Bill C-56 (Historical)

Fairness for the Self-Employed Act

An Act to amend the Employment Insurance Act and to make consequential amendments to other Acts

This enactment amends the Employment Insurance Act and other Acts by establishing a scheme to provide for the payment of special benefits to self-employed persons who are not currently entitled to receive them.

Business of the House

[Jay Hill, Conservative, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the brief question from my hon. colleague this week in honour of the tributes that we are about to hear.

Today we began and hopefully will conclude the second reading stage of C-56, the Fairness for the Self-Employed Act. That bill is receiving rave reviews all across the land and it is my hope that it will move very expeditiously through the House.

On Tuesday, we sent another employment insurance act to the Senate, Bill C-50. My understanding is that it has completed third reading over in the other place and we hope that will receive royal assent today.

Following Bill C-56, it is my intention to continue the debate at third reading of C-27, the anti-spam bill, which will be followed by Bill C-44, An Act to amend the Canada Post Corporation Act, which is at second reading.

Bill C-56 will continue tomorrow if not completed today. Backup bills for Friday are Bill C-51, the Economic Recovery Act, which was reported back from committee this week, followed by any bills not completed from today.

When the House returns from our constituency Remembrance Day week, the schedule of bills will include Bill C-23, Canada-Colombia, and bills not concluded from this week. We will give consideration to any bills reported back from committee or new bills yet to be introduced.

Employment Insurance

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

Mr. Speaker, the minister needs to bear in mind that Bill C-56 does not take into account the fact that self-employed workers in Quebec already have access to maternity and parental benefits, for which they pay $0.86 per $100.

Does the minister realize that, by charging an extra $1.36, he is making self-employed workers in Quebec pay for those in Canada?

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

Mr. Speaker, the Minister of National Revenue says that the contributions the government wants to collect from self-employed workers in Quebec reflect the cost of the new benefits to which they would be entitled under Bill C-56. That is just not true. Sickness and compassionate care benefits constitute less than 8% of employment insurance pay-outs. The government should therefore collect just $0.32 per $100, not $1.36.

Does the minister acknowledge that the contribution rate is too high compared to the real cost of the new benefits for self-employed Quebec workers?

Fairness for the Self-Employed Act

[Tim Uppal, Conservative, Edmonton—Sherwood Park, AB]

Madam Speaker, I am very pleased to speak today on a bill that provides improvements to the employment insurance program which would, if passed into law, set up a system to allow self-employed Canadians to collect EI special benefits for the very first time. This will mean that our self-employed Canadians and their families would have access to the same treatment as most working Canadians for major events, such as the arrival of a new baby, a serious illness, or the need to care for a gravely ill relative.

I am particularly pleased to be able to contribute to this discussion since it provides me with an opportunity to speak on behalf of this group of hard-working Canadians who, through their ingenuity and entrepreneurial spirt, have done so much to spur economic growth, inject new ideas, and foster greater innovation. There are some 2.6 million self-employed people in our country. They represent just over 15% of our workforce. This means we are talking about a large number of people who make a significant contribution to our economic well-being.

Self-employed Canadians are very often the people driving innovation in our economy. These are the people who harness creativity, courage and capital to build better lives. They themselves are creatively-driven, resourceful and entrepreneurial. They create businesses. They create new products. They innovate. They create jobs. They create wealth. They build our homes and they help us buy and sell our homes. They help us, when we need it, through the legal system. They fix our pipes and our wires. And they employ people who do all these things, too. They provide services that we need. We need them. They are farmers and realtors, carpenters and electricians, doctors and business owners, and so much more.

They build stronger communities and, in turn, a stronger country. Our self-employed entrepreneurs are the forefront of our economic vitality. We want to ensure our entrepreneurs can have strong, healthy businesses because stronger entrepreneurship means a stronger Canada.

We need their skills, we need their experience, and we need their energy and creativity to meet the challenges to come. They deserve fair treatment. I think this is most important. Self-employed Canadians deserve fair treatment. If the federal government is going to offer a framework and a structure for providing certain benefits to working Canadians, then all working Canadians should have the opportunity take part in that structure and to have access to those benefits.

That is why our Conservative government believes that these entrepreneurs deserve to have access to a system that would provide them with the same EI special benefits that other working Canadians can have access to. That is simply the fair and right thing to do.

Bill C-56 seeks to address the gap by giving such entrepreneurs access to EI special benefits for the very first time and, on a voluntary basis; a move that would improve their financial security and acknowledge the important role that they play in our economy.

When it comes to this action by our government, we listened to Canadians. We made a promise to them, and now we are delivering on that promise over and above what we said we would do.

Let me tell members about it. A year ago, our Prime Minister promised Canadians action. He said:

Self-employed Canadians, and those who one day hope to be, shouldn’t have to choose between starting a family and starting a business because of government policy. It should allow them to pursue their dreams, both as entrepreneurs and as parents...a re-elected Conservative Government will permit self-employed Canadians to join the EI system to access maternity and parental Employment Insurance benefits.

With this bill, not only are we keeping that promise and delivering access to that leave but we are also giving the self-employed access to sickness and to compassionate care that those other Canadians also have access to with EI special benefits. We are exceeding our promise made to Canadians. We are giving self-employed Canadians the same access as other Canadians. We are making this access voluntary because, of course, these benefits would require premium contributions, and we are ensuring that our federal government treats all working Canadians fairly in this manner.

We listened to Canadians. It is not surprising that many self-employed Canadians have been calling on the federal government to open up EI special benefits to them. They want fair treatment from their government and we agree. We do not want them to have to scale back or stop work when faced with joyous events like the birth or adoption of a child, or a difficult personal family challenge such as a serious illness or family crisis.

[Mario Laframboise, Bloc, Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, QC]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to have the opportunity to speak to Bill C-56 on behalf of the Bloc Québécois. I am glad to participate in the debate on an issue as important as employment insurance.

Earlier, I listened to the Conservative member list all of the things her government could have done for women. Opinion polls—one came out just today—show that the Conservative Party has far more male supporters than female, and for good reason. The Conservatives simply do not have the will to systematically address women's problems.

On the contrary, the Bloc Québécois does. That is why, day after day in the House, the Bloc Québécois speaks out vigorously on employment insurance issues, particularly since the economic crisis began. The crisis is affecting society's weakest and most vulnerable, those in unstable employment situations. Employees themselves are not unstable, but the jobs being offered by employers are.

The Conservatives' proposed reforms are nothing more than partisan tactics. Consider the previous bill on employment insurance reform—not Bill C-56, which is before us now, but the previous one introduced by the Conservatives—the one they say will help long-tenured workers. So much can be learned from a closer look at this bill that was passed by the House but opposed by the Bloc Québécois. The help for long-tenured workers bill creates two classes of workers. Their definition of a long-tenured worker is a person who has worked for the same company for at least five years and who has not collected more than 35 weeks of employment insurance in the past five years.

We all know that those employed in the tourism, agriculture, forestry and fisheries sectors, primarily in Quebec, who have worked for a long time—for 15, 20, 25, and 30 years—will not have access to these benefits. They are offered seasonal employment that is often unstable, meaning that it is not permanent. It is in some ways permanent because people return to the same job year after year. However, there are always times when people have to be laid off for all kinds of reasons—in tourism because there are no tourists in a given period of the year, in fisheries because of quotas, in agriculture because the weather makes it impossible to work all 12 months of the year, in forestry because of the weather also. This sector has been in crisis for the past five years and it all started with tariffs. The softwood lumber agreement was signed long before this recession began.

The Conservative Party believes that some permanent employees who are long-tenured workers in an industry do not deserve to have their benefits extended by 5 to 20 weeks.

It is difficult to listen to and follow the Conservatives. They are again boasting about helping women and the most disadvantaged with Bill C-56. We see that this is not the case.

The Bloc Québécois will vote for the bill at this stage to send it to committee and to explore these issues. We know how committees work. Witnesses are invited, target groups consisting of those who should benefit and those who believe they could benefit are heard.

Then we amend and improve the legislation. We will see what happens. However, the bill that is now before us, and which will be passed by the House, may be quite different when it comes back from the committee. We have to care about the most vulnerable in our society, but also about self-employed persons. In fact, ensuring that self-employed persons can benefit from the employment insurance program has always been a clearly stated objective of the Bloc Québécois.

As I said, the Conservatives are manipulating public opinion. It is quite something to hear the media convey the messages of Conservative ministers and members. The Conservatives give the impression that they are helping all self-employed persons, as if these people could contribute to the EI fund and be entitled—if they find themselves out of work for a period of time—to EI benefits. That is not the case. This bill is about a voluntary employment insurance program that will cover special benefits. It is important to make this distinction.

When we talk about special benefits, it is important to understand that self-employed persons will receive maternity benefits for 15 weeks, parental or adoption benefits for a maximum of 35 weeks, sickness benefits for a maximum of 15 weeks, and compassionate care benefits for a maximum of six weeks. Since participation will be on a voluntary basis, the program is not the same across Canada. Of course, in Quebec, some of these benefits—in fact the majority of them—are already included in the program administered by the Quebec government. However, this is not an employment insurance program for self-employed persons.

The Conservatives should stop manipulating and brainwashing the public by saying that they will allow self-employed persons to receive EI benefits. A self-employed person who loses a contract will not be entitled to employment insurance. That is not what the bill now before us provides.

I am repeating it again, because this is important. The Conservatives have become experts in manipulating public opinion. They influence public opinion with a statement from the minister or from members, saying that they are implementing an employment insurance program for self-employed persons. That is not the case. This is an employment insurance program that includes special benefits for those self-employed persons who decide to participate in it. Again, the special benefits to which self-employed persons would be entitled are as follows: maternity benefits for a maximum of 15 weeks, parental or adoption benefits for a maximum of 35 weeks, sickness benefits for a maximum of 15 weeks, and compassionate care benefits for a maximum of six weeks.

Again, there is nothing here for a self-employed person who loses a contract and who, after contributing to the plan, wants to collect EI benefits like any other worker who pays premiums. This person would only be entitled to special benefits, under specific circumstances, but definitely not when losing a contract or a portion of his income.

Now that I have cleared that up, it should be evident that this has always been a goal of the Bloc Québécois. What the Bloc would like is to improve this measure in committee, to ensure that we have a real employment insurance program to help self-employed workers who have been hit by the economic crisis like all other entrepreneurs, businesses and employees.

Contract work has become quite popular. To avoid paying different types of benefits or packages, business people are deciding to hire contract workers to cover a portion of their operations. A good number of self-employed workers are on contract. This is very common in the IT world. My son works in multimedia.

In this field, I would say that nearly 100% of employees are on contract. That does not mean that they are short of work, but during an economic crisis, there is less work. So a number of contract workers are currently out of work, and do not have access to EI because they have not paid premiums.

So we must be cautious about what the Conservatives are proposing, as they often manipulate public opinion for purely partisan reasons—I have no problem saying that—and use the media to serve their party's purposes. Sometimes the media are very sympathetic. They know that the Conservatives are using them and they want to do their work well. I will not say the dirty work that the Conservatives want done, although that could be the case. However it should not be surprising that the objective of the Bloc Québécois, the only party that defends the interests of Quebeckers in this House every single day, is to get the bills improved in committee and to provide a real employment insurance program for self-employed workers.

We also have to put what will be paid in perspective because participation to the program will be voluntary. The bill allows self-employed persons to have access on a voluntary basis to special employment insurance benefits, as I explained earlier. They will pay their premiums to the scheme via their tax returns. They will have to make a voluntary declaration in their tax returns or another return stating their income, and they will have to pay a premium per thousand dollars of income.

Obviously some conditions will apply. They will have to earn a minimum of $6,000 in the calendar year preceding their claim in order to be entitled to 50% of their income, as is the case for special and regular benefits. They will have to enrol in their 2009 tax return. So that will be in their next tax return, that they will have to file in February, March or April 2010 for the 2009 taxation year. They will have to enrol in their 2009 tax return to be able to claim benefits in 2010, a year of paying premiums before being entitled to benefits.

In the present situation, that measure could be in place by 2010, based on tax returns for the preceding year. So we are allowing workers to enrol as of now. They enrol and when they prepare their tax return, they pay their full premium for 2009, and this enables them to claim special employment insurance benefits starting in 2010.

We have to question this procedure because the employment insurance fund has forecast a $7 billion deficit in 2010. Will the purpose of the special premium to be paid by self-employed persons for 2009, which will be payable as soon as January, February, March or April 2010, be to top up the employment insurance fund? Obviously we will have to ask ourselves that question.

Workers who want to claim special benefits will have to pay mandatory, permanent premiums to the plan once they declare themselves as self-employed persons. This will be done on a voluntary basis, but those who begin paying premiums can decide to opt out as long as they have never claimed benefits. That is a choice they could make. However, once someone has claimed benefits under the program, they will have to continue to contribute to the scheme forever, or as long as they are self-employed.

The Conservatives tell us that self-employed persons will pay only the employee premium since they do not have access to regular benefits. That will mean that the premium required will be lower than what is required of regular employees who work for companies.

On the question of special benefits, there is the bill that self-employed persons are to have to pay and what is paid out of the employment insurance scheme in special benefits at present. There is already a plan in effect in Quebec, in fact. Special benefits represent about a quarter of total benefits paid by the plan, while the Conservative Party is seeking $1.73 per $100 from self-employed persons. In Quebec, those workers will pay $1.36 per $100 to be entitled to the two least costly components of the bill. They are already entitled to the other measures through the premiums they pay in Quebec.

Obviously there will be a whole debate in committee about the portion paid by self-employed persons in Quebec. According to the documents provided to the press by the government, self-employed persons who live in Quebec will continue to receive maternity and parental benefits under the government of Quebec’s parental insurance plan.

In addition, these workers will now be eligible for sickness and compassionate care benefits through the federal government's employment insurance scheme. If they decide to take part in the scheme, they will have to pay the same employment insurance premiums as other workers in Quebec, where the rates have already been adjusted to take into account the provincial maternity and parental benefits program.

Bill C-56 will only partially apply to self-employed workers in Quebec, since they are already covered by the Quebec parental insurance plan when it comes to maternity, parental and adoption benefits. Therefore, only the sickness and compassionate care benefits would apply to workers in Quebec.

The EI premium rate for workers in Quebec is $1.36. In Canada, it will be $1.73. The difference between the two rates can be explained by the fact that Quebeckers pay premiums for provincial parental insurance. However, Quebeckers already pay more than the difference between $1.73 and $1.36, which is 37¢, although at this time, they pay just over 80¢ to the Quebec system.

There will be a great deal of discussion and debate over whether this scheme will see Quebeckers paying more than the rest of Canada. People will soon realize that that is the case. The Bloc Québécois' goal will be to ensure that Quebeckers never pay more, that the premiums they currently pay to the Government of Quebec are taken into account, and that the amount of those premiums is in fact deducted from whatever premiums they pay as part of the scheme for the rest of Canada.

In all of the Americas, Quebec is where wealth is the most evenly distributed, and this is what we want as a society. Quebec has created programs that we often pay for ourselves. It serves as an example for the rest of Canada, but we are never compensated as much as the others are compensated. That is one reason why Quebec hopes to one day become sovereign. It is not because we do not like our neighbours; it is simply because we have a different perspective of society. This is confirmed every day.

When it comes to the environment, it is now clear that Canada is an embarrassment to the rest of the world. If Quebec were a country, it would have one of the best track records in terms of fighting climate change. Society makes these choices. Quebec developed hydroelectricity and I am proud to say that our hydro network was developed with no federal contributions whatsoever. Quebeckers chose to develop their hydro network without any help from the federal government. If Quebec were a country, it could take part in the carbon exchange, and Quebec companies that have made an effort to reduce their emissions beyond the Kyoto targets would now be entitled to huge sums of money.

Rivière-du-Loup closed a landfill and built a methane capture system, so it would collect $1 million. However, because Canada decided to go it alone, it has deprived Rivière-du-Loup of that $1 million.

[Helena Guergis, Conservative, Minister of State (Status of Women)]

Madam Speaker, a year ago the Prime Minister said this:

Self-employed Canadians—and those who one day hope to be—shouldn't have to choose between starting a family and starting a business because of government policy....They should be able to pursue their dreams—both as entrepreneurs and as parents.

At the time, Conservatives promised to extend EI maternity and parental benefits to the self-employed. That was our pledge to all Canadians.

Canadians who pay into the EI system now get not only maternity and parental benefits but also compassionate care benefits and sickness benefits. Right now the field is not fair. Those Canadians get more.

We want to do more, we can and we will do more. We are doing more for self-employed Canadians through Bill C-56. Not only will we make maternity and parental benefits available to them, but also those same compassionate care and sickness benefits that most working Canadians already receive. This is both the fair thing and the right thing to do and it is really that simple.

The same relative assurance and stability that most working Canadians have due to these special benefits should be and now will be accorded to the work and lives of the literally millions of self-employed Canadians across the country.

Our Conservative government knows that families are the foundation of our great country and until the introduction of the bill, there was no choice for them at all. Self-employed Canadians have been on their own since the very beginning.

While we certainly have faith in the abilities and the willingness of these Canadians to create jobs, to create wealth and to save and plan for the contingencies of life, successive Canadian governments have done nothing to make things even just a little bit easier; that is, until now.

Bill C-56 amends the Employment Insurance Act to extend to self-employed Canadians similar EI special benefits that employees enjoy on a voluntary basis. These are the benefits that can help them cope with life-changing events and transitions, such as the birth of a child, the adoption of a child, a serious illness or having to care for a family member who is gravely ill.

These benefits have been available in various forms to most working Canadians for a very long time but never to our self-employed. Building this structure to facilitate our self-employed being able to draw on these benefits, if they want to and if they need to, is our government's way of making things a little easier.

There are somewhere around 2.6 million self-employed Canadians in our country. We are talking about over 15% of the workforce. We know that 47% of small business owners are women owned or operated by women. We know that the OECD has cited Canada as having one of the most entrepreneurial women's groups within the OECD developed countries. That is impressive. It is a very large and very important segment of our workforce and an even bigger segment of our entrepreneurial, creative and wealth-producing talent.

They have long asked for this sort of support. Previous governments completely ignored these Canadians and they have for decades. That is stopping right now.

Our government has listened and we have worked hard to create this bill and the structure and now we are delivering results for the self-employed.

In many cases self-employment has meant a new start for people or even a challenge right at the outset of a person's working life. Many of these people are entrepreneurial by nature. They are willing to take risks. They are very creative and they are driven.

I have been a small business owner myself, having been raised in a small business family and coming from a long line of small businesses, namely from a jewellery business, to a local garage owner, to a motel, to a grocery store and to a furniture business. That is the family business I was raised in for 40 years. I often jokingly say that I started in the dusting department and quickly rose and graduated to marketing, sales, finance and so on. A small business person is all of the above.

Many members here, past and present, and I am sure many in the future, too, have run small businesses and perhaps will run a business of their own when they leave this place.

Self-employed people set out to market their skills and their knowledge and the economy is much better for their resourcefulness and determination. In this place we often speak of creating the best trained, most skilled, most flexible workforce in the world. Often it is those very attributes that define the successful self-employed Canadian. They market themselves on their strengths, on their training and their skills and they are certainly among the most flexible people in the labour market.

Self-employed individuals must be ready to take on a very wide range of challenges. Many self-employed individuals find great satisfaction in being their own boss. They enjoy being called in to fix a particular problem for which their background and training make them qualified.

However, as many self-employed people know, and would remind us, this kind of career path can be something like walking a tightrope at times and there is no safety net of benefits to tide them over should difficult times come upon them.

Life transition events can be extremely challenging for those who are self-employed. What do they do when they are sick? Who do they turn to? What do they do when a close family member has been diagnosed with a terminal illness? How do they balance their work and their family responsibilities?

An employee who pays EI premiums has access to EI maternal or paternal benefits when needed. Up to now, self-employed Canadians had no such option. Our Conservative government cares a great deal about the family. We are helping Canadians balance their work and their family responsibilities.

When the Prime Minister first assumed office in 2006, he made child care a priority for our government. Choice and opportunity would be the driving forces behind our government's policies when it came to Canadian families.

When our Conservative government sees such a large number of Canadian workers who might want to raise a family but do not have the kind of supports that they need, especially when those supports are available to other Canadians, we want to ensure we can help them. This situation is particularly acute when we consider how many self-employed Canadians are women.

As Minister of State for the Status of Women, I am proud of what the bill would accomplish for women. This, however, is nothing new because in every action that we have taken as a government, we have advanced the economic, social, cultural and democratic participation of women in this country.

The guiding principle for actions we have taken with respect to women has always been ensuring that the benefits go directly to women and their families. That was why our government chose to provide child care benefits directly to parents. That is why we created two new funding programs at Status of Women Canada: the community grants fund and the partnership fund. We increased the budget for both of these programs so women's organizations across the country could get the assistance they needed in order to help within their own specific communities.

Funding for Status of Women Canada right now is at the highest level in Canada's history. We have seen a dramatic increase in the number of women's organizations across the country that are receiving funding, in fact, a 69% increase. Forty-two per cent of them are receiving money for the first time.

To date, 100,000 women have benefited from these projects, which focus on economic security, ending violence against women and leadership and democratic participation. However, the larger portion is focused on economic security. This includes talking about financial literacy or helping a new businesswoman understand what is required in terms of accounting measures for small business, or, for new immigrants, even knowing where to go to begin that new business.

Over the summer, I had an opportunity to meet with women across the country from all walks of life. I was proud and impressed to hear from so many Canadian women on how they had accomplished so much as small business women and what they were looking for from this government.

I heard time and again that they wanted us to fulfill the promise and the pledge that we made to provide maternal and paternal benefits to the self-employed, and that is exactly what we are doing. We are doing one better. We are also going to provide compassionate benefits, which are important.

Working with businesswomen across the country, being a former owner of a small business and having a Masters in business, I can tell the House that small businesswomen across the country are pleased with this government. They are looking to all members in the House to support the bill.

[Pierre Lemieux, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Agriculture]

Madam Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for Simcoe—Grey.

It is a pleasure for me to rise today in defence of Bill C-56, Fairness for the Self-Employed Act, which provides self-employed persons in Canada with special employment insurance benefits.

Entrepreneurship is vital to a vibrant economy and creates jobs in Canadian communities. Last year, there were 2.6 million self-employed in Canada, accounting for 15.4% of the active population. Nearly one-third of self-employed women are in their reproductive years.

Self-employed persons have little or no income protection during major events in their lives, such as the birth or adoption of a child, sickness, or the provision of care to gravely ill relatives. Our government wants the self-employed to have special employment insurance benefits comparable to those available to salaried employees.

Expanding access to these benefits is both fair and responsible. Let me explain these special benefits, which provide Canadians with income support during major events in their lives, such as the birth or adoption of a child or the need to care for a terminally ill relative.

Anyone would find that major events like these affect a person’s ability to work. Our Conservative government is very sensitive to the difficulties facing all working Canadians, who have to deal with the pressures of both their occupational and family responsibilities. All indications are that these benefits are very important to the self-employed.

A recent survey showed that self-employed persons are very interested in getting some help in dealing with these sorts of events in their lives. Our government is responding to their long-standing desire to be able to draw on this kind of support. We are proposing that the special employment insurance benefits for the self-employed should be similar to those available to employees under the current employment insurance program. The following would therefore be similar: benefit periods, income-replacement rates, maximum insurable earnings, the treatment of earnings, and the waiting period.

Adjustments will be made, of course, on the basis of the individual situations of the self-employed. For example, participation in the program will be voluntary and self-employed persons must contribute on an ongoing basis for at least a year in order to qualify for benefits. They can withdraw from the program at the end of any financial year, provided they have never received benefits. The contribution rate is the same as for employees, but they will not be required to pay the employer’s share of the employment insurance contribution because they will not be eligible for regular employment insurance benefits. The self-employed will qualify for benefits if their income is interrupted as a result of the birth or adoption of a child, a sickness, or the need to care for a gravely ill relative.

To be eligible for those benefits, they must earn at least $6,000 in the calendar year as a self-employed worker. As many hon. members know, the Government of Quebec already pays maternity and parental benefits to self-employed workers through Quebec's parental insurance program.

I would point out that with this bill, self-employed workers who live in Quebec will continue receiving maternity and parental benefits from Quebec's parental insurance program established by the Government of Quebec for everyone who lives in Quebec. However, they could also be eligible for the sickness and compassionate care benefits offered by the federal government through the employment insurance system. Since the province is already paying for parental and maternity benefits, the premiums paid by self-employed workers in Quebec will be lowered. Those are the main points of this bill.

Increasing access to these benefits is a fair, equitable, family-based policy that will greatly benefit families across Canada. Our Conservative government knows that family is the foundation of our beautiful country.

We believe that self-employed workers in Canada should not have to chose between their families and their professional responsibilities. I would like to look at Bill C-56 in a broader context.

When the Prime Minister came to power in 2006, he made child care one of this government's top priorities. In fact, this summer marked the third anniversary of the universal child care benefit. Since July 2006, we have been giving parents $100 a month for each child under the age of six. This means a total of $1,200 a year for each child under the age of six, which helps parents choose the solution that best meets their family's needs.

Since last February's budget, we have made major new investments in families. We have increased the income thresholds at which the national child benefit and the Canada child tax benefit are phased out. We have created $580 billion in refundable tax credits through the working income tax benefit. We have created $1 billion in decent, affordable housing. Over five years, we will deliver $20 billion in personal income tax relief. In short, support for Canadian families is one of this government's top priorities. That is the backdrop against which we are introducing Bill C-56, the Fairness for the Self-Employed Act.

These special benefits will not only help many people take responsibility for their family and loved ones, they will also give them peace of mind and greater financial security. As hon. members are well aware, the government acted quickly to help Canadians get through these tough economic times. That is another one of our priorities.

Thanks to Canada's economic action plan, we quickly made improvements to the employment insurance system by increasing the benefit period, making service more efficient, providing support for training and extending the work sharing program. The measures in Canada's economic action plan reflect this government's commitment to help all Canadians through this economic crisis.

This government has also expanded eligibility for compassionate care benefits and created the Canada Employment Insurance Financing Board to improve the governance and management of the EI account. More recently, the government has passed legislation to pay regular EI benefits to long-tenured workers who lose their jobs. These are people who have paid into EI for years but seldom received benefits and who now need a hand.

Our Conservative government is sensitive to Canadians' needs. This bill reflects our commitment to pay parental and maternity benefits to self-employed workers.

I encourage all members to join me in voting for this bill.

[Raymonde Folco, Liberal, Laval—Les Îles, QC]

Madam Speaker, I rise today to speak to Bill C-56, An Act to amend the Employment Insurance Act and to make consequential amendments to other Acts.

These amendments will mainly affect self-employed Canadians who have been lobbying for changes to employment insurance legislation for a number of years.

In principle, Liberals will support this legislation because the intent is good. We would like to see the bill sent to committee for an in-depth study.

What my colleagues and I on this side of the House find surprising is the fact that the government has drafted such an important bill without even defining the expression “self-employed worker”.

As a legislative body, it is our responsibility as parliamentarians, when laws are written and codified, to provide advice to whose who will apply the law in the legislative framework.

At the outset of any piece of legislation, it is important to say what we mean by the terms. Who are these independent workers? When we talk about the self-employed, who are we speaking about? Are we speaking about people who work as individual consultants, or those who work within a consulting firm where there are several independent consultants but only share office space, phone lines, a receptionist and other administrative services? Are we speaking about contractors, small and medium-sized entrepreneurs who work in teams yet have no financial responsibility towards each other?

Surely the definitions of the people affected by any legislation, and particularly such a major piece as we are discussing today, should be included and clarified in the actual legislation and not left to regulations. These regulations, which come after the legislation has passed this House and the other House, can be amended by order in council, at the government's will, without any debate in Parliament. It is therefore imperative that there be substantial amendments to the bill as it stands today, and the very first one that I would suggest to this House would be a definition of who are the people who will be affected by this bill.

Who are these self-employed workers? What we do know, based on socio-demographic characteristics, is that the number of self-employed workers has increased.

Throughout Canada, one worker in six is now self-employed.

According to the surveys, self-employment has grown more quickly than employment in general in the past 25 years.

According to Statistics Canada, between August 2008 and August 2009, self-employment rose by 3.5% on average. That is in one year. That is over 92,000 more people.

Concurrently, the paid work force has decreased by 2.7%.

There are now more than 2.7 million self-employed people in Canada, as compared to 2.5 million in 2005. This is despite the downturn in the economy. It is obvious that this bill comes at a very important time for these 2.7 million self-employed people in Canada, but we have to know, within this 2.7 million, who is going to be affected by the bill.

In the case of women who are self-employed, 35.9% have their spouses as business partners compared to 28% for men. That means that both workers in the family are self-employed.

We also know that around 88% of the self-employed work full time.

We know that people have chosen self-employment either after retirement, or in many cases, when they have grown frustrated with their inability to find full-time work that suits their qualifications and skills.

We also know that stress in the workplace, especially within the public service sector, has forced people to choose the uncertainties of self-employment, and I could talk about the uncertainties of self-employment, because for 10 years I was self-employed. It was really an up-and-down ladder. There were months when nothing would come in and I would do no work, and there were months when I would be trying to do two or three things at the same time. One could never tell a few months ahead whether there was going to be any money coming into the house.

We know that among the self-employed, 17% are newcomers to Canada. We know one of the reasons is that they have degrees they have earned outside Canada and they are not able to have a comparable degree here in Canada. These people have no choice but to become self-employed, because barriers to employment are more prevalent.

The opposition has been waiting a long time to discuss changes to employment insurance. We spent the summer trying to work with the Conservative government.

In the end, we have a bill that has no flexibility within the employment insurance program, does not take into consideration the variety of legislation in the provinces and territories, and does not provide a clear definition of self-employment. If there is one, it is not good enough.

This is as a result of a summer of discontent, of a lack of goodwill on the part of the government to be open and willing to discuss public policies that matter to Canadians.

While we are pleased that many of those self-employed women, and I am only speaking of women here, will now be able to access maternity benefits and parental, sick and even compassionate benefits, what calculations did the government use to assure Canadians that the EI fund will be able to withstand the added cost? If it has done calculations, these calculations are still unknown to Canadians and are definitely unknown to parliamentarians.

What models did the government look at before coming up with this framework? Obviously not very many.

For instance, had the government made an effort to look at what the provinces and territories had in terms of programs, it would have realized that the Quebec model is a very good one, and it would be important that it be used as a basis for developing a fairer and more equitable system for the self-employed. I would like to take a moment to outline this Quebec model.

The Government of Quebec currently provides parental and maternity benefits to the self-employed, but it uses a different model. All Quebeckers who are in business for themselves have to pay, out of their income, premiums to Quebec's parental insurance plan, QPIP. Self-employed workers with at least $2,000 in insurable income may qualify for benefits under this plan and receive up to 70% of their income in QPIP benefits. That is a more generous plan than the one proposed in the bill before us today.

As long as the QPIP is in place, the new federal maternity and parental benefits plan will not apply to Quebec, but the self-employed in Quebec will be able to contribute to the plan for the caregiver and sick leave benefits that are not currently provided under QPIP. Consequently, in Quebec, the self-employed will pay premiums corresponding to 37% less of their income. It goes without saying that this sounds like a more equitable arrangement than the one proposed in this federal bill, which corresponds to 55% of an individual's average income.

Another questionable aspect of what is being presented in this legislation is the threshold of $6,000 in pre-tax earnings before the self-employed can qualify.

Again, what calculations did the government use to come up with this figure?

This is one aspect that we, on this side, would like to see discussed in detail at committee in the interest of those who will be affected by the proposed regulations.

At committee, we would also like the hear the Government of Quebec on the best practices and lessons learned in providing services to the self-employed in that province.

While we are pleased that many of those self-employed women will now be able to access maternity benefits, we still ask, again, what calculations has the Conservative government made? How has it come to these calculations? Will it make them public to members of Parliament, as well as to the Canadian public?

The labour force must become flexible. Working full time for a single employer is no longer the norm. We must therefore have a system that meets and responds to the needs of this new labour force, one that is flexible, mobile and even seasonal.

This is what fairness and equity is all about in the 21st century.

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

Madam Speaker, my colleague from Jonquière—Alma will probably admit that he made an error in his presentation earlier. The number of weeks of sickness benefits is 15, not 25. I do not believe that the bill says that it will increase. He said 25, but I think that that is a mistake, because the bill provides for 15 weeks of sickness benefits. That said, I do not believe he deliberately misstated the number.

I would like to talk about my colleague's presentation, in which he defended Bill C-50 instead of Bill C-56. I understand that he is embarrassed at having supported that bill and that he felt obliged to defend it because it is indefensible.

My colleague from Chicoutimi—Le Fjord pointed out that in Quebec, both the major unions and the groups that represent the unemployed are unanimously opposed to the bill. I would add that even in the auto sector, the Canadian Auto Workers have acknowledged that it would help them so little for the price that they would prefer not to have it.

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

Mr. Speaker, this is a very important bill. I want to say right off that I agree with the Bloc member's remarks that the major parties here should work together to produce EI bills and EI and other reforms.

I could say—I do not know if the hon. member from the Bloc will agree with me—that when it comes to studying, we have been there and done that. Employment Insurance has been studied from top to bottom. Twenty-eight recommendations have been tabled in the House. Most of the political parties have introduced the 28 recommendations that should have led to the major reform of EI. I think we can agree that recommendations have been made and that a lot of work has been done.

When we invite witnesses to appear before the Standing Committee on Human Resources, Skills Development, Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities to speak about EI, we know what people need.

Earlier, the member for Dartmouth—Cole Harbour tried to take some credit. It is not that I want to pick on this Liberal member. Let us consider their beloved pink book and the changes that should have occurred. Let us consider how much these people have been left out. I have to repeat what I have said on this. Although I produced a report in 1999, which the member more or less called an antique, the problem remains. If it is an antique, the Liberals were in office from 1999 to 2005 and did nothing for self employed workers, sometimes called independent workers.

This bill is a good start. I asked the minister why the government did not make self-employed workers eligible for EI when they were unemployed. She said that the formula was too complex, for example, if they were taking a vacation. I think that if they took a vacation—she seems to have said that these people work without a break—if there is no money coming in, it means they are not working. That is the test of Bill C-56. That is how it is calculated.

There will, however, be 2.6 billion Canadians who could access the self-employed workers program if they wish. The benefits of the bill are 15 weeks of maternity benefits, 35 weeks of parental and adoption leave and six weeks of compassionate care leave.

As I said in 1999—it is not in the red or pink or other book, but it is still true—there is the human side of EI. At the time, people were saying:

A plan ill suited to the new labour market. The EI program, as it exists, does not take market realities into account. More workers are described as "self-employed", which is not quite the case. A growing number of businesses are laying off people and then hiring them as self-employed workers in order to avoid having to contribute to EI or to a pension plan. Self-employed workers are not entitled to EI and are practically without social protection. We must take a closer look at what is really happening on the new labour market and explore ways to help so-called self-employed workers contribute to and benefit from the system.

What were people saying in 1999 and what are they saying today, 10 years later? Many self-employed workers used to work for an employer. When their services were no longer needed, they went home. And then the same employer would call them back. These workers were mainly women doing office work.

The employer would ask them to do some work for him, to write a letter, for example. They had their own computer at home. They would write the letter and send it to the employer, who would use it. He would make these people work as self-employed workers and they were totally excluded from any program that could have helped them, like health insurance or employment insurance. They could not contribute.

How many people with complaints about that have I met in my riding? For example, a hairdresser who had her own salon told me that she would like to start a family and have children, but she could not afford to because if she stopped working, she would have no income.

Bill C-56 would give that hairdresser the chance to benefit from maternity leave, parental leave and sick leave. And she is not the only one because, with this bill, even farmers will enjoy those benefits. Any person holding more than 40% of the shares in a company will be recognized as self-employed. That is why I am proud to see that this bill is going in the right direction. However, there are still improvements to be made.

The minister says that she wants equal treatment for workers. What is troublesome is that, according to the numbers, 2.6 million Canadian men and women are self-employed and have no protection whatsoever. How can the minister say that she wants equal treatment for workers when the self-employed cannot avail themselves of employment insurance, for example?

I have talked to other people who are self-employed, massage therapists, for example, and as I said, farmers. They get up in the morning and do their work. They wonder why they are not protected for when they do not have work, especially those who work in offices, most of whom are women.

When I made my trip across the country in 1999, the self-employed said it very, very clearly. I presented a document to the House of Commons, to the government. On page 12 of the document is the heading, “Lack of response to the new labour market”. In the new labour market, many people have become self-employed. Many people who had worked for a company or a business but had been laid off started their own business.

This morning the minister herself said that this is a new lifestyle that we will see more and more. There are 2.6 million self-employed people in our country. If there are 2.6 million self-employed people in our country, we have to give them more than the sick leave, paternal leave, maternity leave and care leave. We have to go further than that. What if they lose their job or do not have any work? The minister this morning asked how we would know whether a person was working or not working. If people do not report any earnings, that means they are not working. If a hairdresser does not have earnings for two months, then that person is not working. I think there are ways to do it.

I will vote for the bill to go to committee. I would be very interested to work with other members to make it a better bill. That is what this is all about. The bill is presented in the House and when it goes to committee, we have the opportunity to make amendments to it. I hope that we will work together so that self-employed people will have be treated equally with respect to employment insurance.

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

Mr. Speaker, with regard to Bill C-56, which will for the first time give a certain number of rights to self-employed workers, it is rather appalling that the major national parties are taking the credit for doing nothing to improve the living conditions of those who lose their jobs. It is quite surprising. They stated that they brought forward many proposals but at no time did they get together to finally take the next step of reforming the employment insurance program in order to restore its original purpose—to support and protect workers who have the misfortune of losing their jobs.

I am also surprised that two of my colleagues raised the fact that we could rejoice because of this bill and begin celebrating Christmas. I do not think there is anything to celebrate. There is no cause to celebrate, especially not for the unemployed because they will not be in a festive mood. In fact, I doubt that most of them have anything to be happy about, even at Christmas, because a large number—the majority of those who lost their jobs—will find themselves without income or with the small income provided by their provinces in the form of social assistance, the support of last resort.

Bill C-56 is not what is going to improve the situation. The only merit to be found in that bill is that for the first time it recognizes the rights of self-employed persons. Even though they do not have many rights, it is a first step, I would say, toward improving a social safety net that is perhaps, however, not identical to what other workers have. It needs to be improved, but it is a step in the right direction.

Members have been using the term “travailleurs autonomes” for self-employed persons. The term used in the bill is “travailleurs indépendants”. That is fine with me. We like it a lot, even though it also refers to workers who are federalists. But if we talk about workers who are “indépendants”, that is fine with me. The more there are, the better, not independent workers but people who are going to work for Quebec’s independence.

In recent years, the Bloc has never stopped calling for coverage for self-employed persons. In the last two economic recovery plans we presented, there were very specific measures for self-employed persons, particularly in the last one we presented in this House.

Bill C-56 refers to four kinds of special leave, but two of them will not apply in Quebec. Why? Because since March 1, 2005, there has been an agreement between Quebec and the federal government to transfer responsibility for maternity and parental leave to Quebec, along with part of the deduction for premiums that was to be allocated to support that program. Right now in Quebec, about 500,000 workers are considered to be self-employed.

Bill C-56 also provides for access to the program to be voluntary. We shall see whether making it voluntary, with the criteria being proposed at present, does not create problems in terms of genuine protection for those people.

We support the bill in principle for the reasons I stated at the outset. For the first time, it grants rights under the employment insurance scheme for self-employed persons, and in that respect we welcome this initiative.

We very much hope that the government, that is, the Conservative Party, will be open and work with us on making amendments to its own bill.

What also causes problems for us, and we will submit this for debate, is that we were hoping that when self-employed persons were given rights it would also mean granting employment insurance benefits from the point when they found themselves jobless.

An individual who owns a small business or is self-employed may sometimes in fact find themselves with no contract or no retainer so they can continue to work. As a result, they are left without an income. II think this is an aspect that should be debated. Certainly we are going to work to have this bill passed on second reading to make sure it can be debated in committee.

There is also another problem, however. In my view, it is a major problem. That is the entire question of how premium rates are set, which seems to us to be somewhat random. As well, the projected premiums for the benefits that will be made available to these people seems to be much too high.

Remember that the bill is intended to provide self-employed persons with benefits during special leave. There are four kinds of special leave. There are maternity benefits for up to 15 weeks and parental or adoption benefits for up to 35 weeks. We agree on that. The maternity and parental leave benefits are the parts that cost the most, 75% of the total estimated cost. This is a responsibility that Quebec already assumes.

That means the bill does not apply to self-employed persons in Quebec. Only some of its provisions apply. The two provisions that apply are sickness benefits, for up to 15 weeks, and compassionate care benefits for up to six weeks. However, these two benefits account for only 25% of the total cost of Bill C-56.

The members can probably see where I am coming from. Self-employed persons in the rest of Canada will pay their full contribution to be entitled to these four benefits, while in Quebec, they will pay their full contribution to be entitled to only two benefits, representing 25% of the total cost.

Self-employed persons in Quebec are going to contribute as if they were receiving all four of the special kinds of leave I listed, in addition to the benefits they get if they lose their job. There is something very questionable about this.

The answer we are given is that as self-employed persons, they are assumed to be employers as well and the employer’s share will offset their contributions.

Even if we follow this reasoning and add the employer’s share, the final amount is still much less. This even implies that the transfers currently provided to Quebec for maternity leave and parental leave are far too low. That is another debate, though, that we will take up in another forum.

For the time being, let us just say that the cost of this for self-employed persons in Quebec is clearly too high. Some very specific work needs to be done to give us the information we requested. I hope we will get it. We had a briefing two evenings ago with some senior officials. We asked for the actual cost of each of the measures in the bill: the actual cost of the maternity leave and parental leave, the actual cost of the compassionate care leave, and the actual cost of the illness leave. They are nowhere to be found here. We have to refer to the amounts that Quebec pays for parental leave and maternity leave. We conclude from this that the cost is clearly too high.

The coverage that is provided applies to self-employed persons earning at least $6,000 a year. I understand this is to facilitate the accounting rules in regard to taxation. The contributions that self-employed persons make will be determined when they fill out their income tax returns, that is to say, at the end of the financial year on the basis of their income during that year.

This brings me to another aspect of the bill that we need to take a closer look at. Self-employed workers who pay their premiums this year and then take six weeks of compassionate care leave, the purpose of which is to provide end-of-life care, would therefore be making a commitment to contribute for the rest of their working lives as self-employed persons. Yet, participation is said to be voluntary. I can understand that they cannot just make an opportunistic contribution and pull out after availing themselves of the plan. I understand that. We should, however, see if something could not be done differently, because this seems to be going too far.

Those who contribute for one year will be able to withdraw from the plan at any time, provided they have not availed themselves of it. If self-employed individuals join—and let us not forget that participation is voluntary—they will be able to withdraw, as long as they have not availed themselves of the plan. Otherwise, they will have to participate for the rest of their working lives. We should look for a way to come up with a more realistic measure with respect to the type of commitment self-employed workers have to make.

Before yielding the floor to a member from a different party, let me remind the House that, in Quebec, the self-employed will continue to benefit from maternity and parental leave administered by Quebec. Therefore, they will not benefit from this bill like the rest of Canada.

They will be charged the same amounts, which represent 75% of the costs, while Quebec will be assuming the largest part of the costs, given that maternity leave and parental leave make up 75% of special leave costs. The percentages for the self-employed will be reversed. While the federal government bears 25% of the costs, they will have to pay 100% in terms of premiums. The way the Conservatives look at it, this represents 75% of the total cost, and the federal government will be responsible for 25%. We estimate that the self-employed will be paying 50% too much.

This bill also provides that a person who is absent from work because of a work-related injury will be covered. In Quebec, we have a program supervised by the Commission de la santé et de la sécurité du travail, the CSST, which covers costs and which pays benefits to a person who is absent from work because of an occupational injury or disease. Federal coverage will now be provided, but this will not benefit Quebec, because it has already provided such services since the late sixties. Quebec workers are paying good money for that protection. In fact, it is primarily employers who contribute to the fund, because of their responsibility as employers. Providing coverage in Quebec will not cost the federal government anything because coverage is already provided, but self-employed persons will have to pay premiums to the federal government. This is another point that we will have to examine very closely during our review in committee.

What we need is a comprehensive overhaul of the employment insurance system. As we mentioned, Bill C-308, which I sponsored for the Bloc Québécois, proposes some measures that should be part of this process, including working 360 hours to qualify for benefits, making the 50-week benefit period—instead of 45 weeks—permanent, and increasing the rate of weekly benefits to 60% of a claimant's earnings. Our bill also provides coverage for self-employed persons.

The government would have achieved two things by supporting Bill C-308, ensuring its passage through all the stages, and not seeking royal assent. This would have allowed us to do a really conscientious job and, more importantly, would have been socially responsible, because we would have taken into consideration a number of factors to avoid the aberrations that we mentioned earlier and that will have to be corrected along the way.

So we are going to support the principle of this legislation, as long as we can make the amendments that I suggested earlier. In the meantime, I urge the government and all parliamentarians to also support my Bill C-308, at third reading, in the near future.

The House resumed consideration of the motion that Bill C-56, An Act to amend the Employment Insurance Act and to make consequential amendments to other Acts be read a second time and referred to a committee.

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

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the hon. member for Dartmouth—Cole Harbour for his speech.

He made several references to their pink book. I remember their pink book. I hope pink stands a better chance for success than red did, because as I recall, the red book talked about the GST and made all kinds of promises that were never kept.

My Liberal colleague is also trying to take credit for something, as though it had been his party's idea to grant benefits to self-employed workers. I would remind this House that when the Liberals were in power, they did absolutely nothing for self-employed workers. In contrast, our party, the NDP, made recommendations in its 1999 report. They can be found on page 12. We mentioned this, proposed it in the House of Commons and made requests in committee. At that time, the workers were saying:

Self-employed workers are not eligible for employment insurance and benefit from almost no social protection. We must take a closer look at what is really happening on the new labour market and explore ways to help so-called self-employed workers contribute to and benefit from the system.

My question is for the Liberal member. If the Liberals were in power, would self-employed workers who lose their jobs and are not covered by Bill C-56—which the Conservatives just introduced—be covered if they are not working? That is what self-employed workers were talking about: parental leave, maternity leave, sick leave, compassionate leave and other benefits if they do not have a job. That is what they said across the country. I wonder if the hon. member for Dartmouth—Cole Harbour can answer this.

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

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise in the House to speak to Bill C-56, the fairness for the self-employed act.

The Liberals will support the bill in principle. We want to get it to committee to have a look at it. It might take some considerable review because a lot of people have opinions on it, some favourable and some perhaps not. I think people, more than anything else, will have questions about it.

It strikes me that there is a bit of regret in that one of two things has occurred in the bill. The government and its departments, including human resources, have looked at this for some time, along with models and proposals. If that is the case, it was not shared with the EI working group in the summer, of which I was a part. That was part of the mandate of the group. However, there was no serious proposal made to the group.

In spite of consistent questions, particularly from my colleague, the member for Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine, who asked whether the government had any information, the response was no. She said that there must be something as it was in the platform of the Conservative Party. If there was any information, it belonged to the Conservative Party and it would not share it. It was a dichotomous situation. Either the department was working on things that were not shared with us or the bill was rushed through and had some flaws in it. We will decide which one of those it is as it goes forward.

However, this is a good step forward for Canadians who are self-employed, a modest one albeit but a step forward. It looks at certain benefits for people who are self-employed and would like to be part of the employment insurance system.

Another question is one that I just asked the minister. I will quote from page 100 of the budget book of January 27. It states:

The Minister of Human Resources and Skills Development will be asked to establish an Expert Panel that will consult Canadians on how to best provide self-employed Canadians with access to EI maternity and parental benefits.

The minister indicated that the expert the panel intended to consult was me and that the EI working group was supposed to do this work, which clearly was not the intent back when the budget came forward.

On Tuesday night, during a bill briefing, I asked officials this question. What about the commitment in the budget to have an expert group? They had no idea what I was even talking about. It was never seriously considered, unless they can prove the opposite. Even the parliamentary secretary was confused as to whether there had actually been a commitment.

Clearly, not many Canadians were consulted. We have not heard from the minister that she has consulted a lot of Canadians. She quoted some people after the fact, indicating that some may like the direction of the bill, and why not?

I am sure there is some merit to the bill and we hope this might be an opportunity for Parliament to work. We can look at the bill in a serious way in committee, me and my colleagues on the Liberal side, along with the member for Chambly—Borduas, who works and lives this file, and I suspect the member for Acadie—Bathurst, who steps in for the New Democrats on the human resources committee.

There are people who can seriously look at this and identify the flaws and opportunities to make the bill better. I hope that happens and that in the spirit of co-operation, perhaps even the spirit of Christmas, as the bill works its way through committee that might in fact occur.

We do have some concerns about premiums. There has not been any estimate as to what the cost to the government would be. We have heard there is a premium rate and that it will be differentiated for the province of Quebec. The province of Quebec already has certain benefits, maternal and parental, and people can opt in. Will the rate people in Quebec pay be suitable for the level of benefits they would have and will there be a cost to the government?

One could assume that in the first year there will be a spike in premiums as people enter the program. They will have to be in it for at least a year before they can draw benefits, so there will be any outlay in benefits. However, as the benefits start to catch up to the premium, what will be the cost and who will pay that cost? Will it be the consolidated revenue fund of the Government of Canada, as the government did with the extra five weeks in January, or will it be the EI fund where the money for Bill C-50 will come out of?

That is a big difference because, as we know, the government has set up a separate EI financing board, which only has $2 billion to work with. We have already heard from the Chief Actuary of Canada that the $2 billion is nowhere near enough to fund the programs that exist without adding new programs. That is one question we will ask.

However, I want to take a second and talk about a group of people in Parliament who have done some magnificent work. Over the last few years, the National Liberal Women's Caucus has established three pink books. These pink books came out in 2006, 2007 and 2009. In each of those pink books, the National Liberal Women's Caucus has addressed this issue of self-employment and the importance that it has for Canadian women.

In the one that was released recently, I will quote from page 16. It states:

Another significant group in the labour force are self-employed women. The latest statistics reveal that more than 1 in 10 employed women in Canada are self-employed. In 2004, almost 840 000 women were self-employed. Women entrepreneurs face many challenges, including difficulty in accessing capital and benefits. The majority of women small-business owners earn $30 000 per year or less and have no access to low-cost health care, no protection for disability, no employment insurance or maternity benefits, and cannot afford private sector insurance and pension plans.

Following that, it has a recommendation, which states:

Permit self-employed workers to participate in the special benefits programs under the EI program as recommended by the Standing Commons Committee on the Status of Women in its June 2007 report, “Improving the Economic Security of Women: Time to Act.” This change would give self-employed workers access to maternity and parental benefits and the Compassionate Care Benefit.

I congratulate the government on adopting one of the recommendations from the pink book. I would encourage it to go further and adopt all of the recommendations in that book. If the pink book, which coincidentally is pink, were adopted in full by the Government of Canada, I would not have to be a member of Parliament. A lot of the work would be done. I want to commend members of our women's caucus for the outstanding work they do, particularly on the social side, but also on the economic and environmental sides.

The recommendations the caucus have made have been very important. People such as the member for Beaches—East York and the member for Winnipeg South Centre have been champions of this issue. We have new members of the national women's caucus, such as the member for Brossard—La Prairie, who has done some fabulous work on this issue as well. The Liberal caucus has been looking at this for a long while.

I also want to refer to a report that came out in June of 2009. This is a report of the Standing Committee on the Status of Women entitled, “Towards Improving Access to EI Benefits for Women in Canada”. Again, with the House's indulgence, I would like to quote from that. It states:

A measure which can be taken to limit the problem of moral hazard would be to extend exclusively EI special benefits to self-employed individuals. The Quebec Parental Insurance Plan (QPIP) has extended its coverage to self-employed individuals for maternity and parental benefits. The Committee heard from several witnesses that QPIP can serve as a possible model for a federal program.

There are many good recommendations in the report. Recommendation 14 states:

Human Resources and Skills Development Canada make maternity and parental benefits as flexible and equal as the Quebec Parental Insurance Plan by expanding eligibility, benefit levels and duration of EI benefits.

Human Resources and Skills Development Canada extend benefits to the self-employed using the Quebec Parental Insurance Plan as its model.

That also was a very good report and one of the things that our human resources committee would do.

I will ask for the indulgence of my colleagues from Chambly—Borduas, Acadie—Bathurst and my colleagues on the government side. We should have a joint committee study, at least one meeting where we bring in the status of women committee and look at this together, because of the specific implications it has for women's issues. There may be other committees that would be affected as well, such as finance or other committees.

This is a very broad bill, a long bill, a technical bill and a detailed bill. We have to do a bit of serious evaluation of it.

There are models and we have had significant groups, such as the National Liberal Women's Caucus and the Standing Committee on the Status of Women, that have given us recommendations. We do not have to start from zero. We can take what the minister has given us. Again, I think there is a very real possibility that we can make this bill better for more Canadians.

However, we are discussing Bill C-56 and there are certain things that it would do.

The proposed legislation will provide the same number of weeks of benefit as paid employees have under their EI program. To recap, that is 15 weeks of maternity benefits, 35 weeks of parental and adoption benefits, 15 weeks of sickness and 6 weeks of compassionate care benefits.

I want to address the issue of Quebec. Quebec has a far more advanced social infrastructure than most provinces in Canada. It has made it a purpose to provide a solid social infrastructure system in the province of Quebec. It has a plan for parental and maternal benefits in Quebec. People in Quebec will still have the option to partake in the other plan as well, and they will pay a lower premium rate. Off the top of my head that the rate is 1.73%. It goes down to 1.37%. Is that a fair and accurate reduction for the amount of services to be provided?

We need to look at the entrance requirements. Normally for special benefits it would be an hours-based entrance requirement of 600 hours. Because we are talking about the self-employed, the determination is that it would be a threshold of $6,000 in pre-tax income. We need to have a look at that. The weekly benefits will be calculated by taking the claimant's income from the previous tax year and dividing it by 52. When this gets to committee and people come forward saying they would like to participate in this or they represent a group that would like to participate in it but they have a certain question, we should hear them. This is where the committee can do some work.

The minister has indicated that when we look at EI for the self-employed and special benefits, the questions we have to ask are these. What is the pre-attachment and the post-attachment to the labour force? What is the pre-attachment and the post-attachment to premiums? It has been determined that people have to pay in advance for a year before they can claim benefits. However, once they have claimed a benefit, they have to pay premiums for the rest of their life as long as they are self-employed. We have to look at that. We have to look at the numbers both for the individual and for the EI fund, which will be financing this at the end of day, and determine if that makes sense.

Will people take part in the program if they know they have to pay premiums years after they finished drawing benefits? I do not think we know that yet and I am not sure we will know that until we have a chance to look at it in a very serious way.

We believe this is a plan that has merit. We think self-employed people are looking for this. I can recall talking with a gentleman by the name of Chris Hopkins from Montague, Prince Edward Island. He has long campaigned for EI for self-employed. An article in July quotes him as follows:

It's too late for me, it's not going to benefit me, but it could benefit a lot of people, especially in these recessionary times that we have...I'm no longer self-employed, I'm just plain out there, an unknown statistic, not classed as unemployed because I was never employed, I was self-employed. So I'm a non-entity in the eyes of the government.

People who have been on websites, making appearances and rallying troops to this issue are the kind of folks we should probably listen to at this point in time. We have an opportunity to make this a good bill to do what they have asked us, which is to extend benefits to self-employed. Folks like that deserve some credit on a day like this and they deserve to be listened to as we move through the committee process.

As I have indicated, we are generally in support of this and we hope the bill is as good as the minister says. If it is not as good as she says, which is very possible, we hope we can make it better with her and her government's co-operation, working together with the opposition. However, we are going to ask questions.

One of the first questions will be why the bill came forward without the input of the promised expert panel. In the budget the Conservatives specifically said that an expert panel would consult and then determine what would be an appropriate way to provide EI to the self-employed.

In June, when the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition determined that there would be an EI working group, the Prime Minister indicated that for the self-employed the government would consider looking beyond maternal parental sickness and compassionate care. He said that anything was on the table. He said that the EI working group would have a look at this.

We did not get the information that we needed. We never got a serious proposal. But to suggest that this group became the expert panel that the Prime Minister had indicated is just a smokescreen. The government did not appoint that expert panel. Why not? Why were the ministerial officials who briefed us the other day totally unaware that that commitment had even been made?

It is a highly technical bill. There may be flaws. There may be exclusions. What is the cost to government? That is a key point.

I want to go back to the fact that last year the government set up the CEIFB, the Canada Employment Insurance Financing Board, which is supposed to be an arm's-length organization from government that will look at EI, that will determine premium rates, and that would invest moneys that are in the account. The problem is the government only put in $2 billion.

Liberals, at the human resources committee, supported by opposition members, said we have to have a look at this and we studied this. One of the people that we brought in was Mr. Bruno Gagnon, from the Canadian Institute of Actuaries, and he spoke to the fact that a $10 billion to $15 billion reserve was sufficient. He stated:

Let's assume that a recession hits Canada and unemployment levels rise to 8%. The payment to out-of-work Canadians increases by approximately $3 billion. So the $2 billion reserve of the board is depleted and the EI account has to borrow $1 billion from the government. In this situation we might have to raise the premiums above the legislated limit of 0.15%. Consideration of applying the 0.15% would fall to ministers. It would not be a very easy decision, because if you applied the 0.15% ceiling you would run a deficit and the deficit would accumulate. The impact on Canadian businesses, which pay nearly 60% of the cost of employment insurance, would be huge...Workers would have to pay 40% of the cost when they were already at risk of losing their jobs,--

He was talking, at this point in time, suggesting what would happen if employment went to 8%. Well, it has gone to 8%. The demands on the system are much higher than they were then. The demands on the system are much higher than the government would acknowledge. The demands on the system are possibly going to be made more robust by this bill. So, we just need to have a look at the financing side of it.

Who exactly is defined as self-employed? There is a whole range of people who would consider themselves self-employed. Who all is included in the definitions under this bill? We need to have a full understanding of that.

Another question is, why not full EI benefits? If we are extending EI benefits from maternal, parental, compassionate care, sickness, then would why we not look at EI benefits to all self-employed people on some kind of basis? What is the model for that?

So, this is a limited-scope bill in that it targets specific measures. Maybe that is the safest thing to do. Maybe that is what Canadians want. However, maybe Canadians would rather have the full meal deal when it comes to accessing employment insurance.

Is the $6,000 pre-tax earnings threshold appropriate?

The issue of Quebec and how this plan will interact with QPIP in Quebec is important as well.

There is significant work that has to be done on this bill. I think, as I said before, that this is an opportunity for all members of this House, and particularly the members of the human resources committee, a committee that generally works very well together, a committee that is well chaired by the member for Niagara West—Glanbrook, a committee that has a lot on its plate already.

We are doing a study on poverty that will see us going out to western Canada the week after we get back from the break week to hear further testimony and hear witnesses about poverty and how do we actually do something about this in Canada. So, we have a lot on our plate. But this bill is important. I think we can give it the consideration that it deserves. I think we should see what people like Chris Hopkins and others around the country who have fought on this issue for a long time. I have not been in contact with Chris Hopkins recently, but if he is around, I encourage him to contact members of the committee and let us know what he thinks of this bill.

So, hopefully, as we head toward Christmas in this Parliament, we will have a sense of co-operation on this that will allow us to take a bill, perhaps improve it at committee, determine its strengths, understand its weaknesses, and work together to bring forward a bill that truly does provide an opportunity for the self-employed in Canada.

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

Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Human Resources made a great speech outlining the benefits of Bill C-56. Recently, the House also passed Bill C-50, which is currently in the Senate. It makes a big difference for those long-tenured workers who are laid off.

I think we can all agree that the best way to help unemployed people is to help them find a new job. When I go door to door in my riding, once in a while I run into someone who has lost his or her job but has gone out and started his or her own business. It is clear that this initiative will really help these people.

How could any MP stand in this place and oppose the measures that are in this great bill?