuss them, but that should not preclude moving forward with one positive development that we do have the power to initiate now to get that money flowing into unemployed people's pockets.

The unemployment insurance system is just that: an insurance program. It is mandatory. The problem with the system now is eligibility. What would one think of a house insurance program that a person was forced to pay into, yet if their house burned down they have a 40% chance of being able to collect any benefit? One would not call that an insurance program at all. They would want the head of the insurance agent who sold them that worthless insurance policy.

That is almost how unemployed people feel in this country today. They are forced to pay into this employment insurance system and they have about a 40% chance of being able to collect anything should the unfortunate reality of finding themselves unemployed come about.

The system is broken; the wheels have fallen off it. The heart and soul of it was ripped out by the Liberal Party in the most ruthless and heartless period of Canadian history, where they undermined and gutted virtually every social program by which we define ourselves as Canadians. They ripped the heart out of it.

We gave them the opportunity for far too long to rule this country. They left no stone unturned to undermine every social program by which we define ourselves as Canadians. They were the most neo-conservative, right-wing government in the history of Canada, and they should be condemned for it.

I do not use the terms lightly when I say that they were gutless, heartless and spineless, and they are exhibiting the same characteristics today. They are often mean-spirited in their development of policies. We gave them far, far too long.

The really unforgivable thing about the Liberals is how they chose to pay down the deficit on the backs of the unemployed by milking the unemployment insurance system like some cash cow.

The second thing they did was to take the $30 billion surplus from the public service pension plan. They did not share that with the beneficiaries of the plan. They did not share that with public servants. They took the whole $30 billion by legislative edict. The last thing Marcel Massé did in this House of Commons before he slunk out of here with his tail between his legs was that he grabbed the whole $30 billion out of the public service pension plan so they could put it into their Liberal slush funds and do God knows what with it. That is how they paid down the deficit when they were given the opportunity.

This is why I say with great pride that I am going to do what I can to put $1 billion back into the pockets of working people that was denied them by the last regime in this House of Commons.

We have an opportunity today. The last thing we want to do is delay the flow of this money by having another election at this time, because it would be a guaranteed eight weeks before anybody could take any action to assist people whose employment insurance is running out.

We are going to do the right thing. We are going to get that money flowing at the earliest possible opportunity.

[John Baird, Conservative, Ottawa West—Nepean, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I was very impressed by the member for Winnipeg Centre's speech, and I would like to ask for unanimous consent for the House to give him an extra half hour to continue.

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Barry Devolin]

Does the minister have unanimous consent?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

No.

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Barry Devolin]

It being 1:30 p.m., the House will now proceed to consideration of private members' business as listed on today's order paper.

When we return to this matter, the hon. member for Winnipeg Centre will have 10 minutes.

The House resumed from September 18 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.

[Brian Jean, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Transport]

Mr. Speaker, I welcome the opportunity today to take part in this vital debate that concerns so many Canadians. I will begin by saying that I think Canadians are looking to this government to provide meaningful assistance and we are delivering the goods to Canadians.

It is mystifying, however, how the leader of the official opposition and his party are behaving. On the one hand, they apparently care so little about the unemployed that they could not actually be bothered to show up at committee meetings that were held this summer and technical briefings on this particular bill. We had great hopes for these particular meetings and it upset many of us to find that the Liberals were not prepared to work with us.

On the other hand, they say that they want to rush this legislation through so it will not interfere with their scheme to plunge the country into another unnecessary, expensive election. Nobody wants an election because we are currently fighting a global economic downturn and we need to have this government continue to show the stewardship and good management that we are showing.

The Liberals do not care about the nearly $1 billion in assistance for long-tenured workers because they are too interested in spending one-third of a billion dollars to advance their leader's personal ambitions. They should be ashamed.

This Conservative government is focused on fighting the recession. The Leader of the Opposition is focused on fighting the recovery. As part of our efforts to ensure economic recovery, our government has introduced many enhancements to the EI system. The bill before us today continues this process. It continues to help Canadian families. It is a much needed step to meet the needs of long-term workers.

It is no secret that the global economic slowdown has affected the lives of many working Canadians from coast to coast. Through no fault of their own, many workers who have held down jobs for years, often in a single industry, have been laid off, in some cases for the first time ever. With the rapid pace of change, it is not clear that these so-called long-tenured workers will even get those jobs back as a result of changes in the global economy.

Before I address how Bill C-50 would help these workers, I will reflect on the changes that are driving it. I want to focus particularly on the auto industry, which has been such an economic powerhouse for our country over the past years.

For generations, manufacturing was the heart and soul of our country in Montreal, Quebec, Ontario and many other parts of the country and the auto industry was the leader of the pack. Even today, with the global economic recession and what has taken place in Canada, it contributes close to 14% of Canada's gross domestic product. That is right, it employs nearly 1.8 million Canadians and that does not include all Canadians who work in jobs that service the auto industry.

An increasing global economy means more competition from low cost producers and there are more speed bumps slowing down our economic growth. Dramatic fluctuations in energy and commodity prices, as well as the Canadian dollar, for example, make it more difficult for our producers to plan ahead and export at a competitive price not knowing whether they will continue to have workers to build these automobiles and continue the manufacturing process in Canada.

These forces hit the industry hard and continue to hit the industry. The recession has only made conditions more difficult. Nervous investors sit on their capital instead of helping to buy new technology that could make industries more innovative and productive by spending their money. Anxious consumers even sit on their wallets waiting to see if prices will drop even further or whether things will happen differently. Meanwhile, too many new vehicles sit on the lots gathering dust and workers' jobs are in jeopardy.

Through all the shifting fortunes of their industry, Canadian auto workers have rolled with the punches. They have done their jobs and done them extremely well but increasingly they have gone home at the end of each day knowing they might literally be at the end of the line. These dedicated workers have paid their dues. As I mentioned, some have never been laid off before and have had these jobs for 30 years or more. They paid their taxes and have not significantly drawn benefits from employment insurance programs because the jobs have been steady and the manufacturing sector has been strong.

However, many are now laid off and their benefits are fast running out. They deserve more and this Conservative government is delivering more. Through Bill C-50, it is determined to give it to them.

I will now highlight how long-tenured workers would benefit from these proposed changes to the EI system.

The changes before the House today would provide additional EI benefits to long-tenured workers. Specifically, they would provide from five to twenty weeks of additional benefits, depending upon circumstances and individual eligibility. In so doing, this initiative would provide these individuals with extra time to find alternative programs and employment.

For the purpose of this new measure, long-tenured workers include workers from all sectors from coast to coast, and about two-thirds of EI contributors meet the definition of long-tenured workers. Just about a third of those who have lost their jobs since the end of January and have established an EI claim are also long-tenured workers. Bill C-50 would provide valuable extra time for these people.

By definition, long-tenured workers have been busy working for many years, decades in some cases, and it can be a terrible shock for them to be suddenly unemployed. On the government side, our hearts go to them. We will continue to fight for their priorities in Ottawa and ensure they get the retraining and the benefits necessary in order to continue their lives and their quality of life. Our goal is to get these extended weeks of benefits to claimants as soon as possible.

The changes proposed today should be seen in a larger context, however. Through Canada's economic action plan, our Conservative government has introduced measures that support all unemployed Canadians. Specifically, we have improved the EI system by extending the duration of regular benefits, by making it easier to take part in work-sharing agreements and helping long-tenured workers make the transition to new careers.

We are also freezing EI premiums until 2010 at the same rate as this year. We are providing an additional $1.5 billion to the provinces and territories to help support skills training, which is so important for these tenured workers who cannot go back to the same jobs they had before.

I also want to pay particular attention to an initiative that complements the one before the House today.

Of all Canadians who lose their jobs, long-tenured workers may have the biggest struggle to get back in the labour force. Many have a specific expertise, such as the auto sector, honed from years of practice and work, which is not readily transferrable to another job in this new marketplace and new global economy. These individuals may need training to develop new skills that can help them find meaningful work in new industries or new occupations.

The career transition assistance initiative, which is part of Canada's economic action plan and of which I am so proud, was designed to meet the particular needs of long-tenured workers.

The government has taken some very positive steps and this case has two components. The first is provisions for up to 104 weeks of regular EI benefits to long-tenured workers taking part in training that extends more than 20 weeks. The second provides earlier access to benefits for long-tenured workers who invest part or all of their severance packages in training.

Many hard-working Canadians have held down jobs for years and rarely have drawn upon the employment insurance program. Now, when times are tough, they deserve a government that will come to their aid. They deserve every opportunity to sharpen their skills without falling further behind, and we in this Conservative government are doing just that. The career transition assistance initiative gives them that chance.

I have spoken at length about this initiative because it concerns long-tenured workers, the same target group that we are addressing through Bill C-50. Indeed, by extending EI benefits for long-tenured workers, this bill is a natural complement to existing initiatives put in place through Canada's economic action plan. An extra five to twenty weeks of employment insurance benefits could make all the difference to long-tenured workers and their families, workers who have given so much of themselves to their jobs and who are now out of work, often for the first time.

By helping to meet the specific needs of these workers, the bill would ultimately help all of us. It would help all Canadians and our economy. Our country cannot afford to let long-tenured workers stay idle too long. They have too much experience and we need to put that to work for Canada, and they certainly want to get back to work just as soon as they can.

This government is coming to the aid of Canadian workers.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I listened with fascination to my hon. colleague's dissertation. What has concerned New Democrats for some time now, as we have seen this economic crisis roll across manufacturing, particularly in the resource sector, is entire communities have had their economic base wiped out. Simply turning that around is not feasible at this moment. Expecting people to reinvent themselves as entrepreneurs in communities like Red Rock, Smooth Rock Falls and Opasatika is simply not realistic.

The issue for us is if we can get these workers through the winter when we are trying to get smaller value added operations up and off the ground. It is the difference between restoring some fundamental economic viability and seeing entire regions plunged into heavy levels of poverty.

I know my hon. colleague represents a resource-based region. Many workers in my region have gone to his region and we would like to have them back working in our region. However, given the issues before us, how soon can we get this money flowing so we can assure those workers they will make it through the winter and can make their house payments?

[Brian Jean, Conservative, Fort McMurray—Athabasca, AB]

Mr. Speaker, first, if the Liberals would not have walked out this summer during the EI committee special hearings, maybe we could have already had this in front of the House for a vote, and we look forward to the support of the NDP. However, the government is moving forward. We are trying to get it done as quickly as possible. With those members help maybe, we might be able to get this money flowing as quickly as possible.

I appreciate the member's constituents who come to northern Alberta. Six per cent of the GDP comes from my riding. Right now we need people working there because there are jobs. We expect those people to go back home and take that money with them so they can share it across Canada. We enjoy them being there and very much welcome them.

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, accountability in this place really gets strained at times. The member will know that the government did not propose any new initiatives at the summer meetings, none. The Conservatives could have suggested the idea of this bill, but they did not. Now the member is somehow suggesting that the Liberals walked out. The Liberals had no meeting to go to. There was no meeting called after the failure to table the documents by the minister.

The other point I want to make is this, and I hope the member will comment on it. It seems that the minister and the member now are making hay over the fact that there was a meeting called to give a briefing on this important bill. They are saying not one Liberal showed up for the meeting. However, if the member would go to the minister's office, or the minister's aide and look at the email that was sent out, he will see that only one Liberal member was given notice of it. If he is complaining that no Liberals attended, it is pretty hard to attend when we do not even get notice. I hope the member will withdraw his criticism of the members who would have liked to attend.

[Brian Jean, Conservative, Fort McMurray—Athabasca, AB]

Mr. Speaker, there are four parties in this place that have been elected by all Canadians, and we are only one of those parties. We have formed government, but we are looking for ideas from everyone. We have sought ideas from the NDP even. We have sought ideas from the Liberals and the Bloc. We know Canadians put all members here and we expect, just like all Canadians, that they work with us. The Liberal members walking out of those meetings was not beneficial.

We need MPs in this place who will work with the government, who will promote good ideas, who will work together to get them. If we would have had those committee meetings with that input from the Liberal Party, which in essence cancelled those meetings, we could have maybe had the bill done more quickly. However, it is too late now. Now we have to seek support from other parties because the Liberals have obviously turned their blind ambition into an election platform for no reason. Canadians do not want an election now. We are in a global economic crisis and the Liberals should act maturely, recognize that and work with us to get this and other bills through, which Canadians so desperately need at this time.

[Mario Laframboise, Bloc, Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, QC]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to speak on behalf of the Bloc Québécois today on Bill C-50 to reform employment insurance.

I deliberately did not intervene in the previous debate between the Conservative and the NDP members. I allowed the NDP member to ask his questions because I am trying to figure it out. This bill, supported by the New Democratic Party, will help the auto sector. The Conservative member's speech was eloquent and 65% of his presentation addressed that aspect.

It is true that the automobile sector is in crisis. In 2008, the Conference Board already forecast the loss of 15,000 jobs in that sector. Workers in the auto sector are considered long-tenured workers.

To date, 15,836 jobs have been lost in the Quebec forestry sector, more than will be lost in the auto sector. No bill or assistance has been introduced to help the forestry sector. When we talk about this to the Conservatives, they tell us that those workers must switch careers. Forestry workers will probably be transformed into oil sands workers in the riding of our Conservative colleague from Fort McMurray—Athabasca.

This is ridiculous because the forest is like a garden with trees that grow back, whereas the oil sands provide non-renewable energy. One day, there will be no more. To hear the Conservatives talk, they are going to increase oil sands production fivefold. Thus, we will exhaust these resources more quickly. This Parliament, with the support of the NDP, is attempting to transform forestry workers into oil sands or oil production workers. that is just ludicrous, especially from the New Democratic Party.

I find it particularly ridiculous that we are creating new classes of workers. There are long-tenured workers, who are the auto workers. The remaining workers—in the forestry, tourism, agriculture and fisheries sectors—are not long-tenured workers. Even though these people have devoted their lives to maintaining industries that are found in all regions of Quebec and the rest of Canada, they are not treated in the same way by the NDP because they do not consider them to be long-tenured workers.

This is an aberration, and it is frustrating, because a great deal of money is being spent. The Bloc Québécois has introduced bills in this House, and the other parties have defeated them. The Bloc Québécois has tabled plans for employment insurance. Before the latest budget came down, the Bloc Québécois was the only opposition party that proposed a recovery plan. The Minister of Finance even congratulated us. But the Liberals supported the Conservatives on that budget, all because some members of this House are trying to save their own jobs instead of defending their constituents' jobs. I find that scary.

The Liberals wanted to save their jobs when the latest budget was tabled, because their polling numbers were not very good. Now, the New Democrats want to save their jobs, because their polling numbers are not very good. No one is thinking about the workers, and that is scary.

Once again, it is a good thing the Bloc Québécois members are standing up in this Parliament on behalf of workers in Quebec, especially forestry workers. I repeat that 15,836 forestry jobs have been lost in Quebec to date. We do not care much about polls, and it will not bother us to go to an election if we no longer have confidence in this government, which is ignoring a whole slew of workers who have lost their jobs. We will not hesitate to put our seats on the line on that issue. That is the strength of the Bloc Québécois. All the analysts and reporters are wondering what is happening in Quebec and why Quebeckers do not like Canada.

It is simple. Quebeckers just want members who defend their interests. That is what we do every day, and we take pride in doing it. What is happening right now in this House is out of control. It is an aberration, especially when it comes to this bill, which is designed as an assistance program for the automotive industry.

I believe that our Conservative colleague was honest: for 60% of his presentation, he talked about the auto sector, saying that it represented 14% of GDP.

What he forgot to mention is that, according to the Conference Board, some 15,000 jobs were lost in that sector and that over 15,000 jobs were lost in the forestry sector in Quebec alone. He forgot to mention that. He also forgot to mention the fact that his party has decided to ignore forestry workers.

He forgot to mention that his party is not planning to do anything to help agricultural, tourism and fisheries workers. He forgot to mention that. What I have the hardest time understanding is why the NDP is supporting this. I know that people in ridings in the Gaspé peninsula are starting to get angry. When people—workers who have dedicated their lives to fisheries, forestry, tourism and agriculture—see a party like the New Democratic Party, which claims to be the great defender of all workers, support a bill that will help only one industry, the auto industry, I can see why people in NDP ridings might start wondering what is going on. Those people are looking at Quebec and I am sure they are very glad to see that Quebec, at least, has MPs who are defending workers' interests. The only party doing that is the Bloc Québécois.

The government has created a new category of workers, so-called “long-tenured workers”. Simply put, these are workers who, over the past five years, have collected no more than 35 weeks of employment insurance benefits. So, the government created this new class of workers, and all other workers are not long-tenured. I find this term appalling. Conservative and NDP MPs use the term “long-tenured workers” as though workers in forestry, fisheries, tourism and agriculture were not long-tenured workers, even though these people have dedicated their lives to sustaining industries that, in some cases, are seasonal and, in others, like forestry, have been going through a huge crisis for the past five years.

If the Conservative Party—and the Liberal Party in its day—had made a similar effort to get the forestry industry out of the crisis, the industry would now be leading the Canadian economy and we would be out of the recession by now. That is the truth. But once again, forestry does not get the same treatment. It never does. People forget that in the forest, the trees keep growing. There will always be trees. We are sitting on one of the best assets in Quebec's economy, and one of the best in Canada's economy.

Once again, some members in this House—the Conservatives, the Liberals last spring at budget time, and the NDP today—are ignoring the forestry industry. These people are being cast aside. They hear promises. Maybe we will see what happens during an election campaign debate. For five years now, the Bloc Québécois has been rising in this House to say that there is a crisis in the forestry industry. We need to help this industry. It will take loan guarantees. We must be able to modernize our companies. We want to be able to do so because in Quebec, the forestry industry represents 108,000 jobs. That is the reality.

There are forestry workers in the other provinces, too. If we had addressed the forestry crisis five years ago, we could have already come out of the current economic crisis. But once again, the other parties, for purely partisan reasons, have decided to save their own skins. Today, it is the NDP, who, over the next four, five or six weeks will try to make us understand that this measure is truly good for the economy. These members need only return to their ridings and talk to their constituents to understand that these outrageous measures are not good for the economy.

What we needed was a real overhaul of the employment insurance system, especially because, as of 1996, the federal government no longer contributes to the employment insurance fund. It is funded entirely by workers and employers. That is the reality. The Conservatives even have the gall to say that they will use this money to pay down the debt they have racked up.

So, once again, I am proud to stand here on behalf of forestry, agricultural, tourism and fisheries workers. We are obviously against this bill because it is unfair for all the long-tenured workers in these industries.

[Brian Jean, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Transport]

Mr. Speaker, I admire the member for his work. He is on the transport committee with me. I agree with him that we need to have a longer-term vision. This government is the first in many years to look at a long-term vision for renewable resources in this country, recognizing that we cannot renew some of the resources we currently take out of the earth

However, I would disagree with the member on some of what he said. The Bloc is toothless. Only the 10 Conservative members in Quebec can deliver the goods to Quebecers. I think that all Canadians and Quebecers realize that. We have provided many options. This government continues to provide options. We have provided billions of dollars for the agricultural industry and for the forestry sector in Quebec and other places in Canada. In my own riding, I have a huge forestry sector. I have mills that have shut down just in the last few months.

I recognize what happens to families in communities such as Slave Lake and High Prairie that are devastated as a result of mill shutdowns. I am wondering what the member is suggesting we do in this particular case. If the world is not buying Canadian lumber, what is the Bloc going to do? They cannot do anything. It is only this government that can deliver for Canadians and Quebecers.

[Mario Laframboise, Bloc, Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, QC]

Mr. Speaker, first of all, as my Conservative colleague said, there are only a few Conservative members in Quebec. If he had any backbone, he would no longer be a member of that party, especially considering the bill before us, which is clearly bad for Quebec workers. That would be the first thing he could do.

As for the rest, I understand that a program that allows workers in his riding, as he said, to transition from the forestry sector to the oil sands is a program adapted to his needs. However, I am trying to make him understand that the oil sands will not last forever. What will Alberta do when there is no more oil? After all, it is a non-renewable energy source.

In the end, perhaps they will be happy to have programs that will help all workers by considering everyone, not just auto workers, as long-tenured workers. That is the problem I have with the Conservative Party, but I have an even bigger problem with the New Democratic Party, for getting into bed with the Conservatives.

[Joe Volpe, Liberal, Eglinton—Lawrence, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am a little confused by what my hon. colleague from Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel just said. I do know whether he plans to support the government or not. Yet that is the most important question. It is because of the Bloc Québécois and the NDP that the government can continue to claim that the bill it introduced will help Canadian workers.

I think my colleague from Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel is actually speaking on the government side. Perhaps he will answer this question.

He has read the bill. He knows that the bill will not create one single job. He knows as well that the bill is intended to help long-tenured workers.

Just think about that language, long-tenured workers who have contributed for a minimum of x number of years and have not drawn out more than x number of weeks of pay. That means it helps nobody in the auto industry because the auto industry has been using the employment insurance system in order to retool, upgrade and do all kinds of other things.

It means that none of those employees can profit. Why would the member support the government in a smoke-and-mirrors exercise?

[Mario Laframboise, Bloc, Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, QC]

Mr. Speaker, first of all, as my colleague clearly stated, it is true that he may not have understood everything. The point of my speech was to indicate that we will be voting against this bill, as I just mentioned.

However, coming from a Liberal member, it is understandable that he would be asking why we supported a government motion two weeks ago. Quite simply, we supported it because adopting the renovation tax credit was good for Quebeckers. I can understand that it is rather difficult for a Liberal member to rise and defend our constituents. Rising to defend personal interests is a Liberal trademark. That is his problem.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I understand why my Liberal colleagues are frustrated. It is because in this House they have never been interested in any Canadian job. They are interested only in Liberal jobs. That has been the issue with them from the beginning.

I would like to ask my hon. colleague a question. In terms of this bill there is $1 billion on the table that will go to EI. He can say it is only going to a region but it is going to long-tenured workers. Will he not support money getting to unemployed workers?

[Mario Laframboise, Bloc, Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I can understand because just now the member told the Conservative member that a number of citizens in his riding had moved to work in the Conservative member's riding. That is not what I hope for as an MP. I hope that all my constituents will be able to work in my riding. I will be a valiant Quebecker and, unlike the NDP, defend the interests of the workers of my riding.

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to participate in this debate on Bill C-50, concerning the Employment Insurance Act and potential amendments.

My first reaction was to wonder why, if this was really important, it did not happen last May when numerous employment insurance bills were coming before the House on a regular basis. Why did it not happen during the meetings that were negotiated with the Liberal Party to sit down and work out important changes that could help the unemployed? Five hundred thousand families are living on EI right now. Jobs have been lost.

We have debates going on about a stimulus program, and we are going to get this infrastructure money out, and it is going to be shovel ready. How many people can remember when the government kept talking about shovel ready? In most people's minds all it takes is approving the money and giving the money to the approved project, and it is ready to go.

However, that is not the way it works. In fact, at the end of the last fiscal year, which ended March 31, 2009, there was about $3.5 billion of infrastructure funding that lapsed. It was for approved projects that were ready to go. We knew that the economy was under duress. Unemployment was rising and that is when we needed the investment.

Why did it not happen? Why did that $3.5 billion not get out before the end of the fiscal year? It was because the government wanted to manage the bottom line. It did not want to show a bigger deficit than what it was already going to have, because it had promised to balance the books.

I have raised these points to raise the issues of credibility and accountability. Accountability to me is when one can say “I can explain my actions and my decisions or my words truthfully and honestly and in plain and simple language. I can explain and justify them, and everybody will understand”.

However, what we have had is a lot of fuzz. We have had a lot of code words. The minister responsible for infrastructure will not talk about how many projects money has gone out for. He talks about what the government has announced.

There is a project that got money this past week which was announced six years ago. Therefore when the minister responsible for infrastructure talks about something being announced, it means nothing. It is simply trying to evade the reality that in fact monies have not gone out.

We are faced with an employment insurance problem, and we have a bill that has come forward. I think there has been a fair bit of debate and I do not want to repeat it. However, it is clear that there are many good arguments that this bill for long-tenured workers who have not claimed EI but have paid into the system means they are going to be able to draw benefits for longer periods. However, the benefit period will depend on the industry that the worker comes from, whether it be auto, forestry or the resources. Under the bill, that makes a difference.

I looked at the minister's speech, and I did not see that. The minister boasted that she had called for a briefing. In her speech and in question period that same day, Thursday, September 17, the minister went out of her way to make the point that we had a briefing and not one Liberal member came, and that therefore they do not support these important changes for workers.

I found that really hard to believe, because I did not see anything. It took me a couple of hours to track it all down, and what I found is that the e-mail from the minister's office went to only one Liberal member of Parliament. Then the minister had the gall to get up in the House and say, “not one Liberal member attended the briefing meeting”.

That is not my opinion, that is a fact. Government members can ask for a copy of the emails to prove it.

Other members have said that. The parliamentary secretary said the same thing in a speech. They have said that not one Liberal member showed up. When a notice is sent out to only one member, and if that member's staff happens to miss it or the member cannot make it, what do we do? It is not being accountable. It is not being truthful and plain. It is playing games. It is casting aspersions. If the truth were known, if it was in plain and simple language, it would not be an issue, and it should not be brought up.

If the minister's only argument is that the Liberals do not care, that argument just fell apart. On top of that, her colleagues are parroting the same erroneous facts. That is the reality that we have to live with here.

I raise this accountability issue because the member for Selkirk—Interlake on the Friday we were last here went through a little scenario about employment insurance premiums. He said that when the Liberals were in government, they kept raising employment insurance premiums.

After that but before question period, and the record can be checked, I rose on a point of order with the Speaker because this was clearly not a matter of fact. It was, in fact, the reverse. For 12 years in a row the Liberals reduced employment insurance premiums from the position they were at when we took over from Brian Mulroney. I did not know how to deal with this matter other than to raise it with the Speaker and the Speaker had to rule it as a matter of debate.

We have to think about this. If someone says something that is factually incorrect, not a matter of opinion but just factually incorrect, and another member rises to challenge it, there is no recourse in this place. A member has no recourse when another member gives misinformation that he or she knew or ought to have known was false.

The people of Canada continue to get the same rhetoric, the same misinformation. Suddenly, that misinformation shows up in all the Conservative literature that those members send out to everybody else's ridings. Everybody knows about the $30 million worth of ten percenters sent out to ridings of other members of Parliament--

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Barry Devolin]

Order. The hon. Minister of Transport is rising on a point of order.

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.

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, let me deal with one more issue of accountability and basically telling the truth.

The parliamentary secretary talked about Liberal members walking out of the EI meetings in the summer that were organized by the leader of the official opposition. At page 5112 of Hansard of September 17, the member for Dartmouth—Cole Harbour went through the full agenda and the activities that took place. I will not read it, but for reference purposes it stated that every time that government members undertook to put information before the committee in advance of the meeting, they did not. They did table drafts, which meant that when we arrived at the meeting we were given something.

Those meetings were intended to look at opportunities to help 500,000 unemployed Canadians. It is projected that unemployment is going to go to almost 10%. Those meetings were meant to help the unemployed, but the reality is that the government continued to play games. Government members continued to say they would do things but then never delivered.

Now the government has come forward with this legislation. The parliamentary secretary says opposition parties are playing around. If the government were serious about this legislation, it would have referred it to committee before second reading. The bill would have been passed and we would have had this legislation much quicker. Things could have been done.

The reason why the Conservatives did not do that is because if we deal with it at second reading, time will be wasted and it will never get passed in time. Once a bill is passed at second reading, substantive changes cannot be made to it. Therefore, we can only tinker with it at committee and parties that want to improve it have no chance. If the government had referred the bill to committee before second reading, we could have made it a better bill.

That member has not been accountable to Canadians.

[Brian Jean, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Transport]

Mr. Speaker, based on my friend's comments, it appears that he is prepared to support this bill and move it through quickly, instead of having an election that is simply for his leader's self-interest.

Is that what the member is suggesting, that we can move forward and get some work done for Canadians now and that he will support this particular bill and the government's agenda on helping the unemployed in this country? Or is he suggesting that the Liberals will not support us and just want to push us to an election?

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, one of the things that Canadians should note is how often government members want to talk on behalf of the opposition parties and what they are going to do. They never address what they have done. They never have addressed some of the key failings of the government, in terms of accountability.

In terms of accountability, and I was working on a little speech here, how about the income trusts broken promise? That was certainly one. How about the fixed election date?

How about announcing that the Conservatives will not raise taxes, but then announce that they are going to raise employment insurance premiums by $13 billion, which is a tax raise, when the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Finance said that premiums are not a tax?

The government is so out of it, in terms of being honest and truthful with Canadians. This place will only be functional when the government becomes accountable.

[John Rafferty, NDP, Thunder Bay—Rainy River, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it sounds as if this member and perhaps his party are running a little scared and are trying to justify where they are right now.

I have a question for the member. For the people in Thunder Bay—Rainy River, this is a question of a billion dollars for the unemployed or a $300 million election. I heard loud and clear all summer that the election is not a go. Now we see movement from the government on pension reform, on things that we have been talking about, such as protecting workers' pensions. We have seen some movement from the government in the last week.

Let me ask the hon. member this question. Is he not even interested in moving forward, co-operating and protecting workers' pensions?

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, we spent the entire spring trying to get important changes into the EI system, which the government just totally blocked.

I know the hon. member wants to help his constituents and the industries in his area, but he has to understand that the official opposition has a greater responsibility than simply to pick and choose. We have a responsibility to make sure that Canadians know that we have tried and tried, and that the current government cannot be trusted. We can get some peanuts every now and then, but when it gets down to doing the real work on behalf of Canadians, the current Conservative government is not the one that is going to deliver the goods for Canadians.

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

Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask my colleague a question.

Having consulted the major unions in Quebec, we know that they are unanimously opposed to this bill. Acadie Nouvelle reports that unemployed groups, especially on the Acadian peninsula, are against the bill. I believe that my colleague also seriously questions the claim that 190,000 people would benefit from this bill and the $935 million, while our NDP friends are going one better and saying that the figure is now $1 billion.

Do they understand how they come up with these figures? To get 190,000 people, 85% of unemployed workers would have to receive their maximum benefit entitlement, whereas only 25% actually do.

Can my colleague tell us whether he has looked at these figures?

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Barry Devolin]

The hon. member for Mississauga South, a short answer, please.

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Unfortunately, Mr. Speaker, I cannot do the member's question justice. However, what I can say to him is that there is a litany of problems here with the current government where it always gives us big numbers, such as $4.5 billion to do this when in fact it is only $1.5 billion.

Look at the history the government has with the Parliamentary Budget Officer; an officer that in fact the Conservative Party insisted be brought in to oversee and ensure that the government's numbers are right. What do the Conservatives do? They farm the Parliamentary Budget Officer underneath the Library of Parliament and do not give the PBO enough resources to do the job properly. That is not accountability. They are not with the member, and I agree with him. This bill has a billion dollars that is being spent on EI. I believe that there are better initiatives than EI which would help the unemployed today.

[Maurice Vellacott, Conservative, Saskatoon—Wanuskewin, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to contribute to the debate on Bill C-50. I have the privilege of sitting on the particular committee that looks at these kinds of issues.

I will be speaking to the details of the legislation in just a few moments, but first I want to step back and initially give something of a more general perspective as we get started here.

In the short-term, the Canadian economy is going to recover. Our economy has held up relatively well throughout this recession, though of course that does not mean that it hurts any less when Canadians lose their jobs, particularly for those Canadians who have lost jobs in this period of time. It does not hurt less for those Canadians who have not been able to get back into the workforce as yet.

In the long-term, however, our economy is going to change, and through Canada's economic action plan we are dealing effectively with our current difficulties but we also have a vision for the future. It is crucial that that be said and crucial to have at this point in time.

I do not claim to have the gift of prophecy. I am not a prophet, or the son of a prophet as the Good Book says, but I think it is safe to say that the economy of the future will rely upon some different things. It will rely upon high technology, including forms of technology that we cannot even imagine today. Our traditional industries, especially our resource-based industries, are also seeing some major transformations in this light. We want Canadians to be working in that new economy.

I believe that the world is on the cusp of an economic transition, a crucial change coming that will be just as important in its own way as other major transitions of the 18th and the 19th centuries.

The industrial revolution, to take one example, was a tremendous shock to the traditional economies of Europe and America. Millions of hard workers were put out of business by the coming of steam power and mass production. Millions were forced to learn a new way of working. There was a human cost to industrialization but it was temporary, and in the end industrialization created many more jobs than it destroyed. It also brought about a much higher standard of living, and that is important and obvious as well to note.

From the vantage point of two centuries, it is easy to see that industrialization was a good thing. Although there are people who lament its coming and hark back to an earlier era, we do believe that on the whole it was a good thing. In the middle of an economic transition it is not so easy, however, to be philosophical, as we are in these few moments here.

I want to put it rather bluntly. When people are out of work, they cannot pay their mortgages. They stand to lose their cars and their houses. When they do not know whether they will ever have jobs again, because the industry appears to be dying and the skills that they have honed for decades look like they are obsolete, it is not so easy to take that long view, because they are right in the middle of it.

When people lose jobs through not fault of their own, it is a tremendous blow to their identities, self-confidence and sense of security. When we see our families and friends losing their jobs and businesses shut down in our communities, it is hard not to feel real fear about the future; apprehension, anxiety and real fear.

Believe me, our government would like nothing better than to be able to assure Canadians that the downturn will become an upturn and give a specific date, a certain, definite point, but this is a global recession and we are, to a significant degree, affected by what happens in other countries around us and across the globe. Nevertheless, the economic news is encouraging. We can now see the beginning of the end of the recession and the start of our recovery. Canada has weathered that downturn better than most other countries, and I believe we can attribute that to actions by this Conservative government, actions to stimulate the economy, actions to protect jobs and support the unemployed.

We, as the Conservative government, took concrete action to help Canadians through the employment insurance program. We made timely improvements to help Canadians by providing five extra weeks of EI benefits, by making the EI application process easier, faster and better for workers and businesses, as well as increasing opportunities for unemployed Canadians to upgrade their skills and get back into the new and emerging economy.

Canadians are benefiting from those improvements to the EI program. More than 240,000 Canadians have received additional weeks of benefits thanks to the extra five weeks of benefits included in Canada's economic action plan. Canadians are also benefiting from improvements to service delivery. Between April and July, over 750 additional claims-processing staff and over 250 more agents answering calls were hired and trained to help even more Canadians receive their EI benefits as quickly and as efficiently as possible.

Canada's economic action plan also announced the freezing of the employment insurance premium rate for 2010 at $1.73 per $100 of insurable earnings, the same levels as in 2008 and 2009, and actually its lowest level since 1982. I would point out to the Liberal members opposite that while the previous Liberal government may have reduced EI premiums, it is our Conservative government that has them at their lowest level in a quarter of a century.

This government has also created the employment insurance financing board to ensure that the EI premiums paid by hard-working Canadians do not go into general revenues and that they are not available for future governments to use on their pet political projects or to fudge deficit numbers, like the previous Liberal governments did.

I am hearing about the kind of recommendation we are putting into place from chambers of commerce, including the Saskatchewan Chamber of Commerce, that EI premiums should not go into general revenues to be used in a slush fund, pet political project kind of way. Our government's action on that issue is another good thing for Canadians.

I will go back to the freezing of EI premiums for this year, 2009, and next year, 2010. Keeping the EI premium at the same level in 2009 and 2010 rather than allowing it to rise to the break-even level will achieve a projected combined economic stimulus of $10.5 billion. That measure keeps premium rates lower than they would otherwise be. From an employer perspective, the measure provides an incentive to create and retain jobs, and at the same time it leaves more earnings in the hands of employers, which impacts on consumer spending.

We are assisting businesses and their workers experiencing temporary slowdowns through improved and more accessible work sharing agreements. More than 165,000 Canadians are benefiting from work sharing agreements that are in place with over 5,800 employers across Canada.

It is important to ensure Canada's workforce is in position to get good jobs and bounce back from the recession. To help, we have the career transition assistance program, the CTA, a new initiative launched by our government that will help an estimated 40,000 long-term workers who need additional support for retraining to find new jobs.

Through that 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. As well, we are allowing earlier access to EI for eligible workers investing in their own training by using all or part of their severance packages.

This initiative is being implemented in partnership with provinces and territories. The federal government provides income support through the EI program, and the provinces and territories are responsible for providing training support. By working with the provinces and the territories through this and other programs, we are providing Canadians easier access to training that is tailored to the needs of workers in our country's different regions.

As I read the reports from the different chambers across the country, again including my own Saskatchewan Chamber of Commerce, they are certainly supportive of that training component and EI funds being used to that very good end.

The new legislation we are introducing is part of those efforts. Bill C-50 is about extending regular EI benefits to workers who have lost their jobs after working a long time and who have never, or rarely, collected employment insurance or EI regular benefits; in other words, those who have a long-term attachment to the workforce. That is what this bill is about.

These Canadians have paid taxes and EI premiums for many years. It is only fair and right that we support them and their families in this special time of need.

I appreciate the reasoned support of the NDP, and I wish that other members of the House would support something like this on behalf of their constituents. I encourage all members of the House to support these measures.

[Joyce Murray, Liberal, Vancouver Quadra, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the comments by the member opposite in terms of the compassion that members of Parliament feel towards those who have lost their jobs and whose families are impacted. I certainly share that view.

It was an interesting, contextual and philosophical set of comments. The word that really struck me, though, was when the member used the word “timely”. If anything, this proposed bill is completely untimely. We have a government that in its update last November claimed that Canada would be in surplus for this year and future years. That was pretty untimely. It was already a country in deficit. The untimely budget in January proposed a $32 billion deficit, which soon after has skyrocketed to $55 billion.

The thing that is completely mystifying in terms of the government's performance is that it did absolutely nothing to table this measure during the summer, when there was a Liberal-Conservative EI working group to make exactly the improvements to EI that the member claims this bill is about. Instead, the—

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Barry Devolin]

Order. The hon. member for Saskatoon—Wanuskewin.

[Maurice Vellacott, Conservative, Saskatoon—Wanuskewin, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I am not exactly sure what the question was, but I will do my best to respond to the general statements that were made. I do know that the constituents contacting my office have a great appreciation for the five-week extension. I suspect that is the same for members across the way and in this party as well.

We will be extending employment insurance, yet again, for those who have had a long-term attachment to the workforce, and I think that is much appreciated. As the member said, it was a compassionate, caring measure to take. We listen to the input that comes from across the way. In particular, we listen to the input from the Canadian people, who have relayed to the government that this is the kind of temporary measure that is necessary.

[Joe Volpe, Liberal, Eglinton—Lawrence, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I have a great deal of respect for my colleague. He is an interested person and member. I am wondering whether he would explain the ramification of an issue that was brought to the table by my colleague from Mississauga South, and that is the whole question of accountability and trust.

Here we have a member of the government who glories in the achievements of his government, but not one of them has given an indication of what has happened in the last 10 months, where we went from a surplus to a $56 billion deficit. That is $60 billion of deficit.

We ask ourselves what that means. It is either an investment or a shortfall. If it is an investment, I would like the member to tell the House what the Canadian public has received for that $60 billion, because it should have added up to at least 500,000 jobs instead of 500,000 unemployed. Alternatively, it could demonstrate that there is a shortfall of government revenues. Since the Government of Canada takes about 20% of the GDP in taxes, it would mean there has been a shortfall of $300 billion in economic activity.

Under those circumstances, what would possibly possess Canadians to think they ought to renew confidence in a government that is that incompetent and untrustworthy?

[Maurice Vellacott, Conservative, Saskatoon—Wanuskewin, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I have worked with the member in the past. Maybe he should move into the finance critic position and replace the Liberal member who is there; he seems to marshal a fair bit of the supposed evidence at hand.

I would disagree on the premise of a number of the points of why we are in the particular economic condition we are in and, as a government, the extraordinary measures we have had to take. There has been crucial stimulus and infrastructure spending across the country. Those dollars are getting out.

I have done several events and announcements this week. It is much appreciated. People recognize that this is for a period of time. It is infrastructure that is needed in the good times and the bad. It is not for frills or superfluous kinds of stuff; these are very vital things that are being done across the country.

We are in a position of having spent money, but we will come to where we no longer have these deficit budgets and we will work diligently at reducing the major deficit we have in the country.

[Scott Simms, Liberal, Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for Essex for his enthusiasm. He always jumps to his feet in my support. I take it as a great compliment.

Bill C-50 puts us in a situation where, once again, we bring up employment insurance. I have been here for five and a half years. Time and time again we have talked about employment insurance. We have several amendments on the table. Most of them have to do with the fact that members want to lower the qualification period, or at least the barriers to qualifications in that first period. With Bill C-50, we find ourselves talking about the back end of the system, meaning one gets additional weeks. Usually we do not get that. In private members' legislation we usually get a qualifying period that allows people who are unable to find work to benefit when under normal circumstances they would not.

I welcome this debate. However, I believe the bill completely lacks a focus on those people who are unable to qualify.

Over the past few years we have seen several resolutions passed in the House; some have been voted down and some have been voted for. They have included things like lowering the hours to qualify, such as 360 hours for re-entrance. We also talked about 55% to 60% of the benefits to be paid out when one is receiving EI benefits.

Some of the other issues, including the two-week waiting period, also come up, but time and time again they come up as private members' bills. Now we have government legislation in this direction.

Let me start with my own riding of Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor. I want to talk about two types of industry and juxtapose their situation with the intent of this legislation. Let me start with seasonal work and the shrimp plant workers. Work in the plant is a seasonal occupation, as anyone in this country can understand. I am hearing a lot from people who work in particular shrimp plants. Prices have been low. There has been labour unrest in certain cases. They cannot seem to settle on a price. People are unable to qualify for EI in the off season because they lack the hours to qualify.

Bill C-50 does absolutely nothing to address that. At some point I hope the government will give credence to that issue. I would like to see it go to 360 hours, for the reasons I just stated. The majority of my constituents would feel the same way, and I get a lot of feedback from them.

Let me look at another aspect, and this is where we get to the crux of the matter on Bill C-50. Time and again members of the government will stand in the House and say the bill does wonderful things for the long-tenured worker. I would like to give an illustration of a long-tenured worker who has many questions. I live in the town of Bishop's Falls near Grand Falls-Windsor. It recently suffered a major setback when the AbitibiBowater mill closed in the spring of this year. There were upward of 700 people who lost their jobs. Many of these people have called me. They were loggers. We go back to the idea of seasonal work. They were loggers who worked so many weeks of the year and the other weeks could only receive 55% of their income through EI.

Many people will say they do not want to feed into that. They do not want to have someone claiming EI time and time again when they can do other work. One has to understand that this is an aspect of rural Canada. All parties in the House agree it is difficult for seasonal workers in rural areas to get work in the off season and therefore this system was required. We still need someone to log our forests. We still need someone to farm. We still need people to pave our roads. Rural Canada, especially rural Newfoundland, is now so popular because of its rural aspect. Who will be waiting to show people around? It will be tourism workers. They will be in the same situation. People ask why they cannot do something else. In a town of 100 people or less, there is not a lot of industry to go around. This type of policy helps sustain communities such as this.

I have 172 communities in my riding and only one town, Grand Falls-Windsor, has 13,000 people. I have a collection of communities that is vast but the people are proud and this is the type of legislation they need to sustain themselves within their community.

I want to go back to the logger situation. Bill C-50 is what I have a problem with and the loggers want me to ask the government about a situation. If a claimant is paid less than 36 weeks of regular benefits in the 260 weeks before the beginning of the benefit period, they can qualify. What does that mean? Of the 260 weeks, which is approximately five years, if people have received benefits for over 36 weeks, they are out and receive nothing more. Loggers are included in that but my definition of a logger is a long-tenured worker. What do the Conservatives say to them? What do they say to the shrimp plant workers in this situation?

There is a lot of talk in my province from many corners and not just us. I will quote an individual who has done extensive work on the EI system. I respect her opinion because she probably knows more about the EI system than any person I know. Her name is Lana Payne and she is the president of the Newfoundland and Labrador Labour Federation. She has a few things to say about this. She said that Bill C-50 divides the unemployed into two groups: those deemed deserving by the Conservatives of extra benefits and those who are not.

She went on to say that the proposed changes by leaving so many unemployed out essentially blames people for their job losses by penalizing workers who may have had to avail of EI benefits in the past five years.

That brings me to my next point. Many Conservatives have said that they have had people working in the auto industry and had auto plants in their riding and have people who work in newsprint mills and other types of mills. I have a question for them. It is not seasonal work, but in the past five years those mills have suffered shutdowns. The mill was shut down for whatever reason: too much inventory or market conditions persist such that they had to close the mill down for a period of time.What did these people do? They went on EI. For a mill worker, a long-tenured worker, if he or she has received more than 36 weeks, which is about seven weeks a year, which is highly possible, they are out.

The Conservatives tell us that they had to cut it off somewhere. Well, this is not the place to be doing that. I do not think it was well thought out in this situation. We could have done something for these individuals. They are long-tenured workers who, through no fault of their own, were in a situation where they were laid off for a period of time which put them in a very rough situation.

Lana Payne said it quite well. As a matter of fact, it is not just Newfoundland and Labrador but it is also the Canadian federation, the CAW. It is of the same ilk where it claims that the government will qualify 190,000 people. People with the CAW are experts. They are not paid to confront the government. They are not just the opposition. These are people who actually stick up for the people who have jobs or used to. I do admit that some people in the mill at Grand Falls-Windsor where I am from will receive extra benefits, if need be, but a lot of them have gone away to work which disqualifies them yet once again.

Finally, just before last January, if workers were laid off before 2009, they are out. So much for Lewisporte Wholesalers in my riding. I do agree that we need more benefits but this particular bill leaves out so many to the point that it becomes an injustice to actually spend so much time to help so few people.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I listened with great interest to my hon. colleague and it is very clear that the issues of EI are far from being settled.

The question that needs to be asked is how we settle the issue of EI. Do we continue to work as a Parliament and continue to press the government that has been fundamentally against so many of these changes from the beginning and bring change, or do we all jump off the cliff with the Liberal leader because he wants to be prime minister? Those are the questions people are asking me back home.

Many of my constituents who are unemployed will not benefit from this, but they are saying that if they have a choice between giving $1 billion to the unemployed generally or going to an election at this point, they would rather give to the unemployed.

However, that does not mean the issue of EI is over. In fact, we have our bill, as does the member for Algoma—Manitoulin—Kapuskasing. These are bills that are still being brought forward because there are so many problems with EI.

I would like to ask my hon. colleague to put it quite simply to the Canadian people. If it is not good enough, does that mean he will be walking away from the $1 billion that is on the table so the Liberal leader can force an election, or will he propose clear enough changes so we can make this work and people will get some money?

[Scott Simms, Liberal, Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL]

Mr. Speaker, in this particular situation I respect some of the bills that he is speaking to in way of lowering the qualifying period. There is no doubt that some people in his riding and in my riding will benefit from this.

However, he did refer to the partisan aspect of it, and I am glad he did. In this particular situation, after going through two years, they wrote to me through these ten-percenters and talked about how the Liberals were propping up a particular government when it was such sacrilege to them.

If the member wants to throw out some partisan arrows, let us have a look. The NDP members, in this particular situation, have now done, in politics, in this particular House, the equivalent to a triple salchow in figure skating. They have twisted themselves into such a pretzel that now they have become this voice of reason when it was no holds barred before this.

I respect his ideas and his will to change EI but I do not respect how disingenuous the partisan snipes are.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I must say that I was quite entertained by that little outburst.

The reality is that his party voted to kill Kyoto, voted to kill pay equity for women and voted to get rid of the right to strike for public sector workers. There is a difference between rolling over and saying “Don't hit me” and trying to present that as a piece of public policy, and saying “if you want to keep this Parliament going, put something on the table.”

We have a $1 billion on the table. That party has delivered nothing over the last two years except to be a hand puppet for the Conservatives to keep them in power.

I would like to ask the members a question. There is $1 billion on the table. Will they be taking their toys and going home or will they work with us to get this $1 billion rolling?

[Scott Simms, Liberal, Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL]

Mr. Speaker, did I just hear this correctly? Maybe I will check the record.

I have been called a hand puppet. I know my diminutive stature may dictate as such, but is there not a new coalition underway, or am I mistaken here?

The member has become such a hand puppet that he was not even born. I believe he was created by Jim Henson. It is insane in this particular matter that he could do this and it sounds so disingenuous. I find this absolutely incredible.

Let us get back to the fact that those members killed Kyoto. Let us talk about pay equity. If they felt so compelled, they should take the government down now and then change it. They should go ahead. Now the shoe is on the other foot. Now all of a sudden it is two years of down, down, down they go. What do we say? We say that maybe we will take the government down and that maybe there is no confidence. Now all of a sudden the story changes. No, actually we do have confidence. They flip a coin.

I used to be a weatherman and sometimes predictions would go off track. Sometimes we may want to flip a coin to predict weather. Maybe I should start flipping a coin to find out where the NDP are.

[Jean Crowder, NDP, Nanaimo—Cowichan, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I actually hope to speak specifically to Bill C-50 and give a brief summary on what we are talking about in the House. A lot of what we are hearing today is what is not in the bill.

The bill specifically addresses the needs of people whose benefits began after January 4, 2009 and who have claimed less than 35 weeks over the last five years. They would get from five to twenty extra weeks of benefits depending on how long they have been paying into the EI system. The maximum additional weeks for those who have been paying at least 30% of their maximum annual premium in seven of the last ten years is five weeks. To get more they need to have been paying that 30% for a longer period and, to get the full 20 weeks, they need to have paid in for 12 to 15 years. Of course, there is a time limit on this. This measures expires in September 2010. Therefore, what we are talking about is a temporary measure.

In all of the back and forth debate that has happened in the House today, what I have been hearing is the reason not to support the bill because of what it does not contain. What I have not heard is a valid reason for voting against those workers and their families who would benefit from the bill. I have not heard a viable argument that says that those workers who have worked a long time in an industry do not deserve to have this additional benefit.

Much has been said in the House about what is not contained in the bill. I want to touch on that. The bill does not address some of the pressing needs of employment insurance. What many of us in the House know is that in the mid-1990s the Liberal government of the day started to take apart the employment insurance system. As a result of the measures the Liberal government passed in the 1990s, today thousands and thousands of workers simply do not qualify for employment insurance or, if they do qualify, the number of weeks they can claim are insufficient to meet the needs in these economic times.

We have heard people talk about forestry workers and fishers. In my riding, there is no question that many forestry workers would not benefit from Bill C-50. However, I have not heard one forestry worker say that since he or she does not benefit that we should ensure that those people who have worked a long time in a particular industry should not benefit.

The forestry workers in my riding are telling me that we should get on with it, that we should pass the bill and then they will take their issues to Parliament so they can have another piece of legislation that will meet their needs.

Canada has a system that designates labour market areas where unemployment rates are determined. Nanaimo--Cowichan is attached to the Vancouver labour market. Conditions in the Vancouver labour market are better than they are on Vancouver Island so the unemployment rate is lower than it is on Vancouver Island. However, because the unemployment rate is attached to Vancouver, that means that the forestry workers in my riding get less weeks of benefits.

I have been calling on the government to fix that anomaly in the system and to recognize that economic regions that are set, perhaps in Ottawa, do not necessarily recognize the differences in the labour market. This legislation obviously does not deal with this and actually we do not need legislation to fix it. It can be done through a directive.

I know members of the House have spoken about the importance of forestry in their own communities and yet I challenge some of those members because those are the very members who supported the softwood lumber deal.

I want to acknowledge the members of my party, for example, the member for Burnaby—New Westminster who, when the bill came before the House, consistently, with my other colleagues, raised the problems with the softwood lumber agreement. Here we are, some years later, seeing the impact that agreement has had on many of our communities, especially our forestry sector in British Columbia which is in a huge crisis.

I want to remind people that over 90% of the land in British Columbia is crown land, which has some forestry tenure attached to it. This means we are not in a sunset industry in forestry there. We need meaningful reform that will ensure forestry remains viable to the workers, to the families and to their communities. Many communities are suffering because of the softwood lumber agreement.

In addition, as I said, the employment insurance system does not meet the needs of the forestry workers. Many of them have been off and on work for the last five, seven, ten years. Despite all the talk and the rhetoric in the House, we are simply not meeting the needs of the forestry workers.

As well, we have seen the collapse of the sockeye salmon fisheries in British Columbia. I know the minister was out on the west coast, but did not respond to the concerns raised around an overall comprehensive plan to deal with west coast fisheries. This needs to include the fact that many of the commercial fishermen and women will not qualify for employment insurance benefits this year because they simply have not been able to get out on the waters.

Bill C-50 does not deal with the fishermen and women. It may deal, sometimes, with some of the fisheries workers.

In addition, we also have seen that many of our communities, because of those transitions from forestry and from fishing, are now reliant on seasonal and part-time work. In fact, when we look at the numbers that have come out about where jobs have been created, we consistently see that the overwhelming amount of those jobs are in the part-time sector. Bill C-50 does not address the fact that many workers are in part-time seasonal contracts, self-employment.

Again, New Democrats have put forward a comprehensive plan to deal with the deficiencies in the employment insurance system right now.

Back in June, we put a motion before the House of Commons that talked about the kinds of changes we saw as important for the employment insurance system. Those changes included reducing the number of hours that were required to qualify, eliminating the two-week waiting period and increasing the benefit rate.

We have also talked in the House many times about the $57 billion theft from the employment insurance fund. It cannot be described in any other way. Workers and employers contributed premiums to the tune of $57 billion. That was taken away from workers and their employers and put into the general revenue fund to offset a deficit. In any other place where we have funds that are designated for a particular purpose and they go missing sounds like theft to me. When I talk to workers in my communities, they say they want that money back. They do not want it in their own pockets. They want that money to come back into the employment insurance fund so there is money for training for workers who need to make a transition out of the industry in which they are. They want more money for the kinds of innovations and upgrades that are needed in some of the workplaces. They want a higher benefit rate for workers so they can have money to spend in their communities.

While I talk about benefit rates, we also know that the single biggest economic stimulus that we can provide to families, to their communities, is ensure they have an adequate income. One of the ways we can ensure adequate income is to ensure they qualify for the employment insurance benefits, which they have contributed to for many years.

The NDP support for Bill C-50 should in no way construed as overall support for the Conservative government. In this case we are saying that there are workers out there who can benefit from the increased duration of benefits and there simply is no good reason to tell them they do not deserve to have that money.

[Joyce Murray, Liberal, Vancouver Quadra, BC]

Mr. Speaker, it has been interesting listening to the member turn herself into a pretzel to justify voting for the Conservative government at this point.

How can the member and her party have confidence in the government given that this proposal was not tabled earlier? The appropriate time for tabling it was during the summer with the EI task force. Not only that, the government members deliberately falsified the projections for the Liberal proposal, which was very similar to what the NDP was calling for. Not only did the government not take its commitment to that task force seriously, it deliberately falsified and misled Canadians on the implications of the proposals that were supported by that member's party. How can she have confidence in the government on EI given that history?

[Jean Crowder, NDP, Nanaimo—Cowichan, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I will leave the partisan politics for the Liberals and the Conservatives to sort out.

I want to talk about the fact that I certainly did not turn myself into a pretzel. I was very straightforward in talking about what I saw as being an important aspect of the bill and what I saw as being its deficiencies.

Were we to put the interests of all Canadians front and centre, instead of the partisan politics that play out as being some form of debate in the House, we would talk about what we could do to make a difference in their lives, right here, right now.

Bill C-50, despite the fact it does not cover many of the aspects that are important to members in my community and other communities across the country, will deliver some tangible results for some workers in our country. Again, I still have not heard a concrete, justifiable reason to turn down the benefits for those workers.

If we want to talk about making Parliament work, if we want to talk about what is in the best interests of Canadians, it does not seem to me that a party that got nothing for supporting the government 79 times can claim it is putting the interests of Canadians front and centre.

[Mario Laframboise, Bloc, Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I have a real problem with what was just said. I can appreciate that the member is doing everything she can to make us understand that she supports this bill, but the fact is that the bill is a slap in the face to all the other long-tenured workers outside the auto industry. She has forestry workers in her riding. She says she hopes to convince this government to table new measures. The employment insurance fund has to serve workers, but the Conservative Party said that the fund would serve to wipe out the deficit. That is the reality. That is what my colleague wants to support, even though this government no longer has the confidence of the Bloc Québécois. We believe that it is worth spending 36 days on the campaign trail to get a real employment insurance program for workers in all sectors, including forestry, tourism, farming and fishing.

[Jean Crowder, NDP, Nanaimo—Cowichan, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I believe the $50-some billion that disappeared from the EI fund was actually prior to the Conservative tenure.

With regard to the current employment insurance bill before the House, I again acknowledge that it does not cover many of the workers. It does not cover some of the forestry workers in my riding who have been in and out of employment now for a number of years. I have talked about the fishermen and fisherwomen who will not be covered under the legislation.

We can argue about the numbers and whether it is 190,000 workers or slightly less than $1 billion. The fact is up to $1 billion will go into communities from coast to coast to coast. What reason would the member and other members who have spoken against the bill have to turn it down?

I agree we need to continue to work for those other changes. New Democrats have up to a dozen bills in the House which set out changes that are required for the employment insurance system. We need to pass this legislation and work on some of the other legislation that will fix the deficiencies as identified in the House.

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

Mr. Speaker, I am proud to have this opportunity to express my support for Bill C-50, which would amend the Employment Insurance Act to provide additional EI regular benefits to long tenured workers.

As the House is well aware, our government is hard at work to help Canadians in every part of our society deal with the current economic downturn and the challenges that bear on individuals, their families and communities.

We are acutely aware, for example, of the dramatic impact of the global economic downturn on forestry workers in British Columbia. In my riding, across the interior of British Columbia and on Vancouver Island thousands of workers and their families have been affected by forestry plant closures and layoffs. These are men and women who have contributed many years of their lives to building a thriving forestry industry in the province, producing high-quality products in demand throughout Canada and around the world.

I am sure I do not need to say how hard these people work or about the intense pride they take in their jobs. I am equally sure I do not need to explain why they are deserving of our support in this tough economic climate. They have paid their taxes, their dues and their EI premiums. Is it therefore only fair and responsible that we support them and their families in this time of need.

This is why our government is taking unprecedented action to respond to the needs of long-tenured workers who find themselves laid off through no fault of their own. Bill C-50 would enable long-tenured workers in all industries and sectors throughout the country to access additional EI support while our economy recovers. Many of the affected workers have been paying EI premiums for years. In fact, many of these men and women have worked for decades in their particular sectors. They are highly-skilled individuals committed to doing the very best jobs they can. They have paid into the EI program, strengthening it year after year through their contributions, but have never collected EI benefits until now.

Under the legislation, we are proposing the regular EI benefits for these long-tenured workers would be extended by between five and twenty weeks. The amount of the extension would depend on the number of years workers had contributed to the program.

For example, under the legislation, workers who contributed to the program in seven of the past ten years would get an additional five weeks of regular EI benefits. For every additional year of contribution, the number of weeks of benefits would increase by three weeks, up to the twenty week maximum. This additional support would give them more time to look for jobs and, if necessary, get the training they needed to help them participate in the recovering economy.

As I am sure my hon. colleagues will appreciate, our goal is to enable long-tenured workers to access the extended weeks of benefits as soon as possible. We are proposing that these new measures be retroactive so as to cover many workers who are caught up in the peak of layoffs during the recession. We would extend this coverage to claims up to almost a year from now, September 11, 2010. Payments of extended benefits would continue until the fall of 2011 for those who needed them. By that point, we are very hopeful that the most difficult challenges of the economic downturn will be a thing of the past. Workers will be finding and keeping new jobs, sometimes in their former industry and sometimes in a new sector of the economy.

Allow me to be clear that the measures in the bill would not make any permanent changes to the EI eligibility rules. We see the legislation as a temporary, albeit very much needed, response to a temporary situation where Canada's long-tenured workers and their families require our immediate support.

I also want to draw to the attention of the House another measure we have introduced to help long-tenured workers who want to make the transition to a job in a new industry. The career transition assistance initiative extends EI benefits of long-tenured workers to a maximum of two years, while they participate in long-term training. Many of my colleagues have mentioned this valuable flexible program and I would like to mention it as well because it dovetails nicely with the measures in Bill C-50.

Under this initiative, our government is providing an estimated $500 million to help laid-off long-tenured workers upgrade their skills. We are implementing this initiative in partnership with the provinces and territories. The workers in training receive income support through the federal government's EI program, while the provinces and territories provide training support, including additional money to cover the learner's expenses.

This is an important initiative, and the EI changes proposed by Bill C-50 will build on measures our government has introduced through Canada's economic action plan to assist Canadians who find themselves unemployed during these difficult times. These measures include five extra weeks of EI benefits nationally, increasing the maximum duration of benefits from 45 to 50 weeks in regions of high unemployment.

Under Canada's economic action plan, we have also made changes to the work-sharing program to help workers in the labour force and to protect their jobs. This program offers EI income support to workers who are willing to work a reduced work week while their employer pursues the company's economic recovery plan. In my riding, we are using it in many locations, and it is fabulous.

The changes we have made extend the work-sharing agreements by an additional 14 weeks to maximize the benefits for workers and employees during this recovery period. As of today, there are close to 5,800 active work-sharing agreements across the country, protecting the jobs and skills of over 165,000 Canadians. Forestry workers figure largely in the work-sharing program.

I also want to mention the additional $60 million over three years that Canada's economic action plan has invested in targeted initiatives for older workers. This initiative enables people 55 to 64 years of age to get the skills upgrading and work experience they need to make the transition to new jobs. Let me add that we are expanding this initiative's reach so that communities with populations lower than 250,000 are now eligible for funding.

We are making huge investments in training and retraining workers of all ages. We cannot spare any of them. We need the skills, experience, energy and creativity of Canadians to meet the challenges to come. Our government is focused on what matters to Canadians, on finding solutions to help long-term workers who have worked hard and paid into the system for years but who are having trouble finding employment through no fault of their own, on extending benefits to self-employed Canadians, and on getting Canadians back to work through historic investments in infrastructure and skills training.

It is clear that Bill C-50, the measures the minister has spoken of and those introduced in Canada's economic action plan are working for Canadians to get Canadians back to work. That is why I would like the members of the House to support the bill and support Canadians who want to get back to work.

[Joe Volpe, Liberal, Eglinton—Lawrence, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I listened very carefully and I noted that the member opposite was really talking about a plan that has nothing to do with Bill C-50. She talked about issues that were resident in the Canadian action plan, the same plan that has produced 500,000 unemployed and a deficit that is now at $56 billion. However, that was only last week. It is probably higher today.

She talked about it serving employees and workers. Some of these projects were ongoing projects and they have their own merit. She did not talk about what this bill does in terms of the jobs it is going to create, where it is going to create them and in which industries they are going to be created.

I noted as well that she very deliberately left out the references in the bill to all the exemptions that displaced workers are going to face if they want to access EI. Those exemptions are all included under this rubric: Anyone who has used the EI system any time in the last five years will be out of luck. Anybody who has already been unemployed as a result of the government's mismanagement—

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Barry Devolin]

Order. The hon. member for Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo.

[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?

[Dean Allison, Conservative, Niagara West—Glanbrook, ON]

Madam Speaker, I believe the question was what are we doing for those in cyclical industries that sometimes face downturns? I know this government introduced a program a couple of years ago that looked at taking the best 14 weeks for those who are in those industries that are hardest hit. I believe it is a program like this that helps. Just recently we expanded that program. Therefore, there are methods that we continue to look at as needed to help the situation we are facing right now in this country.

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

Madam Speaker, I would like to ask my colleague a question, but I want him to keep something in mind. When he promotes Bill C-50, he says that the bill will help 190,000 unemployed workers with a $935 million budget. To get that number, 85% of unemployed workers would have to collect benefits for the full period to which they are entitled. But only 25% of them do, which, instead of the numbers he has given us, adds up to a budget of, at most, $300 million for 60,000 unemployed workers. We asked senior officials and the parliamentary secretary for the numbers and how they calculated them.

Can the chair of the Committee on Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and Status of Persons with Disabilities tell us how he came up with these numbers?

[Dean Allison, Conservative, Niagara West—Glanbrook, ON]

Madam Speaker, my colleague is part of the human resources committee and is very dedicated. I know he cares a great deal about this issue. I want to state again that it is important to understand that this bill is not the answer to everything. This is one part.

As we consulted with people, this is one of the things that people suggested. There are a number of people who have been working for many years, never collected EI and have not had an opportunity to.

Therefore, we do not believe that this is one size fits all. We have introduced programs for older workers. We have introduced programs for cyclical industries. This is just one more in the suite of programs that we believe are helpful and will be able to help those who need it most.

[John Rafferty, NDP, Thunder Bay—Rainy River, ON]

Madam Speaker, there are approximately 1.6 million people who are unemployed right now. The bill will help tens of thousands of them and I am very pleased to support it.

I do not understand what some members of the House feel would be steps in the right direction. They may be small steps, they may be baby steps, but they are still moving forward and helping Canadians in this country. I for one in all good conscience support that.

I heard people in my riding very clearly all through the summer say, “$1 billion for unemployment or a $300 million election, take your pick”. It was pretty clear which direction we should go in.

Why does the member think there are members of the House who are not interested in making those baby steps, eventually becoming large steps, in the right direction?

[Dean Allison, Conservative, Niagara West—Glanbrook, ON]

Madam Speaker, it has become very apparent to me and to the members on this side of the House that there are those in the opposition who are not going to support anything that happens. Therefore, I would also echo his concerns which are my concerns. Why would we spend money on a costly election right now when so much help is needed for people in this economy and in this country?

[Judy Foote, Liberal, Random—Burin—St. George's, NL]

Madam Speaker, I rise today to speak to Bill C-50. When we talk about the employment insurance system, I am not sure that there is any part of the country where the people have a better understanding of the importance of this system than the people of Newfoundland and Labrador, and certainly the people I represent in Random—Burin—St. George's.

The difficulty we have is when we see a measure come forward that does not take into account the impact that the recession has had on people who, through no fault of their own, have lost their jobs or people who work in a seasonal industry. That in fact is what is happening throughout our country. We are finding that people who work in the forestry industry, in the fishery, in the tourism industry, all of those people, are invaluable to our economy and to ensuring that we work well as a country.

Yet, when it comes to ensuring that they are taken care of, they need to know that in fact they can avail themselves of a system that they themselves put in place. Let us not forget that when we talk about the EI system, we are talking about a system that has been funded by the very people who work throughout our country who will from time to time find themselves unemployed and have to avail themselves of this particular system.

When we hear of a measure that is being put in place for long-tenured workers, we can appreciate that. The problem we have is that there are so many other individuals in the country who need to available themselves of EI, that in fact this particular measure would do nothing for our young people, who work for a period of time, and it would do nothing for people who are seasonal workers. That is why we have a great deal of concern about this one particular measure. It does not recognize that the country is in a sorry state of affairs when we talk about the jobless rate in our country.

In fact, what we are talking about today, when people talk about the country coming out of the recession, is a jobless recovery. That is a sad reflection on what is happening in our country. Because when we realize that people want to work, provide for their families, put food on the table, buy medications, pay their bills, whether it is their mortgage, their heat or their light bill, they need to be gainfully employed, and gainfully employed does not mean being employed on a part-time basis. That is what we are hearing is happening in Canada. We are hearing that even those jobs that are returning are part-time jobs. So, we have so many people who not only need to avail themselves of an EI system but we now have people who can only work on a part-time basis. In some cases, if they were making $20.00 an hour, they are now being asked to accept $10.00 an hour because their job is for half the length of time.

We are finding that people really do not know where to turn. We are asking the government to recognize that this is a serious situation for Canadians. I know that the people I represent are finding it very difficult, particularly in a rural community. We have many communities in our country that are rural by nature. When we talk about a rural community, we are talking about a small number of people, yes, in some of those communities, but what we are also finding is that there really are not any opportunities for them other than to work on a seasonal basis.

So, this type of measure does not take into account the young. It does not take into account those who work on a seasonal basis. It does not take into account at all what has happened to our country as a result of the recession. It does not take into account that we are now in what is called a jobless recovery. It does not take into account that the jobs that are coming back are part-time jobs, not the full-time jobs that people were used to, particularly people who worked in other industries other than the fishery, other than in forestry. I know that in Newfoundland and Labrador, certainly, many in the forestry industry have been on a seasonable basis.

When I look at those who earn their living from the sea, these are people who work very hard, whether they are out in the boats, on the ocean, fishing, or whether they work in the fish plants. I do not know if there is a job that is any more difficult than working in a fish plant. Many people, we are finding now, are of an age when they should be able to retire but they cannot because they do not have a pension. So what they have to do is work until they are 65, until they can avail themselves of the Canada pension plan.

The problem we have is those people are not being looked after. Those people work on a seasonal basis. They have to avail of EI because the fishery itself is a seasonal industry. We are finding a lot of people who are not being taken care of, a lot of people who really need a government that understands their situation. They need a government that recognizes that while we may be on the road somewhat to a recovery, that recovery is not being felt by those who really need to get on with their lives. Again, particularly in rural Canada, people have to turn to neighbours, to other family members and to friends just to make ends meet.

When we talk about our EI system, we need to look at measures to reform a system that responds to the situation in which we find ourselves today. That is why, as the official opposition, we brought up the whole idea of EI reform. That is why we proposed measures that would respond to the situation in which people find themselves today. What response did we get from the government when we tried to sit down with members, when we tried to get them to look at the seriousness of the situation that Canadians faced? All we had were roadblocks put in our way. In fact, the Conservatives did not come forward with either proposal to address any of the issues that Canadians face today, Canadians who find themselves out of the workforce through no fault of their own.

Unfortunately, the government has ignored what is happening to Canadians. My two colleagues from Dartmouth—Cole Harbour and Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine represented the official opposition on the group that was put together to look at EI reform. They had great difficulty trying to get any answers out of the government. In fact, the minister herself refused to participate in the way that it was intended she would, or that we were led to believe she would. We ended up having to say that nothing was happening. The government was not interested in doing anything for the majority of Canadians who found themselves out of work. We know there are a lot of them. We are talking about 486,000 Canadians who are unemployed and are not going to find work. If what we are being told by economists, professionals in business, by any number of people that the recovery we are seeing is a jobless recovery, what is being proposed will do nothing to help the majority of those Canadians who find themselves unemployed.

We depend on those people. We depend on our fishers. We depend on those who service us in the tourism industry. We depend on our loggers. These are Canadians. We are there to represent their interests. We are there to ensure that at the end of the day when they find it difficult, we are here to represent them, to try to deal with that difficulty, to try to help them make ends meet. However, the reality of the situation is the government is not doing that. While Conservatives pay lip service and say that they have done this and done that and increased the number of hours and number of weeks, they have done absolutely nothing to deal with the majority of those Canadians who have lost their jobs through no fault of their own.

There is work to be done and that is why as the official opposition we are telling the government and the NDP that what is being proposed is not good enough. When we talk about Bill C-50, we are telling the government loud and clear that this is not acceptable, not only to us, but it is not acceptable to the majority of Canadians who need a government to understand that this recession has taken its toll on them. The recession has put them in an untenable position where they cannot provide for their families, where they cannot make ends meet and where they really need a government that understands and is sympathetic to the situation in which they find themselves.

[John Rafferty, NDP, Thunder Bay—Rainy River, ON]

Madam Speaker, I listened with interest. The member has concerns about rural Canada, as do I, and I certainly agree with some of her points about the hardships people are facing right now.

However, I have a little trouble listening to a speaker from the party that clearly, over the years, picked the pockets of employers and employees to the tune of $50-some billion and gutted the insurance system.

Would the member not now be interested in taking some small steps toward improving the EI system instead of looking for a $300 million election?

[Judy Foote, Liberal, Random—Burin—St. George's, NL]

Madam Speaker, that is an interesting question from my colleague. The reality is we want to take measures that will make a difference. We want to take measures that will see the majority of Canadians who need support and help from the government, and from any government, get through a difficult time.

One small measure, whether it is a small step, is just not good enough, and that is our point. There are so many other initiatives that could have been taken to reform the EI system and the Conservatives have failed to do it. How the NDP can possibly support this one small measure when there are so many other things that can be done is beyond belief.

[Jean-Claude D'Amours, Liberal, Madawaska—Restigouche, NB]

Madam Speaker, shame on the Conservatives and their NDP supporters for telling workers in the construction, forestry, tourism and agriculture sectors, and seasonal workers in general, that they are not long-tenured workers.

Many of these workers have held the same job for 10 years, 15 years, 20 years, 25 years, even 30 years. But because of the seasons, nobody cuts trees when the forest is buried in 10 feet of snow, and nobody goes fishing when the ocean is covered in ice.

The Conservatives and the New Democrats say that even though all of these people have worked for decades and decades, they cannot collect one red cent from this program.

I am not surprised that the Conservatives are doing this, but the NDP should be ashamed of themselves. They should be ashamed because they claimed that they would stand up for society's most vulnerable seasonal workers.

Can my colleague, who delivered a very nice speech earlier, tell us whether the Conservative government and, worse yet, the New Democratic Party, have completely forgotten seasonal workers' predicament?

[Judy Foote, Liberal, Random—Burin—St. George's, NL]

Madam Speaker, that is exactly the point. When we look at individuals throughout Canada, who comprises the largest portion of our workforce? Our forestry workers, our fishers, our agricultural workers, workers from all those sectors have to avail themselves of EI from time to time. They are seasonal but they have worked in those industries for a long time. Some of them have been working for 20 years in a particular occupation, but because it is seasonal, they have to avail themselves of the system.

It is obvious to anyone who looks at Bill C-50 that the Conservatives, with the support of the NDP, have forgotten about the majority of Canadians who need them at this most crucial time in their lives.

[Alice Wong, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary for Multiculturalism]

Madam Speaker, why did the Liberals walk away from the discussions in the summer if they care about those who are unemployed?

[Judy Foote, Liberal, Random—Burin—St. George's, NL]

Madam Speaker, has my colleague been following what has been happening in the House and the debate that has been going on? Everyone knows the Liberals did not walk away from the table. In fact, the two Liberals who sat at that table were left with no choice because there were absolutely no proposals from the Conservatives, not one thing, and finally, out of frustration, they had to say, “We cannot do this any longer”.

[Alice Wong, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary for Multiculturalism]

Madam Speaker, I am happy to join in the debate today on our government's latest steps to help Canadians facing difficulties.

Our government has been working hard since we formed government to help Canadians. Over the past year, we have been working even harder.

The global economic recession hit Canada hard. Many tens of thousands of Canadians lost their jobs, many of them quite suddenly. This sort of thing is incredibly shocking and stressful on these workers and their families.

This Conservative government has taken strong action to help these Canadians. In January we introduced Canada's economic action plan, which was a plan for economic stimulus to maintain and create jobs, to help our economy recover and to help Canadians get the new skills they needed to succeed in the new jobs of the future as Canada's economy recovered and moved forward.

I would like to talk about these measures for a few moments. These measures include providing five extra weeks of EI regular benefits across the country, including increasing the maximum duration of benefits from 45 to 50 weeks in regions of high unemployment.

Under Canada's economic action plan, we have also made changes to the work-sharing program to help workers stay in the labour force, maintain their skills and protect their jobs. Work sharing allows employers to keep their skilled and experienced employees on, while their business endures a slowdown due to the recession. This program offers EI income support to workers who are willing to work a reduced work week while their employer pursues the company's economic recovery plan.

The changes we have made extend the work-sharing agreements by an additional 14 weeks to maximize the benefits for workers and employers during the recovery period. Work-sharing agreements are not available for 52 weeks. This is an enormous help to Canadian employers and employees alike. As of today, there are close 5,800 active work-sharing agreements across the country, protecting the jobs and skills of over 165,000 Canadians.

I also want to mention the additional $60 million over three years that Canada's economic action plan is investing in the targeted initiative for older workers. This initiative enables people 55 to 64 years of age to get the skills upgrading and work experience they need to make the transition to new jobs.

Let me add that we are expending this initiative's reach so that communities with populations of fewer than 250,000 are now eligible for funding. This will ensure that many more Canadians are able to benefit from this valuable initiative.

Under Canada's economic action plan, workers will also benefit through the increase of funding of $1 billion over two years for skills training under the existing labour market development agreements with the provinces and territories. This additional investment will help people receiving EI benefits to get the skills training they need in our changed economy.

The action plan also has an initiative in place to assist individuals who are ineligible for employment insurance so they too can benefit from training and other support measures.

Through our strategic training and transition fund, we are investing to assist these unemployed Canadians. Because we recognize that the provinces and territories know local needs best, the training programs part of this fund are being delivered at that level.

As well, to support young people entering the trades, the action plan introduced an additional $2,000 apprenticeship completion grant to apprentices who successfully completed an apprenticeship program in a Red Seal trade. This new measure builds on the existing apprenticeship incentive grant.

In addition, through a two year $1 billion community adjustment fund, our government is protecting jobs and supporting businesses in key sectors of our economy that are in difficulty, and this includes forestry, farming and mining.

The fund will support economic diversification in communities affected by the decline in their local industries.

Moreover, as a direct result of Canada's economic action plan, up to 1,000 young people can gain work experience through internships with not for profit and community service organizations under an agreement with the YMCA and YWCA and its new grants for the youth internship program.

As I said, our government recognizes the crucial role that the EI program plays in assisting unemployed Canadians while the economy recovers. This year alone, the government will spend $5.5 billion more on EI benefits for Canadians. I believe this amount speaks volumes about our government's commitment to helping Canadians through the difficulties and the difficult period of this economic recession.

Since coming to office, we have worked diligently to make fair and timely changes to the EI program in keeping with the real needs of Canadians. This is why we have expanded the eligibility for EI compassionate care benefits by enlarging the definition of family members to include a wider range of individuals and it is why we are improving the management and governance of the EI account by establishing the Canada Employment Insurance Financing Board.

Some of my colleagues have mentioned this change and I want to mention it as well. It is important for Canadians. The Employment Insurance Financing Board will ensure that EI premiums paid by hard-working Canadians do not go into general revenues and are not available for future governments to use on their pet political projects or to fudge deficit numbers.

Previous Liberal governments did just that and the money they used to shine their own image is no longer there to help Canadians who need it, the very same Canadians who paid those premiums and expected their money to be there for them. Our Conservative government is ensuring that will not happen again.

As for this bill, Bill C-50 is an important and timely initiative that builds on measures our Conservative government has introduced through Canada's economic action plan to assist Canadians who find themselves unemployed in these difficult times. The changes proposed by Bill C-50 are in keeping with our commitment to have an EI program that Canadians can rely on as their first line of defence when they lose their jobs.

When long-tenured workers lose their jobs, we want measures in place that are as fair and responsive as they possibly can be, measures that reflect and respect their own long contributions to the health of their industries or sectors, their communities and our nation.

As I explained, this legislation proposes a temporary measure that will provide some much needed assistance to long-tenured workers throughout the country. The passage of Bill C-50 will make a difference in their lives and the lives of their families. It will also be proof positive that we support and stand behind them in their efforts to seek and find new jobs. They have striven long and hard to support their industry. Now let us assist them in their time of need.

I call especially on members from the Liberal Party and the Bloc. Whatever their other desires or their other goals, they should see just as clearly as members on this side of the House and other members of the House who are supporting this bill that these measures are important to tens of thousands of Canadians.

The Liberal leader's wish to drive Canadians into an unnecessary election to fulfill his personal goals or to feed his personal vanity should not stand in the way of tens of thousands of unemployed Canadians getting the help they need and deserve.

I, therefore, ask all members of the House to join in supporting Bill C-50.

[Judy Foote, Liberal, Random—Burin—St. George's, NL]

Madam Speaker, I first would like to point out that it is unfortunate in a debate like this that members resort to personal attacks. This is such an important issue that we really need to focus on Canadians and the situation in which they find themselves.

I wonder if the hon. member could tell me what the status is of the financing board.

[Alice Wong, Conservative, Richmond, BC]

Madam Speaker, the financing board will be fully responsible for handling EI premiums and how they will be used. Money collected from people who pay their premiums will be kept by the board in a separate pot and be managed by the board independently.

[Guy André, Bloc, Berthier—Maskinongé, QC]

Madam Speaker, I listened to the hon. member talking about EI and I would like some clarification from her.

For many years, we have been denouncing the pillaging of the employment insurance fund, which has continued under the Conservatives. There is currently a bill before the House, Bill C-50, which will allow a few unemployed to receive extended benefits, while none of the forestry workers and seasonal workers, who have experienced problems with EI in recent years, will be able to benefit from any of these measures. And the pillaging of the EI fund is continuing.

Should steps not be taken to stop the pillaging of the EI fund and to provide assistance not only to those workers who have done without EI these past few years, but all those who are losing their jobs because of the recession that is still ongoing, especially since the OECD predicts that it will last for another few years?

[Alice Wong, Conservative, Richmond, BC]

Madam Speaker, I might suggest that the opposition do some research and some calculations. We have already given out an additional $5.5 billion for EI, which is exactly what people need.

I am asking the opposition to support Bill C-50 in order to help those who have paid premiums their whole life. This is the right time for them to get what they deserve, the extension of five to twenty weeks to those people who really deserve it. That is why we are asking opposition parties to support unemployed Canadians and not block them.

[Christiane Gagnon, Bloc, Québec, QC]

Madam Speaker, I would like to ask the member of the Conservative government who just spoke how her party came up with the figure of 190,000 regarding the number of workers who will see their EI benefits extended under this bill.

We know that, if there are 190,000, the assumption is likely that 85% receive regular benefits up until the end of their qualifying period, when in fact 25% receive the full benefits they are entitled to. Therefore, this is not—at least we do not think so—a meaningful figure. We should be talking instead of $300 million benefiting approximately 60,000 people.

I would like her to explain how that number was calculated. We have asked questions of some members of the Conservative Party, but have been unable to get an answer, either orally or in writing.

[Alice Wong, Conservative, Richmond, BC]

Madam Speaker, we have stated clearly that the five week extension would apply to all Canadians who are unemployed and qualify. This extension of five weeks to twenty weeks would actually apply to long-tenured workers who have paid premiums their whole life. They deserve these five to twenty weeks of benefits, and the Bloc is blocking them.

[Christiane Gagnon, Bloc, Québec, QC]

Madam Speaker, we can clearly see the Conservative Party's bad faith with regard to Bill C-50, which is nothing more than smoke and mirrors. Upon further study of this bill, we see that because of the eligibility criteria involved it will not help all workers in the construction industry, for instance, seasonal workers or people working in tourism who receive employment insurance benefits intermittently.

This bill introduces another set of criteria that make it more difficult to access employment insurance benefits. It creates another category of workers who will not qualify as EI claimants. Consider young people and seasonal workers in the construction industry or the forestry sector, for example.

The Conservatives need to wake up. Maybe they want to help them, but they are not going about it the right way. The forestry industry has been facing a crisis for five years and nothing has been done. The Conservatives have shown us again that they do not want to help the forestry sector. They set up phoney committees that might produce a little tidbit in two or three months, but right now, many people are asking for help and may well fall into poverty because they do not have access to employment insurance.

The Bloc Québécois cannot support this bill because it ignores everyone's needs, especially the needs of Quebeckers. The government helped the auto industry by investing $10 billion and now they have introduced Bill C-50. If they really wanted, in good faith, to help unemployed workers, they would not have introduced this bill, which will take some time to be adopted, and they would have accelerated the process by accepting the Bloc's proposal. If they had accepted it, we would already be doing the clause by clause examination of the bill in committee. We would have heard from many groups from Quebec and perhaps elsewhere, who would have come to tell us that this bill does not correspond to their situation. Once again we can see the Conservatives' bad faith when it comes to improving the employment insurance system.

In 1993 I sat on the Standing Committee on Human Resources, and people will remember how the Liberals gutted eligibility for employment insurance. This time, the Conservatives could put things right, because there is a surplus in the EI fund. It is workers and employers who pay for this insurance against job loss, not the government. The government's action is very restrictive. Instead of introducing a bill, the Conservatives could have put in place a pilot project, which would already be up and running.

Plants close and people are laid off temporarily. There have been quite a few temporary layoffs in Quebec in the past five years. I said that another category of people would be excluded from EI benefits. They are workers who do not qualify because they received more than seven weeks of EI a year in recent years, when the average in Quebec is 10 weeks. This bill allows that sort of exclusion. It excludes a portion of the population.

We know that this bill will help sectors where employability has been much more stable over the years and where workers have not taken advantage of employment insurance. This measure is designed to help people who lose their jobs regularly. There are fairly specific employment situations. Young people do not have seven years' experience, which is what is required. The bill applies to long-tenured workers. That is another irritant. The bill does not take into account women who work part-time and receive EI intermittently because they do not have long-term jobs.

It is clear that the Conservative government does not want to help workers who lose their jobs. It does not respect them, and it is not in tune with what they need.

That is clear in this bill. When we look at how we ended up with this bill, it was in very bad faith. From the time it was introduced, the Bloc Québécois asked that the bill be referred to committee before second reading in order to let the government know that some changes were necessary. We were prepared to look at this bill and make some changes to open it up a bit.

In the Standing Committee on Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities, a report was presented which recommended improving accessibility and reviewing the number of hours. The Conservatives wanted nothing to do with it. To be entitled to up to 20 additional weeks, an individual has to run out of regular benefits. Only 25% of people run out of regular benefits and that is why the number is misleading. Again, it is smoke and mirrors. We are told this represents 190,000 workers, but that is not possible because 85% of those workers would have to run out of benefits and that is not the case.

I would like the Conservatives to look at what is happening in Quebec. We have some very serious problems in the forestry and the forestry industry. Some tens of millions of dollars in assistance have been paid out, but keeping jobs in the forestry industry is an even bigger challenge than it is in the automobile industry. The automobile industry received help and I am not criticizing that. I am criticizing the fact that not all industries in Quebec and Canada are being given enough assistance. I do not understand why the NDP, who made employment insurance their pet issue, is now burying its head in the sand to maybe save its own skin. It is agreeing with the government in order to keep it afloat. If it is not the NDP, then it is the Liberals, who voted in favour of the last budget and abandoned workers.

The Bloc Québécois introduced several economic proposals precisely to help the workers, as many as possible, to get through this crisis. EI reform was among the Bloc Québécois' goals. Not only did the Bloc want to better assist industries and all workers with specific measures to get through this crisis, but so did the OECD. We might see unemployment rates approaching 10%. That represents many unemployed people. This will make the number of EI claimants skyrocket. We will recall that, during the campaign, as far as the government was concerned, there was no economic crisis, there was no problem, and all was for the best in the best of all possible worlds.

Now we can see the government running up a huge deficit. Who will pay for that? Members will recall who footed the deficit under the Liberals, a deficit that the Conservatives may have also created. It was the people who lost their jobs. The restrictions on EI hit those who lost their jobs very hard.

Personally, I would like any member of that government who puts a question to me to try and explain how they came up with a figure of 190,000 workers. There are even political analysts who say that this bill was designed for Ontario, where employment tends to be long term, and not for businesses that have had to lay people off over the years, particularly in the forestry industry.

The government is crowing over this bill today. It should really make it better. Then, the Bloc Québécois will be able to tell the unemployed that it kept its word and tell the forestry industry that it stood up for them in this House. That is why I am actively advocating for this issue today.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Madam Speaker, I listened with fascination to my colleague's dissertation, and many of her complaints are absolutely fair. Our role as opposition is to show when there are problems with bills. That is what we are here to do.

Clearly, this bill does not go far enough in addressing the outstanding crisis that we are seeing across this country. However, the question is what we do with the bill before us. I see what the Bloc is doing. It is attempting to divert attention by saying that this is an attempt to treat Quebec unfairly.

We know the mendacity of that argument. I am not even going to respond to it. Does it address all the workers? No, it does not, but does it address some workers? Yes, it does. What should the opposition do at that point? We must continue to fight for fair EI.

I will put this question to the member. Is the Bloc Quebecois the trained poodle of the Liberal Party? When the Liberal Party says that it wants an election and that it does not matter that there is $1 billion on the table, does the Bloc run behind it and say, “Me too, me too”?

That is not opposition. Under the Liberals for the last two years, nothing was being put on the table for EI. Now, we have $1 billion. It is certainly not enough. There are other bills that have to be addressed. We have to continue to fight for that.

I would like to ask my hon. colleague a valid question here. Is she running after the Liberal Party leader, or is she going to stay here in the House and make sure that this money gets out to people?

[Christiane Gagnon, Bloc, Québec, QC]

Madam Speaker, I am very happy to respond to the NDP member's question.

I am not the only one who thinks this way. I never claimed that. Unions, business leaders in the forestry industry, workers, unemployed workers and associations see things the same way I do. They feel that this bill does not address what is really going on in Quebec.

I am sorry, but it is not petty politics to say that the NDP is burying its head in the sand once again and that it is making a mistake. I have heard some noises outside Quebec from associations of unemployed workers who are also calling on an NDP colleague to step up and respond to the government. All the opposition parties could have pressured the government to amend this bill. But the opposition was divided. That works well for the Conservatives.

But we know that the Conservatives will end up without any respect.

[Alice Wong, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary for Multiculturalism]

Madam Speaker, it is ridiculous to hear the word “united”. The Bloc and opposition are suggesting that they need to reunite again to take the government down in an unnecessary election, which is exactly what a lot of Canadians are thinking. I am glad the NDP is looking very seriously at this real problem of helping unemployed Canadians.

I do not know why the Bloc would say this. One hundred and ninety thousand EI premium payers have worked very hard for their whole lives, and now they are in difficult times. We are extending their benefits by between five weeks and 20 weeks. At the same time, we are also providing them with training opportunities. All those initiatives include the whole nation, all the provinces including Quebec, unless the Bloc wants its province to be exempt from that.

That is not what the people of Quebec want. They want a government that is responsible and that will help in times of need. They want us to let them know that the government does care. These 190,000 unemployed people will now get extra help because of that.

[Christiane Gagnon, Bloc, Québec, QC]

Madam Speaker, once again, a Conservative member is talking about the 190,000 workers who have lost their jobs and will have access to the measures in Bill C-50. We must also see when this bill will be passed. They are buying time. But they have not been able to show us how they got to that figure of 190,000. In fact, according to our calculations and the calculations of a number of analysts who have examined the situation, that number would be closer to 60,000.

Long-tenured workers are a different category of unemployed workers. There are long-tenured workers, young workers, female workers, seasonal workers, those who work in construction, those who have paid into EI but unfortunately, during an economic crisis, are left without a job. What is being done? We are making more demands, but in order to make a difference, we need employment insurance.

What is this government doing? It does not care about the unemployed.

[Earl Dreeshen, Conservative, Red Deer, AB]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to speak in favour of Bill C-50, our government's latest step to help Canada's unemployed.

Our government has taken action throughout the past year to help Canadians. As part of Canada's economic action plan, we have made changes and improvements to the EI system to help those Canadians who have become unemployed through no fault of their own.

We have made timely improvements, providing five extra weeks of EI benefits; making the EI application process easier, faster and better for businesses and workers; and increasing opportunities for unemployed Canadians to upgrade their skills and get back to work.

Canada's economic action plan also announced the freezing of the EI premium rate for this year, 2009, and for next year as well, 2010. I would point out that the EI premiums are at their lowest levels in a quarter century. Keeping the EI premium rate at the same level in 2009 and 2010 is achieving additional stimulus, as this measure therefore keeps premium rates lower than they would otherwise be. This helps leave more money for employers to hire and retain workers and more money in the pockets of those working Canadians.

We are assisting businesses and their workers through improved and more accessible work-sharing agreements. More than 165,000 Canadian jobs are being protected with work-sharing agreements that are in place with more than 5,800 employers across Canada.

These improvements are helping these Canadians stay at work and maintain their skills so that these companies can come out of this recession even stronger, with their skills and employee base maintained.

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 to up to two years for eligible workers who choose to participate in longer-term training. We are also allowing earlier access to EI for eligible workers who invest all or part of their severance in training that takes longer than 20 weeks.

By working with the provinces and the territories through this and other programs, we are providing Canadians easier access to training that is tailored to the workers in our country's different regions. This new legislation we are introducing is part of those efforts.

Bill C-50 is about extending EI regular benefits to workers who have lost their jobs after working a long time and who have never or have rarely collected employment insurance or EI regular benefits. These Canadians have paid their taxes for many years, and of course they have paid EI premiums. It is only fair and right that we support them and their families in their time of need.

For the purpose of this new measure, the definition of long-tenured workers applies to workers from all sectors of the economy. It is estimated that about two-thirds of EI contributors meet this definition of long-tenured workers.

More than one-third of those who have lost their jobs across Canada since the end of January and who have established an EI claim are long-tenured workers. Many of these workers have worked at the same job or in the same industry all of their lives. They may have poor prospects for finding the same kind of job when the recession is over, and many face the prospect of starting all over again. We can either see that as a defeat or see that as an opportunity.

Canadians are resilient people. We have shown over and over again that we can cope with adversity and come out stronger. While losing a job is difficult on workers and their families, we can still see these difficulties as opportunities for the future.

We are constantly reinventing ourselves. I see it happening in communities, and I see it happening among individuals, but it takes effort and it takes time, and that is why this government wants to give long-tenured workers who lose their jobs the time they need. That is why we propose to make temporary changes to the EI program.

Bill C-50 would extend, on a national basis, EI regular benefits for long-tenured workers by between five and twenty weeks, depending upon the number of years they have worked and paid EI premiums. They are eligible if they have paid at least a minimum amount of EI premiums for at least seven out of ten calendar years and have received EI regular benefits for no more than 35 weeks in the last five years.

This new measure would apply equally to long-tenured workers everywhere in the country. This new measure has a measure of retroactivity, so that we can reach back and cover workers who lost their jobs during the ramp-up and peak of the recession.

Benefits would continue until the fall of 2011 for those who needed them. This temporary measure supplements other measures that we are taking under the economic action plan to help workers.

We are helping Canadian workers in all different walks of life and in various circumstances, including those at risk of being laid off, those who have been laid off, younger people trying to get into the job market, older workers, newcomers to Canada and Aboriginal Canadians.

I want to get back to the long-tenured workers. We already have a special program to assist them called the career transition assistance initiative. Its aim is to help those workers retrain for new jobs even if they need to move to an entirely different industry.

The career transition assistance initiative is based on two important measures. The first extends EI regular benefits for long-tenured workers up to a maximum of two years while they participate in longer term training. The other measure gives long-tenured workers earlier access to EI if they invest in their training using all or part of their severance package. I mentioned this earlier in my remarks.

Thousands of long-tenured workers will benefit from career transition assistance. I cannot emphasize strongly enough the importance of training in both our short-term and long-term plans.

As I have said, we want to help Canadian workers adjust to the changes brought by the recession. We also want to prepare them for the jobs of tomorrow. To this end, we are giving Canadians all over the country opportunities to upgrade their skills or retrain for a new career.

Through our economic action plan, we are investing an additional $1.5 billion in provincial and territorial training programs. Close to 150,000 workers across the country will benefit from these initiatives and they will have access to them whether they are eligible for EI or not.

Furthermore, the targeted initiative for older workers will receive an additional $60 million over three years to enable more older workers aged 55 to 64 to get skills upgrading and work experience to help them make the transition to new jobs.

The program's reach has been expanded so that communities with a population fewer than 250,000 are now eligible for funding. With this change, an additional 250 communities could be included in the program, depending on provincial and territorial participation.

This government does not want to see any category of workers shut out of the labour market indefinitely or consigned to obsolescence. That is why we are making huge investments in training and retraining workers of all ages, because we cannot spare any of them. We will need them all in the years to come. We will need their skills, experience, energy and creativity to meet the challenges to come.

Our government is focused on what matters to Canadians, finding solutions to help long-tenured workers who have worked hard and paid into the system for years but are having trouble finding employment through no fault of their own, extending benefits to self-employed Canadians and getting Canadians back to work through historic investments in infrastructure and skills training.

It is clear from these and other measures introduced in Canada's economic action plan that our government is stepping up to the plate to provide real results for all Canadians. That is why I would like members of this House to support a bill that would say to proven workers that we stand behind them, that we will help them get through this recession, that there are better times ahead and that we want them to be part of that.

I ask members to support Bill C-50 and to support Canadians who want to get back to work.

[Jean-Claude D'Amours, Liberal, Madawaska—Restigouche, NB]

Madam Speaker, I would like to talk about Bill C-50. The Conservatives devised this bill to save face or to give people the impression that it is working for the most vulnerable members of society, but that is all the bill does: give an impression. I think that Canadians, the people in every one of our ridings, need to have a clear understanding of what is in this bill and what it gives to workers and their families.

The government is trying to predict how many workers will lose their jobs. Worse yet, it is trying to predict exactly when they are going to lose their jobs. Bill C-50 imposes so many restrictions and criteria, restrictions and criteria—I could say it over and over—that it is very hard to tell who the Conservatives and the NDP will choose to be eligible for extra weeks of employment insurance benefits. I wonder if the government, that is, the Conservatives, are playing a kind of “Where's Waldo” game because we are trying to unearth people in our ridings who would be entitled to one red cent, let alone an extra week of benefits, under Bill C-50.

None of our seasonal workers in construction, highways, tourism, fisheries and forestry will be entitled to an extra week or even a single red cent under this bill. It leaves all of these workers out. The Conservatives have just dropped these workers, forgotten them. Or maybe it would be more accurate to say that they simply dropped them because they cannot possibly have forgotten comments the Prime Minister made in the past about how people in the region I represent—the Atlantic—are defeatist. I do not think that he has forgotten us. Once again, he is looking for a way to make sure that people in rural communities do not get their hands on one red cent under this bill.

How can the Conservatives and the NDP look those workers in the eye, just as I am looking at the members of the Conservative government right now, and be able to tell them that they are about to lose their jobs, that they know people will lose their jobs, and guarantee them one thing, that is, that they will not give them another red cent. Indeed, the criteria for access to increased benefits simply do not apply to people from rural areas, to seasonal workers, or to workers in the construction, forestry, fishery or tourism sectors, or people working on our roads. I must stop the list there. A few days ago, I was giving a comprehensive list of the businesses in my riding, of the people who work in my riding, to try to determine who will have access to this program. I soon realized that the Conservatives were playing “Where's Waldo?”. That must be what they are doing if they can identify 190,000 people, as they are claiming. First of all, we cannot predict who will lose their jobs. It is impossible to know who will lose their jobs. It is even more difficult to know who will qualify for increased benefits once the additional rules and criteria, which the Conservatives included in their bill, are applied, or to predict who will not be eligible to receive assistance.

It is not only the workers we must think about, but also their families, those who need our help most every day. Winter is coming. People will need to top up their home heating oil to stay warm. They will need to pay their electricity bill to keep the heat on. They will need to continuing buying food to feed their children.

Instead, the Conservatives are telling seasonal workers that, in their opinion, even if they have worked for 10, 15, 20, 25 or 30 years, not just for the same industry but for the same company, they are not long-tenured workers.

Have they forgotten that loggers make it possible for houses to be built? Have they forgotten that farmers who harvest potatoes, fruits, vegetables and all other agricultural products stock Canada's cupboards? Have they forgotten our fishers and our tourism workers? Have they forgotten the people who cut trees and thin our forests to ensure an adequate supply of wood? They simply tell all these people that they are not eligible but that it does not matter because they are of no importance to us. That is exactly what the Conservatives are saying. And what is shameful is that the NDP is supporting a bill that is so disrespectful of the people we represent.

I would like to repeat what I said earlier. Why are seasonal workers who have worked in the same industry and for the same employer not considered long-tenured workers? Just now, the Parliamentary Secretary for Multiculturalism made some comments. She seemed to say that some people deserve to qualify while others do not. I am sorry, but if the Conservatives believe that some Canadian workers deserve employment insurance and others do not, they are going to be taught a lesson rather quickly. They say that an election costs $300 million and that it is a bad thing for Canadians, but they have just racked up a $56 million deficit. I am not talking about the Liberals but about the Conservatives. However, when they are told we must help the workers that need it, the most vulnerable and their families, they pick and choose who will have access to their help.

This exceeds my wildest expectations of a government. A good parent is supposed to be there for the children. The same goes for a government. Like a good parent, it has to help its citizens when they need it. All we see today is that the government has abandoned seasonal workers and workers in rural areas. It has simply abandoned workers living in rural areas.

What the Conservatives do not realize, and the NDP has followed suit, is how many people and how much territory rural Canada represents. It represents a very large proportion of the population and a very large portion of Canadian territory.

I dare hope that the Conservatives will listen to reason, but they are not exactly in the habit of helping the most vulnerable. I am sure they will continue down their own road.

I hope the NDP will wake up and realize that those who need employment insurance need to have access to it. We are talking about long tenured workers, but let us not forget seasonal workers, certain types of industry and all the types of workers I mentioned earlier. Contrary to what the Parliamentary Secretary for Multiculturalism said, they too deserve to collect EI. These people work and they help other Canadians put food on the table, build houses and create some wealth in this country.

I hope that what I am saying will resonate with the NDP and that it will finally understand that the only solution is to change the government to give Canadians a reason to be proud again.

[The Acting Speaker, NDP, Denise Savoie]

The hon. member for Îles-de-la-Madeleine.

[Raynald Blais, Bloc, Gaspésie—Îles-de-la-Madeleine, QC]

Madam Speaker is halfway there. If you travel 250 kilometres to the north and west, you reach the Gaspé. The fact of the matter is that I represent the riding of Gaspésie—Îles-de-la-Madeleine.

I would like to address two issues. I fully agree with part of what the hon. member for Madawaska—Restigouche said in his speech. There was another part, however, where I had a hard time following him. He seems to be very sensitive to the NDP, and what it does or does not do in any given circumstances, but how quickly he forgets the Liberal involvement in the employment insurance issue. If there is more than $50 billion in the EI fund today, it is due in large part to the Liberals. When in government, the Liberals made regions like the member's and mine suffer. Instead of being sensitive to what is happening on the NDP side, he should pay closer attention to his own party's record.

I do agree that Bill C-50 tends to divide the unemployed into two categories: the good and the bad. The good have never, or hardly ever, for 35 weeks over 5 years, had dealings with EI or received EI benefits. Otherwise, one falls into the other category. The reality of seasonal work is such that workers find themselves, sadly, with no choice but to collect benefits. EI is a social and economic safety net for regions like ours.

Therefore, I would like the member of the Liberal Party to be careful when throwing stones at others because they could be thrown right back at him. There is some kind of boomerang effect. I think he better not forget the involvement of his own party in the employment insurance issue. At the same time, I support his statement to the effect that Bill C-50 is disrespectful and, I might add, creates two categories of unemployed people.

[Jean-Claude D'Amours, Liberal, Madawaska—Restigouche, NB]

Madam Speaker, I am glad to see that my colleague and riding neighbour agrees with my comments about what Bill C-50 will not do for the people we represent.

We represent people who work for industries that are relatively similar, although different in some respects. Still, these people are going through the same things. The Conservatives have always had contempt for people in rural areas. Living in a rural area does not make someone a second-class citizen. Living in a rural area or in Atlantic Canada does not mean that one deserves to be insulted by the former opposition leader, who is now the Prime Minister of Canada. Living in a rural area does not mean that one should not be entitled to the same thing as others.

For many years and still today, Atlantic Canada and rural regions have provided Canadians with the natural resources and the goods they need to live. The Conservatives, with the NDP's support, are telling these people that rural dwellers, seasonal workers and people who work in a seasonal industry will not have access to employment insurance.

This bears repeating, not only so that parliamentarians understand, but also so that the people watching today understand that all these people will be left out. The government is simply ignoring these people and saying that they will not get any additional help.

People in rural areas are facing the same problems. Times are just as tough for seasonal workers. People are losing their jobs, many of them permanently. Forestry and factory workers in our ridings did not ask to lose their jobs, even though many of them work in seasonal industries. What is happening today is not their fault. The country is going through a crisis under the Conservatives.

Meanwhile, people in rural areas and seasonal workers are being told that it is not important, because they are not going through the same thing as people elsewhere. But that is not true. They are going through the same thing. The time has come for people to understand that everyone must be treated equally. Dividing people, something the Conservatives and their Prime Minister are good at doing, is not an option.

[The Acting Speaker, NDP, Denise Savoie]

It is my duty, pursuant to Standing Order 38, to inform the House that the questions to be raised tonight at the time of adjournment are as follows: the hon. member for Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine, Health; the hon. member for Québec, Agri-food Industry.

Resuming debate. The hon. member for Edmonton East.

[Peter Goldring, Conservative, Edmonton East, AB]

Madam Speaker, I am happy to speak today to Bill C-50, and I encourage all hon. members to support the bill. The bill is about helping Canadian workers and their families. We are extending the duration of EI benefits to these workers who have worked a long time and have never or rarely collected EI benefits. Many of these workers have lost their jobs through no fault of their own because of the global economic downturn. These Canadians have paid their dues. They have worked hard, paid their taxes for many years and have paid their EI premiums. It is fair and responsible that we support them and their families in their time of need.

Many of these workers have worked at the same job or the same industry all their lives and face the prospect of having to start all over again. In most cases, they simply need some more time. The economy is on the cusp of recovery and our Conservative government is working to help Canada begin a strong recovery. New job creation will probably lag behind the main economic indicators, so our government is taking this action to ensure that these long time workers have the bridge they need so they can get back into the workforce.

These measures will help to ensure that long-tenured workers who have paid into the EI system for years are provided the help they need while they search for new employment. These are temporary changes to the EI program to help workers when they need it most. The bill would extend national regular EI benefits for long-tenured workers by between five and twenty weeks, depending on the number of years workers have worked and paid EI premiums.

As proposed, the new temporary measure would cover all new claims established from early 2009 through to those established until early September 2010. Payments would then gradually phase out by fall of 2011. This temporary measure is designed to help long-tenured workers find work as our economy recovers. The additional weeks of EI regular benefits would help those workers by providing support for a longer period while they look for work during the economic downturn.

The bill is part and parcel of our government's economic action plan and works together with another initiative in that action plan, namely, career transition assistance. This measure extends EI benefits for up to two years for workers who are in longer term training. This initiative is also available to long-tenured workers and the eligibility criteria for this initiative and for Bill C-50 are the same. Through the bill, in concert with our economic action plan, we are taking action to help hard-working Canadians.

Our government is concerned about fighting this recession. This is in contrast to the official opposition, which is more intent on fighting the recovery. The government believes it is important to fight for working Canadians than fighting an unnecessary election.

Very notable organizations that support this bill and encourage party support to help workers through these tough economic times include Bill Ferguson, president of United Steel Workers Local 8782, “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”.

Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty called this measure “a step in the right direction”.

Ken Lewenza, president 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”.

Ken Georgetti, president, Canadian Labour Congress said, “The government's proposed changes...we're pleased about that”.

Don Drummond, TD Bank 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”.

These and many more people from the great leaders of industry across the country have stepped forward to give their support for this. It certainly encourages all members in the House to join together to the benefit of these unemployed workers and to give them temporary benefits they so dearly need. They have worked for so many years to pay for EI benefits.

I encourage all my colleagues in the House to support the bill because it is the right thing to do and it is the fair thing to do.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Madam Speaker, I listened with interest to what my hon. colleague had to say. I was particularly interested that he referred to some of the Canadian labour leaders who had spoken about the bill.

Many of the people whom I have spoken with in labour have been very clear. They say that what has been proposed goes a certain amount of the way, but it does not obviously address the overarching problems of EI. They understand it and we understand it. I would like to think the government understands it. I guess what does not seem to be understood is the position of the Liberal Party at this point.

We are in an economic crisis and we now have $1 billion on the table that will help some workers but not every worker. However, the role of the opposition is to continue to push the government to improve, to change, to address the shortcomings of the system that we have in this time of crisis.

When I hear the support we are getting from across the country from labour, they are saying that there is a bigger project for labour out there that has to be addressed, but the solution is not taking $1 billion off the table so the Liberal Party can call an election.

What does my hon. colleague of the role of the House of Commons? We do not have to agree with each other. We do not have to like each other. However, Canadians sent us here. Canadians dealt the cards that put all of us in the House and told us to get something done.

Now we see something that can be done. It goes part of the way. It does not go all the way. We hear the Bloc members saying that they do not want to have anything to do with it because it does not give them everything they want in a perfect universe.

However, the Liberal members are saying something more insidious. They are saying that they do not want this on the table because they want the Liberal Party leader to get his chance at running for the leadership of the country. I think it is absolutely bizarre and delusional. I am sort of worried for his mental health if he thinks the cards are in his favour right now.

Would the member tell us why he thinks the Liberal Party members are putting their own personal interest above the interests of hundreds of thousands of Canadian workers who are calling on us to get some action on unemployment?

[Peter Goldring, Conservative, Edmonton East, AB]

Madam Speaker, I appreciate my hon. colleague's comments. I too am rather perplexed. We on this side of the House are trying to work with an economic action plan and trying to work through this recessionary time, which is a global issue. There are only so many things we can do, but we must work with the parties in the House.

I appreciate the interest of my college from the NDP in at least working to see what we can develop together, with our limited resources, that will help some reported 190,000 people. That is a considerable effort to work together on.

On the other hand, I find that it is not just perplexing, it is rather shameful that we have another party in the House, the official opposition, that is not interested in trying to discuss, trying to debate on some improvements for the 190,000 hard-working people.

I find it absolutely shameful that the Liberals are seemingly more interested in pulling the plug, going into an election early, an election the country does not want, a $300 million election that we cannot frankly afford, than working together with all parties in the House to help those 190,000 people. That is worthy of working together.

[Bill Siksay, NDP, Burnaby—Douglas, BC]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to have the opportunity to speak in the debate on Bill C-50, An Act to amend the Employment Insurance Act and to increase benefits.

As we have heard a number of times, this is a very specific bill that would address a particular group of workers in this country who have been in difficulty because of the economic downturn.

Specifically, the bill would address the needs of claimants whose benefits would begin after January 4, 2009 and who have claimed less than 35 weeks over the past five years. They would get from 5 to 20 extra weeks of benefits depending on how long they have been paying into the EI system.

The maximum additional weeks for those who have been paying at least 30% of their maximum annual premium in seven of the last 10 years is five weeks. To get more than that, an individual needs to have been paying that 30% for a longer period of time. To get the full 20 weeks, an individual needs to have paid in for 12 to 15 years. This is a very specific proposal that has come from the government in this regard.

We have heard different estimates of how many workers this would actually help during this recessionary period. The government has estimated that 190,000 workers would be able to take advantage of it. Others have suggested that the number is lower. It is a significant group of people nonetheless.

Thousands and thousands of Canadian workers would be able to extend their EI benefits because of their long attachment to the workforce. That is important to remember as we talk about this particular piece of legislation.

Almost $1 billion is on the table to help these workers. That is a significant change from the attitude of the government in recent months. The government was not prepared to extend more money to help workers who had lost their jobs and were suffering through the recession. To put $1 billion on the table to help workers is a significant concession by the Conservative government. We need to take that seriously because people need our assistance. To not accept the possibility of that assistance at this time is not a responsible position for a member of Parliament to take.

The particular group of workers that this legislation would help are older workers, workers who have been in their positions for a long period of time and have been paying into EI over a long period of time.

From years of experience we know that older workers who lose their jobs often have great difficulty getting back into the workforce. People in their mid to late fifties and sixties who lose their jobs face incredible challenges in finding work based on their age, based on their lack of training and lack of up to date training. That group of workers is often difficult to help retrain, to help get back into the workforce. That is why this legislation is particularly important. It would probably help older workers the most. We also need to pay particular attention to that when we are considering this legislation.

Older workers have been of particular concern to New Democrats and to people in the labour movement. Finding some help for them in this period of crisis would be a significant step forward.

Does this legislation address the 1.6 million Canadians who are out of a job? No, it does not address that incredibly high number. Does it address the 800,000 people who have lost their jobs and do not have access to EI at all? No, it does not do that. This is a very specific measure.

How do we say no to those older workers, to those workers who have lost their jobs after a long period of attachment to the workforce? How do we tell them that they do not deserve the particular help that is being offered to them now? I am not in a position to say that they should not have this assistance.

I suspect that many of the workers who are not covered by this legislation, who still are not getting the kind of EI benefits that they deserve, are not going to say that older workers should not get the help that is proposed for them either. Workers will understand it is important that people who need help get it and that we will keep working to ensure that is broadened and other workers are brought in to programs that will give them assistance in this time of economic downturn.

I do not think this legislation pretends to be a comprehensive reform of the EI system, far from it, but we could use that.

New Democrats have proposed for a long time that we need to get back to the basics of what the unemployment insurance program was all about and recover some of the ground that we have lost over a number of decades, lost primarily, I have to say, under Liberal governments that gutted the unemployment insurance program.

The Liberals started that back in the 1970s. In fact, they lost their minister responsible for unemployment insurance when they first decided to gut the program back in the 1970s. The minister resigned over those changes that were imposed on Canadians back then. We saw them gut it again through the 1990s so that it is now a shadow of what it once was.

We saw the Liberals squander the money that they collected from employers and workers in Canada through their contributions for EI. That 54 billion, 55 billion, 56 billion, 57 billion dollars of money that was taken in over and above what was paid out in EI programs was applied to the deficit and the debt when it should have been applied to the needs of Canadians, when it should have been applied to ensure that the EI program was there when workers needed it.

If that $57 billion were still there and available in the EI fund for workers today, we could do something significant about the situation of the unemployed in Canada. We could do something significant to stimulate the Canadian economy, because we know that employment insurance is one of the best ways to stimulate the economy. We know that EI targets people who need money, families who need the money the most. It targets communities that have often been hit the hardest by an economic downturn. We know that every dollar that goes into an EI program when people are unemployed gets spent by those workers, by those families in those communities. It is a very efficient way of delivering assistance to individuals, to families and to communities that need it most.

We still need that kind of program. We still need that kind of reform. Sadly, that is not what is before us today. What has been offered is a specific program that looks to assist older workers with a long-term attachment to the workforce, and I do not think we can turn our backs on that.

New Democrats have been very clear what we think needs to be done instead. New Democrats have, I believe, 12 private members' bills on the order paper that would amend the Employment Insurance Act to improve it, to improve accessibility, to improve benefits, to improve EI maternity benefits for women, to do all of those things that would make it a better program, that would make it the kind of program we in this corner could be proud of and that workers across Canada could be proud of.

We are not backing off from those ideas. They are going forward. We look forward to debating them in this House and seeing if we can get the support of other parties to make those important changes to the Employment Insurance Act.

We have also worked hard to push our ideas through this House. Back in the spring on our opposition day, when we get a chance to put forward our ideas, we put forward ideas about what needs to be done about employment insurance. We said that the two-week waiting period needed to be eliminated. We said that we should reduce the number of hours required to qualify for employment insurance down to 360 hours. We said that self-employed workers should be included, finally, in this program. We also said that the benefit rate needed to be raised to reflect the needs of folks who lose their jobs here in Canada. We put that forward in an opposition day motion. We debated it for a day here in the House of Commons. When it came to a vote, a majority of members of the House of Commons supported those recommendations.

Now, if the government took this place seriously, if the government took the will of the elected representatives of Canadians seriously, I would expect it would move on those ideas, on that broader reform of the EI system, so that we could restore it to a place that would make us proud and would offer Canadians the kind of assistance they need in this very difficult time. We have not seen that kind of movement yet.

What we do have on the table today is Bill C-50, with this specific program to assist up to 190,000 Canadian workers, to put a billion dollars into expanding the EI program. Those workers need help. I do not think we can turn our backs on them. It is not what we would have done. In this corner of the House, we will keep pushing the government to make other important changes, to do the right thing on EI. However, for now, we support this particular option that is before the House of Commons.

We are not giving the government a blank cheque. We are going to judge each proposal that comes forward to this House on a case by case basis. We are not going to turn our backs on this kind of assistance for workers in Canada.

[Peter Goldring, Conservative, Edmonton East, AB]

Madam Speaker, the member opposite raised a particular concern about long-tenured employees, and that is on the training. I had a personal experience in Edmonton with the closure of a major plant, and it was during a relatively buoyant economic period. The Maple Leaf plant put some 700 people out of work. Many of those people had been there 15 to 18 years. They had known no other life than that type of factory work. They had had regular income for a long period of time and then all of a sudden, they were out on the street.

It took years for them to find and eventually get employment. One of the most crucial factors for them to get employment was to go through some form of retraining. There were no jobs of the type they were used to.

This program affects so many people, so many workers in such a time of such great need. I ask my colleague, what is his impression on how the other two parties on that side could turn their backs on these workers? How could they want to take the stance for an election, which nobody across the country wants, based on the backs of the hundreds of thousands of workers who will not get these benefits if we go into an election?

I want to thank the member across the way for his comments, but maybe he could help to direct some of the public at large watching this to some type of rationale, some type of thinking on what would make two parties think they could turn their backs on all these workers and go into an election causing the workers not to get these types of benefits.

[Bill Siksay, NDP, Burnaby—Douglas, BC]

Madam Speaker, it is interesting. This is a difficult debate on this particular piece of legislation.

The choice before us is to assist a certain group of workers and not proceed with the kinds of changes that many of us in this place believe are necessary to the employment insurance program.

I can understand that members from a region where seasonal work is very important would be very concerned that seasonal workers are not helped by this particular piece of legislation.

I do not think the Conservative government is behaving appropriately in addressing the needs of seasonal workers. Those workers need help during this economic downturn, like other workers, like older workers, workers who have had a long attachment to the workforce. That is a very important group that needs the attention of this place and of the government.

Younger workers are also losing their jobs at this time. It is not easy for them either. I can understand when members of Parliament who feel that is a very important group believe that this legislation does not go far enough and does not address the concerns of younger workers at all, people who have not had the opportunity to build up that attachment to the labour force that allows them to take advantage of these proposals. The government should be addressing the needs of younger workers.

Women are also having a difficult time during this economic recession. We know that women need particular attention in our EI system, and they are not getting it from the government.

What about the people in high unemployment regions? Many forestry workers in British Columbia are not going to qualify for this because they lost their jobs long before this proposal was put on the table.

This is not the best proposal in the world. We need to pay attention to other groups of workers. There is lots of room to criticize the government's approach on employment insurance, but at the same time, in this corner of the House, we have looked at this bill and said that we cannot turn our backs on those workers who are offered this assistance at this moment in time.

Judging the piece of legislation that we have before us and the willingness of the government to move in that direction, we have decided to support that to make sure that those workers, up to 190,000 older workers with long attachment to the workforce, get some assistance. We are going to keep pushing for those other workers, seasonal workers, workers in high unemployment areas, workers where industries collapsed before the recession, women and young workers to see that they get the kind of assistance they need.

The EI program that we have is a shadow of what we need. The EI program we have should have been supported by that $54 billion to $57 billion, money that was collected from workers and employers in this country. In this corner, we are going to keep pushing to see that those improvements come along for those people as well.

[Randy Hoback, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

Madam Speaker, I am happy to start the wind-down to the second-reading debate today on Bill C-50. This is part and parcel of our government's efforts to help hard-working Canadians through these difficult economic times. Our government is focused on what matters to Canadians: finding solutions to help long-term workers who have worked hard and paid into the system for years but who are having trouble finding employment through no fault of their own, extending benefits to self-employed Canadians, and getting Canadians back to work through historic investments in infrastructure and skills training.

In my riding alone there is over $50 million in projects that are ongoing, sewer- and water-related projects that were actually badly needed. Our government, through its economic action plan, has been providing these communities with moneys to go ahead with a lot of these projects and has been employing people in my riding. We are providing support to Canadians when they need it. The evidence of this is in our economic action plan, on which the latest report was announced and tabled this afternoon.

The best way to help unemployed Canadians, their families and the economy is to help Canadians get back to work. That is our number one priority. That is why our economic action plan included unprecedented investments in training for Canadians, whether or not they qualify for EI benefits, and an additional $1.5 billion, which is helping over 150,000 Canadians.

We provided an additional five weeks of EI benefits across the country. We have improved and expanded work-sharing programs. We are protecting the jobs of over 165,000 Canadians through this agreement, and almost 5,800 businesses across Canada.

We have frozen EI premiums for two years, this year and next year, so that employers can keep more money and create more jobs, and Canadian workers can keep more of their hard-earned money during these tough economic times.

We have provided an additional $60 million to help older workers because they have invaluable knowledge and experience and lots of potential left.

In our latest efforts, Bill C-50, we are supporting long-tenured workers, Canadians who have worked hard and paid their taxes and premiums for years and who are having difficulty finding new jobs. We are providing between five and 20 extra weeks of EI to help approximately 190,000 long-tenured workers while they seek new employment. It is fair. It is the right thing to do.

As the minister has also said, we are moving forward with our campaign promise to provide maternity and paternity benefits to the self-employed. We are working hard fighting the recession. We applaud those members who are helping us. Other members want an unnecessary election that will hurt the economy and unemployed Canadians. We should be working together to help Canadians who need help, and this bill does just that. I encourage all colleagues to support Bill C-50.

It is interesting to be in Saskatchewan, because it has not faced the downturn as other provinces have. In my riding we are actually looking for people. I was just talking to a gentleman who owns an automotive workshop. He is actually trying to find mechanics.

I can understand that in regions of the country where people have been working for years and years, when they get laid off and they are unemployed, there is stress that goes with that and stress in the family. I can understand how having that extra time, that longer relief to receive those benefits would be important to them. That is what the government is doing.

I cannot understand why anybody would want to oppose that. It is the right thing to do. If a person has paid premiums for 19 or 20 years, do they not deserve a little bit of extra time to help get a job? It is one thing that our minister recognized and it is the one thing that a lot of our pundits and scrutineers have said we should be doing. It is giving a wider window to those people to find new jobs and take advantage of all their benefits and experience.

As I close, I say this is a good bill. It is good for Canada. It is good for the riding of Prince Albert, and I support it.

[Guy André, Bloc, Berthier—Maskinongé, QC]

Madam Speaker, I listened to the hon. member boast about what an excellent bill this is. As members know, however, the Bloc Québécois, people of my riding and every riding in Quebec, as well as Mouvement Action Chômage and labour do not necessarily find it all that good.

First, it does not benefit all the unemployed. Second, it creates a new category of unemployed workers. Some have lost their jobs several times these past few years, be it in the forestry or the manufacturing industry. These workers have had to apply for EI repeatedly, and there is nothing in this bill to allow them to qualify for EI.

I cannot understand. With all the money it has, with more than $55 billion accumulated in the EI fund over the past few years, why does the government not implement something that would benefit all the workers who have lost their jobs and are going through really tough times?

[Randy Hoback, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

Madam Speaker, as I said, it is hard to come from Saskatchewan and talk about employment insurance, because our province is doing so well. Maybe we should be looking at the differences between Saskatchewan and Quebec and his region.

Look at my region, for example. We had a pulp mill that was shut down. People were laid off. They lost their jobs. It was serious. The city of Prince Albert was devastated. They thought that it would never recover, yet I go back to that city and it is growing. The people are employed. The pulp mill is still shut down. The folks have found work. The families are still there. Things evolve.

Our responsibility as a government is to help those people change when there is a structural change going on in the economy, and that is what we are doing. We are trying to provide proper training. We are trying to give them a hand up. That is what we have done in Prince Albert, and it is really exciting. In my riding, a couple of sawmills were sold. They are talking about reopening them, but doing something different.

The other exciting thing in my riding is wood chips. They are not looking at it for pulp anymore, but for use in biofuels, biodiesel and ethanol. In fact, my riding is proposing to have the world's first cellulose-based ethanol plant built in it, possibly at the old pulp mill location.

There are alternatives to the forestry industry that we all have to look at, and I would encourage the member to do that. If I could help him with that, I would enjoy doing that.

[Leon Benoit, Conservative, Vegreville—Wainwright, AB]

Madam Speaker, I am really delighted to have an opportunity to speak on this bill today, because it is an issue that affects many of my friends and neighbours and it is an issue that I think all members in the House agree is important.

It is important to debate. It is important to deal with it, and right from the start, I would like to say that this is why I find it so offensive that at least two opposition parties are more concerned about having an unnecessary and opportunistic election than they are with actually dealing with the problem of helping those who are unemployed, or with preventing some people from becoming unemployed if they are in a situation where they could maybe go into a job-sharing program instead of becoming unemployed.

These are the types of things that our government has offered and I really do find it offensive, and that is not a casually chosen word, that we have those who are more focused on having this unnecessary and opportunistic election than on dealing with the issues.

I hope that the members of the Liberal Party, and the Bloc in particular, will reconsider. They have both said they are not going to support this bill, and I hope they will reconsider, and stay away from an election that Canadians simply do not want, and deal with the issues at hand.

Our government takes the approach that the best way to deal with an issue like this is to prevent people from becoming unemployed. In cases where people do lose jobs, getting them back to work as quickly as possible is far better than focusing so much on the unemployed and employment insurance. We need to focus more on preventing that from happening and on retraining in cases where that does happen.

Retraining is very important, particularly in areas where a town depends so much upon one industry that disappears, with the forestry sector as an example, and there are simply not the jobs that there were in that industry. Our government is focused on what happens with these people and particularly if they are long-tenured workers.

I think of friends and neighbours who are in the 45- to 55-year age bracket. Not only for that age group but particularly for people in that age group, if they have been working at one job for a long period of time and they lose that job, and there is really no opportunity to get a new job in the same sector, what do they do?

It is critical to do what our government has done, which is to do things that will help them through this really difficult time. One thing is to retrain and to offer help in retraining. We are talking about retraining that will actually lead to another good job for these people. It has been proven in the past that it can be very effective. That is why we are focusing on that rather than on going to another election. It is just simply not what Canadians want.

Over this past week in my constituency, I know that people were not calling for an election. It was just the opposite. They were saying that it would be irresponsible to go to an election now. They want all parties to actually work together to make this Parliament work, and that is certainly what we intend to do.

Our government, as members know, has been focusing on the economy. That is what people want. They do not want us out campaigning. They do not want us involved in an unnecessary and opportunistic election. They want us out focusing on the economy. That is what we are doing and that is what we are going to continue to do until we get through this campaign--or through this recession, I meant to say.

It does seem like a campaign. That was a bit of a slip, but I have heard so much talk about it from the opposition that I was thinking to myself that that is where we are headed. I hope I am wrong. We are focusing on the economy and on getting jobs for Canadians, and that is what we are going to continue to do.

I will now talk about some of the things that our government has done. As I have said, this is an extremely important issue.

The member said that I should talk about the work sharing program. That is an ideal way to keep people working and to keep them from having to go on employment insurance as their only source of income. It gives them a little help along the way so that we can have people job sharing with other people still working.

In this recession, if there is one thing that is more difficult than anything else for people to deal with it is losing a job and no longer being able to provide for their family. That affects not only the person who has lost the job but it also affects the whole family, friends and the community. What we are trying to do is to deal with that and the job sharing program that my colleague mentioned is one of the ways to do that.

As well, the additional five weeks that we have added to the amount of time that unemployed workers can collect unemployment insurance is extremely important. About 300,000 families are continuing to get income as they prepare themselves to get back into the workforce because of the change that our government has made.The five additional weeks is just one of the things that we are talking about.

We know that jobs are not created out of thin air. They are created by people who start, grow and continue to operate businesses, which, obviously, is where the jobs come from.

We know as well that high taxes kill jobs. Since our government came to office in 2006, we have been reducing taxes to individuals and to corporations. Some members across the way say that we should not be decreasing corporate taxes. However, where do most of our jobs come from? They come from small businesses that are often incorporated. They are the ones that create jobs, so we have reduced corporate taxes.

Also, we have frozen EI premiums, which is something I have not heard the opposition members talking about. We have frozen EI premiums which, in effect, is keeping taxes down below what they would be through the formula that was put in place by the former Liberal government. If that formula had been allowed to continue to operate, EI premiums would be going up which is a higher tax. These things certainly would hurt job creation and we do not want to do anything that would hurt job creation.

I will close by encouraging members of the opposition to take this focus away from a completely unnecessary and opportunistic election and get the focus back to running this country and working on behalf of those who are unemployed or otherwise would be unemployed. This would benefit us all and would certainly make life easier for those families who are directly involved.

[Candice Bergen, Conservative, Portage—Lisgar, MB]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague brought forward some very important points on how we as members of Parliament can support what this government is doing and actually benefit Canadians instead of harm them with an unnecessary election.

Would my colleague comment further on the job training programs that we have offered? I think that in many of the industries that may be experiencing difficulties there are new opportunities for these workers and the training that can be provided will help them.

[Leon Benoit, Conservative, Vegreville—Wainwright, AB]

Mr. Speaker, that is certainly part of the whole package that we are putting forward. It is important to provide training programs, particularly to those long-tenured workers who otherwise would find it very difficult to get back into the workplace. We have put forth a package of programs. We have done things in the past and in this legislation we have put forth a training package that will help people get back to work when they lose a job that they have had for many years.

[Vic Toews, Conservative, President of the Treasury Board]

Mr. Speaker, I want to compliment the member for his speech and the hard work he has done over the years.

I note that our government brought forward additional benefits this year of about $5.8 billion. We have had more than 300,000 workers receive an additional five weeks of EI benefits. We have the enhanced EI work-sharing agreements supporting more than 164,000 workers and have extended EI benefits for long-tenured workers.

I know the member has spent many years here in the House and I wonder if he has ever seen a government that has moved so rapidly and quickly to address a problem and in such a substantive way.

[Leon Benoit, Conservative, Vegreville—Wainwright, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate that question from the minister and the member for Provencher. I have been in the House for 16 years and I saw the former government, which people decided to replace about three and a half years ago, overtax people year after year with extra employment insurance premiums that simply were an additional tax. The money went into general revenues and was spent. I am talking about tens of billions of dollars. The employment insurance program simply moved away from being a true insurance program to being an additional tax and that simply--

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I do not think it is right for the member to provide misinformation to the House. The previous government lowered the employment insurance payment 14 times, brought down the rates--

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Barry Devolin]

Order, please. I am not sure that is a point of order. The member has a short time to complete his answer.

[Leon Benoit, Conservative, Vegreville—Wainwright, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I understand why the member for Malpeque is a little bit unhappy about his former government's record on this issue. I can understand why he is touchy because in fact their record killed jobs and hurt the economy in this country. We have gone in another direction. We are helping the economy. We are helping people keep jobs and find new jobs. That is the difference.

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Barry Devolin]

Is the House ready for the question?

[Some hon. members]

Question.

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Barry Devolin]

The question is on the motion. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

No.

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Barry Devolin]

All those in favour of the motion will please say yea.

[Some hon. members]

Yea.

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Barry Devolin]

All those opposed will please say nay.

[Some hon. members]

Nay.

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Barry Devolin]

In my opinion the yeas have it.

And five or more members having risen:

Call in the members.

And the bells having rung:

[Joe Preston, Conservative, Elgin—Middlesex—London, ON]

I wish to defer the vote until the end of government orders tomorrow.

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Barry Devolin]

The vote will be deferred until tomorrow.