Bill C-304 (Historical)

Secure, Adequate, Accessible and Affordable Housing Act

An Act to ensure secure, adequate, accessible and affordable housing for Canadians

The purpose of this enactment is to require the Minister responsible for the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation to consult with the provincial ministers of the Crown responsible for municipal affairs and housing and with representatives of municipalities and Aboriginal communities in order to establish a national housing strategy.

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

You are speaking of the reduction in funding to the provinces through the CHST. There was a corresponding benefit from the provincial point of view—they got less money but they got more control. This was at a time when galloping health care costs were going on. My father was the premier at the time in Nova Scotia, and I'm sure he would attest that this was important.

A number of people have mentioned Libby Davies' bill on housing, Bill C-304. We are supportive of it, and we're hoping we're going to get it through committee. It was going to what is called clause-by-clause, which is the final stage in the committee process. But Libby pulled it back because there were some flaws in it, particularly concerning persons with disabilities. We intend to bring it back to the committee, and I hope it can do something.

Private members' bills can be passed by the House of Commons and become the law of the land, but it doesn't mean anything unless the government actually embraces it. Last year, Bill C-293, the overseas development assistance bill, was going to make alleviating poverty the purpose of international development assistance. That passed and it is the law of the land, but it hasn't made a lot of difference yet.

Anyway, we are hopeful that we'll be dealing with that next week. Maybe we can do something to make a difference. Libby is a strong advocate and probably knows all of you very well. We'll do what we can to make that bill a reality.

Thank you.

[Laura Stannard, Organizer, Citywide Housing Coalition]

Thank you very much for inviting us.

I want you to know that Citywide Housing Coalition is a volunteer organization, and unfortunately, with only five days' notice, we were unable to submit a written brief with sources and references. My presentation today is largely anecdotal and assumes that you understand, by now, the circular connection between poverty and homelessness.

We recognize that there are many causes of increased poverty in Canada. Changes to the employment insurance program and the cancellation of the Canada assistance plan, to name two, have critically reduced incomes among the poorest people in our country. But with only seven minutes, we decided to focus our presentation on one aspect of a federal plan to reduce poverty: the federal government's role in providing affordable housing.

While you're staying in Vancouver, we hope you will have time to see the real Vancouver, the Vancouver that the 2010 Olympics cannot avoid, where thousands of people sleep nightly on our streets, not only in the downtown east side but in every neighbourhood in every part of the city and in every surrounding municipality.

The top two causes of Vancouver's explosion of homelessness are the rise of the condominium industry and the end of a permanent national social housing construction program. The greater profit of building condominiums not only ended new rental housing construction, it caused the demolition or conversion of thousands of units of existing rental housing, particularly rooming houses and residential hotels, the last housing for the poorest people.

In 1992 and 1993, at the height of the condominium construction boom in Vancouver, two successive federal governments ended our national social housing construction programs. Today, it's clear that those decisions did not save us money but instead resulted in the eventual spending of billions of tax dollars on homelessness, which is, of course, the consequence of an inadequate supply of affordable housing.

It is estimated that 80% of Vancouver's homeless people suffer from mental illness. Many people blame the policy of deinstitutionalization and demand that Riverview, which was our regional psychiatric institution, be fully reopened. However, while 80% of homeless people may well be mentally ill, very few have ever spent time in Riverview. Because the stress of homelessness triggers mental illness in many people, we are actually creating mental illness with our social policies. Not only is homelessness a gateway to mental illness and addiction, but homelessness, or being at risk of being homeless, because your housing is unsafe, unhealthy, impermanent, overcrowded, or unaffordable, or all of those, is a direct cause of a range of costly, long-lasting, societal problems that exacerbate the effects of poverty.

The purpose of a city is to provide a place for people to live and work. The end of permanent federal housing programs profoundly affected our ability to plan our cities and create economically mixed neighbourhoods. Before 1993 we had a social housing construction industry in this city. There were local architects, developers, and contractors whose expertise provided local employment opportunities, and there was a backlog of social housing project proposals. These were real public-private partnerships that created internationally awarded buildings and communities. When the annual proposal calls ended, we lost the experts, the potential projects waiting to be approved, the actual homes and local jobs, and our ability to plan inclusive communities.

Recently Bill C-304, a bill to establish a national housing strategy, passed second reading in the House of Commons. This is an extremely important step in addressing homelessness. While Citywide Housing Coalition fully supports the bill as drafted, we know that a national housing strategy won't solve anything without the concurrent commitment to fund a permanent social housing construction program. Along with the many housing and social service groups across Canada, Citywide Housing Coalition adds our voice to the cries for the 1% solution, which is that 1% of every annual federal budget be allocated to new construction of permanent social housing.

We have a couple of caveats.

First of all, the 1% solution is only a solution if we are not already in crisis.

Our government may argue that they are already spending 1% of the budget on housing. This could be anything from home renovation grants to research. We have learned to choose our words very carefully, which is why we say 1% of the federal budget must be spent annually on the construction of new permanent housing affordable to people with the least income.

Added to the 1% of the budget, there must be additional federal funding to address the immediate crisis of homelessness, the need for supported housing and treatment programs, and in particular, the crisis of homelessness in the aboriginal community. In Vancouver, aboriginal people comprise 2% of the general population but they make up 32% of the homeless population.

Canadian architect and philanthropist Phyllis Lambert has called social housing the architecture of opportunity. By this she means affordable housing is the base from which a person may begin to prosper and escape poverty.

A national housing strategy and adequate funding of a permanent national social housing construction program will provide both the literal and the metaphorical support beams of any successful plan to reduce poverty in Canada.

Thank you.

[Laura Track, Lawyer, Pivot Legal Society]

Thank you very much for the opportunity to speak with you today. Pivot Legal Society is a non-profit legal advocacy organization doing work in Vancouver's downtown eastside, which is often referred to as the poorest postal code in Canada.

Homelessness and affordable housing are major concerns for the community we serve at Pivot, but in addition, of course, these issues are felt across the country. I'm here today to speak to what I hope you've heard many, many times already in your travels across the country, about the need for a national housing strategy for Canada. Ensuring passage of the bill that is currently before the House, an act to ensure secure, adequate, accessible and affordable housing for Canadians, is a first step the federal government must take towards solving the crisis of homelessness and underhousing in Canada and addressing the issue of poverty across the country.

There are an estimated 150,000 to 300,000 homeless individuals currently in Canada. In the current global economic slowdown, these numbers are only climbing. With the onset of the recession, 500,000 jobs have been lost and more than 150,000 Canadian households have been evicted from their homes because they couldn't afford to pay their rent. Canada's supply deficit, the gap between the number of new households and the amount of new housing, is growing at a rate of 220,000 households annually. Millions of Canadians live in housing that is overcrowded or otherwise substandard, and disturbingly, single women and lone-parent families headed by women are particularly impacted. A national housing strategy is necessary to stem the devastating impact that homelessness has on those afflicted, to relieve the costly financial strain that Canada's homelessness crisis puts on our health and social services, and to allow Canada to live up to its international obligations.

Canada's previous national housing strategy, which was dismantled in the early 1980s, worked. Following amendments to the National Housing Act in 1973, more than 20,000 social housing units were created each year until the early 1980s. Unfortunately, cutbacks at the federal level and transfer of responsibility to the provinces since have led to the homelessness crisis that we see across the country today.

Annual spending on affordable housing at all levels of government has steadily declined since the early 1990s. A study by Steve Pomeroy, a senior research fellow at the University of Ottawa, found that although provinces have technically complied with federal requirements to reinvest savings from federal subsidy transfers related to social housing programs, most provincial governments have simply reduced their own direct costs and compensated with federal dollars.

Homelessness today is at the worst levels Canada has ever seen. Housing affordability is also hitting a low, with more than four in ten renter households and more than two in ten owner households spending more than 30% of their income on housing. Despite this crisis, federal housing investments are $618.5 million behind what they were back in 1989 after adjustments for population and inflation.

Canada is one of only a few countries in the world without a national housing strategy. This has subjected Canada to considerable negative international scrutiny. In 2006 the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights denounced Canada's homelessness crisis as a national emergency and specifically called on Canada to implement a national strategy for the reduction of our homelessness problem. In 2009 the report of the UN special rapporteur on housing found that Canada is failing its housing obligations and recommended that Canada adopt a comprehensive and coordinated national housing policy based on indivisibility of human rights and the protection of the most vulnerable.

Although allocations in the 2009 federal budget plan to stimulate housing construction were necessary and commendable, little money was spent on actually increasing the affordable housing stock. Construction of new housing is fundamentally necessary to house the over 150,000 people currently homeless in Canada. Furthermore, without a national strategy, Canadians don't know whether the money the federal government is investing in affordable housing is being spent in the most effective way.

Earlier this year the Auditor General of British Columbia released a comprehensive review of the province's homelessness programs. He concluded, “Clear goals and objectives for homelessness and adequate accountability for results remain outstanding.”

The government has not yet established appropriate indicators of success to improve public accountability for results. We found significant activity and resources being applied to homelessness issues, but there is no provincial homelessness plan with clear goals and objectives. When there are no clear goals or performance targets, accountability for results is missing. How will we know we are successful if we have not identified success?

Homelessness is clearly a social problem in Canada that needs to be resolved, and the current economic downturn is an optimal time to address this problem. New affordable housing constructed through a national housing strategy will directly inject money into Canada's construction sector. Moreover, investment into supportive housing for homeless individuals will actually save money on support services and over the long term help many of these individuals gain the stability they need to find permanent employment.

In my print submissions I've gone through a number of research studies that show that investing in affordable housing actually saves money over the long term. The study I'm most familiar with comes out of British Columbia, which showed that addressing homelessness the way we do now, through the courts, jails, police, hospitals, ambulances, costs about $55,000 per homeless person per year. Providing people with the supportive housing that they need would reduce those costs to approximately $37,000 per homeless person per year, for an annual savings for this province of about $33 million. So clearly we cannot afford not to invest in supportive affordable housing.

Finally, a national housing strategy is necessary to enable Canada to meet its international human rights obligations, particularly article 11(1) of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, which explicitly obligates Canada to take appropriate steps to realize everyone's right to adequate housing. We've been repeatedly criticized internationally for not living up to our housing obligations. In the special rapporteur study I've mentioned already, the rapporteur has raised numerous concerns about the negative impact of ongoing federal funding cuts since the 1990s, and in particular the impacts of those cuts on aboriginal people.

The report comments that the practical effect is that very little new aboriginal housing off-reserve has been funded in recent years, even though local studies in cities as diverse as Toronto and Edmonton show that a significant number of people who are homeless are of aboriginal ancestry. Just this year the United Nations Human Rights Council conducted its first universal periodic review of Canada's compliance with its international obligations, including the right to housing. During the periodic review a number of countries raised specific concerns about housing insecurity and homelessness in Canada. The federal government's response to the UPR accepted the UN's recommendations on housing and stated:

Canada acknowledges that there are challenges and the Government of Canada commits to continuing to explore ways to enhance efforts to address poverty and housing issues, in collaboration with provinces and territories.

The federal government's offer here to collaborate with the provinces and territories on affordable housing can be realized through the establishment of a national housing strategy like the one proposed in Bill C-304. The provincial and territorial governments have been asking the federal government to partner with them in a national housing strategy for more than four years. At a meeting of provincial and territorial housing ministers in 2005, the group made the following statement:

We all share responsibility for good housing outcomes. Federal, provincial, and territorial governments have a shared commitment in ensuring that their citizens have a decent and secure place to live, and, thereby, can access and contribute to the social and economic life of communities.

The federal government has a responsibility to live up to its housing obligations. Canada must allocate sufficient resources in the 2010 budget and implement a national housing strategy for the reduction of homelessness as called for by the UN Committee on Social, Economic and Cultural Rights with the special rapporteur and is desperately needed by Canada's homeless population.

Thank you for your consideration.

National Housing Strategy

[Megan Leslie, NDP, Halifax, NS]

Mr. Speaker, I have the honour of presenting a petition signed by petitioners in Nova Scotia and Newfoundland and Labrador. The petitioners are calling for a national housing strategy that will ensure secure, adequate, accessible and affordable housing for all Canadians. In particular, they are looking for an increased federal role through investments in not-for-profit housing, housing for the homeless, access to housing for those with different needs, and sustainable and environmentally sound design standards for new housing that go beyond the one-time stimulus investment contained in Budget 2009.

They are asking for Parliament to ensure swift passage of private member's Bill C-304.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Raymonde Folco]

We have now deferred the study of Bill C-304.

We can go directly to the motion tabled by Michael Savage on November 5.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Raymonde Folco]

The trip is scheduled for the first week in December, according to the chronology that reads as follows: study of Bill C-56, November 19, 24 and 26. Report Bill C-56 to the House, no later than November 27. Travel to the north and to the west, the first week in December; when we are back, study and finish the study of Bill C-304, December 8 and 10, 2009. There is the timeline. It is almost exactly the same as the one that was read at the very beginning. So I call the question once more.

(Motion agreed to.)

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Raymonde Folco]

I'd like to add one point. Speaking of losing our jobs, that reminds me that budget time is going to come fairly quickly when we get back to the House at the end of January. With budget time, sometimes there are a number of choses imprévues, if I can use my own language in this.

My personal feeling on this is that it's really important for this committee to travel as quickly as possible and not wait until the new year, because that would push back this study on poverty. Every single time we have had to push it back, we have pushed it back.

Don't forget, it's not just travel; it is also travel to a part of the country that I don't recall, as far as Yukon is concerned, has ever seen our parliamentary committee, if any parliamentary committee--certainly not this one—which is why we had pushed it forward. I think it's really important. That is my personal opinion.

We have here a formula that can work if we all put our shoulders to the stone. We have a possibility of eight hours of witness time on November 19, 24, and 26, and maybe another two hours at some point. When the time comes, if we have to stay an extra hour one evening or something, I'm pretty sure most members, if not all members, would agree to that.

That's where we are. We're still on the same motion, which is that the study of Bill C-304 be deferred until the committee returns from its travel west and north, and that we deal with Bill C-56 during the week of November 19, 24, and 26, and another meeting if needed. The bill will be reported to the House by November 27.

The grammar isn't all together, but we'll work it out.

We would resume study of Bill C-304 on December 8 and 10, 2009.

That is the motion as it stands. We'll come to a vote on the motion, then.

I have just read Mr. Lessard's motion. It is exactly the exactly the same as the one we have been discussing for half an hour now and I am calling the question.

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

I have the same concerns as Mr. Savage.

On the poverty question, when we planned our trip, of course we wanted to have finished our work first. But we also wanted to make sure that the drafters are able to enjoy the holiday season, and to do their work in January, when we will not be here. In my opinion, that agenda is risky because it does not ensure that the trip will happen before the holidays. It also wastes the drafters' time, time that they could use doing the work we expect of them. Let us not forget the consensus we have that this work is of the highest importance.

I have to say that the parameters of Bill C-56and Bill C-304 include elements, factors that must come into play and that must normally relieve poverty a little, if it is done well. I am not sure that we will succeed in doing good work on Bill C-56 if we rush things. That is my second argument.

That is also where I share Mr. Savage's position. We also want to hear witnesses. The people in the trenches, the self-employed, have their representatives and we must hear from them. We must also hear from experts. At very least, we must hear from the chief actuary who administers the employment insurance fund.

In the opposition, we are always concerned about costs. We do it openly, but we must get answers. The principle of getting the bill passed is not the problem. It is new and interesting; it is the first time that self-employed workers have acquired rights under the employment insurance plan. We recognize how interesting that is. So, since it is worth doing, let us make sure that we do it well. It seems that there may be people whom it is intended to include, but who are actually excluded. We should check that as well.

I still have one concern, Madam Chair. I agree with postponing our study on Bill C-304 until after our trip to the west. We certainly agree with that. But, as for the agenda, I wonder whether we should not stay with the trip next week and carefully consider Bill C-56 when we get back. That would not delay things very much, as long as we can start to study this bill on Thursday.

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

The NDP members will be in caucus that week as well. January is a difficult month to find time. People are doing caucus work and constituency work, and some of us are spending time with family.

I would like to see us do what Mr. Komarnicki has suggested, and I want to hear a bit more, maybe, from Mike on this. But I want to maybe put a motion on the table so that we can deal with it, that we defer the study of Bill C-304 until we come back from our western travel, that we deal with Bill C-56 Thursday of this week and next week—

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Raymonde Folco]

Are you talking about Bill C-56 or Bill C-304 when you say you'll do everything you can?

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Raymonde Folco]

Thank you, Mr. Savage.

Let me recapitulate Mr. Komarnicki's suggestion. It is a suggestion.

If I understood correctly—and correct me if I'm wrong, Mr. Komarnicki—you suggested that this Thursday, November 19, followed by November 24 and 26, which is next Tuesday and next Thursday, we continue and finish Bill C-56 and report it back to the House, which would allow us to go on the trip north in the first week of December, being November 30, December 1, and so on. We would come back and we would then work on Bill C-304 and finish that before December 11, the last day of the session this year.

Is that what you're suggesting, Mr. Komarnicki?

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

Thank you very much, Chair.

In the interest of the good harmony that exists in this committee in trying to get as much done as we can and accommodate people, and understanding that a significant number of important amendments have come forward with respect to Ms. Davies' bill that she wants to look at in all seriousness, we should give the necessary due consideration to her request for a deferral until a later date. It is a serious piece of public business that we're doing on that front. It isn't something she brought to the table; other parties have brought this to the table, and they have every right to.

I would suggest, in light of some of the other business that is before the committee.... I thought we would have this discussion later in the committee about getting from now to the end of the year. We have some government business that we have to do because it takes precedence. That's Bill C-56, which we start next Thursday. According to the schedule we were looking at until now, we were supposed to travel the following week to western Canada to study poverty. That's now a challenge, because understandably the government wants to see Bill C-56 through committee and back into the House before the break.

My suggestion, for others to consider, is that we do Bill C-56 on Thursday next week and sit as many meetings as we need to in order get it done; that we travel west the first week of December; and that when we come back, in that week before the break we deal with Bill C-304.

I put that on the table for people's consideration.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Raymonde Folco]

I call the meeting to order.

This is the Standing Committee on Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities, meeting no. 56, and the date is Tuesday, November 17, 2009.

On our agenda, we have Bill C-304, An Act to ensure secure, adequate, accessible and affordable housing for Canadians.

Do you have anything to add, Mr. Kennedy?

Second Reading

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

Mr. Speaker, once again, I am pleased to speak to Bill C-395, the proposed changes to the Employment Insurance Act with respect to labour disputes.

This legislation addresses what I think is a bit of a gap in the EI system right now and in the Employment Insurance Act. The question is: what should be done if the qualifying period for somebody who has lost his or her job includes work lost because of a labour disruption? This bill is a reasonable attempt to address the gap. At the very least, it is worthy of further study at committee, so we can identify whether or not there is more that needs to be done. Also, to some extent, we could perhaps address the issue of what the cost might be. I see that the Speaker has ruled that a royal recommendation will be required.

Let me speak to the issue this bill addresses and how it proposes to solve it. Right now, somebody's qualification for employment insurance is determined by the qualifying period that precedes the loss of employment, and that is 52 weeks. There are allowances for certain instances such as sickness, but not for work time lost due to a labour disruption.

During a labour dispute, employees cannot draw EI. They can, in some cases, receive strike pay. Or they could, conceivably, go out and get another job, although it is a very difficult circumstance in which to look for a job when one is hoping to go back to a job that one currently holds. If one gets strike pay, of course, it is different from having insurable earnings for EI.

It is always difficult to determine costs when we are looking at employment insurance. It involves very complex calculations. This year, we had the issue of what it actually costs in another area of qualification, the 360-hour national qualifying standard. Just over a year ago, last spring, because of a request from the committee looking at a private member's bill, the HRSDC department had estimated that cost at somewhere around $600 million or $700 million. The exact figure does not come to me, but it was in that range.

Other people have estimated it will cost $1 billion to $1.5 billion a year. That would make sense, because there are more people unemployed now than there were last spring, and there has been a slight escalation in cost. As a result of a request from the employment insurance working group established by the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition, we had the outrageous guesstimate, we might call it, of over $4 billion. They came back and said this would cost over $4 billion.

That did not make any sense. Everybody knew that was nuts. In fact, the government itself came back a little bit later and said the cost was actually about $2.5 billion. We asked the Parliamentary Budget Officer and he came in with a cost of about $1.1 billion, which notionally makes sense and obviously was statistically backed up. But that is why we have issues with costs when we start looking at employment insurance.

We have the same thing when we look at two-week waiting periods. What is the cost of a two-week waiting period? It is not really a waiting period; it is an out-of-luck period for a person who loses his or her job. What is the cost of that? The estimates have varied a bit on that, as is the case with this bill.

This bill does indicate that if a job is lost following a labour disruption, allowances can be made. It is very difficult for people and families who are already suffering from being unemployed because of a labour disruption when, all of a sudden, they come back and within a short period of time they are laid off completely and find out that their qualification for EI has been affected.

In essence, this bill will simply extend the qualifying period by the length of time of the labour dispute. As I have indicated before, qualifying is a huge problem in this country. It has been identified as the number one problem with the EI system. Many solutions have been proposed over the last number of years, and specifically in the last year.

We have had private member's Bill C-269 and private member's Bill C-265 from the member for Acadie—Bathurst and the member for Chambly—Borduas. In this session, we have looked at Bill C-241, Bill C-280 and Bill C-304. These are serious attempts to have a look at what the gaps are in the EI system, particularly at a time of economic difficulty.

We are still in this; we are still seeing job losses. We saw the numbers that came out the other day. There are still people in Canada who are losing their jobs. The economy needs a little bit of help. Everybody talks about stimulus. From any reports I have seen, the best stimulus is to invest in people who have lost their jobs or are in economic difficulty, because they will in fact put the money back into the economy, which is what stimulus is supposed to be all about.

We have heard from many people, including all the premiers from Ontario to the west, who normally have not spoken out much on employment insurance. All of the premiers of varying political stripes have said that we need to look at the issue of accessibility. We need to have a look at these variable entrance requirements, particularly at a time of economic difficulty, to see if they still make sense, because they are hurting the provinces. We heard that from the Minister of Finance's wife, when she was running for the leadership of her party in Ontario. We heard it from Premier Stelmach and Premier Campbell, and every premier, including Premier Brad Wall in Saskatchewan.

We have heard it from social policy groups. We have heard it from economists. We have even heard it from organizations that one might not normally think would call for such a thing. TD Economics has called for it. The Chamber of Commerce urged that we have a look at a couple of things in its prebudget submission this year, including entrance rates, but also at the two-week waiting period. These are all things that can be done to improve the system right away.

We have to have a look at what has the government done for employment insurance, recognizing finally that we are in a period of economic distress. As the House will recall, last November when the United States was already looking at proposals to assist people who were unemployed, we had an economic update that offered nothing.

In January, when we came back after Parliament was prorogued, EI was addressed in a specific way by adding five weeks of eligibility, which was a step forward in my view. If we look at the private members' bills that we have seen in the House over the past few years, the extra five weeks was always a small piece of it.

Of course, there was nothing on the two-week waiting period, nothing on accessibility, and nothing on increasing the rate of payment from 55% to 60%, which is called for a lot. But the five weeks were helpful and they were particularly helpful because they affected all Canadian workers; they did not pick winners and losers.

That is why the five weeks was a good piece of public policy at the time, but they are nowhere near to being enough and did not address the issue of accessibility that the 360-hour national standard would address. But the five weeks were something for all workers in Canada.

This fall we had a couple of pieces of legislation, one of them being Bill C-50, which would extend benefits from 5 to 20 weeks, but only for a select few, the fortunate few, in this country.

In the spring the government was saying that it was going to offer extra benefits to everyone, and then in the fall it said it was going to go back to a small percentage of the unemployed. One may qualify for between 5 and 20 weeks, but if one has drawn on EI before, too bad. If one happened to be a seasonal worker in northern New Brunswick, or in the fishing industry or the tourism industry, or others like that, one did not qualify for the extra 5 weeks.

That kind of discriminatory approach flies in the face of what the government was proposing to do at the beginning of the year, which was to provide equality in the employment insurance system, at least on the extension of benefits, if not in actually going to the number one source of irritation for Canadians, for workers, public sector unions, social policy groups, economists, think tanks, premiers and the wife of the finance minister. They were all saying that the system is not fair and that we have to fix it.

The reason it is not fair is that accessibility requirements range too much. At a time of economic difficulty, we need to do something to assist all Canadians and we need to make sure that people who lose their jobs do not feel like the government has forgotten them.

I would remind members that earlier this year the Minister of Human Resources and Skills Development was quoted as saying she did not want to make EI too lucrative. I remind the House and the millions who are watching at home that average employment insurance benefits are somewhere in the range of $330 a week. There are not that many people in the House who would want to work for $330 a week, or would feel very excited about losing their job so they could get $330 a week. I think the maximum is $440 a week.

EI is far from being a lucrative proposal for anyone. We have to keep in mind as well that people cannot draw EI in Canada if they voluntarily quit their jobs. If they quit their jobs, they do not get EI. They are told that they do not qualify. They can appeal it and they might be able to make their case, but they cannot quit their jobs and get EI.

Therefore, for an individual to suggest that EI is lucrative and that anyone would deliberately try to qualify for it, the individual would have to suggest that the person find a way to lose his or her job without quitting it. That person would have to get the employer to let him or her go so he or she could make 55% of his or her previous earnings.

Bill C-395 is worthy of consideration. I congratulate my colleague who brought it forward. We think it addresses a gap in the system. We think that at a time of economic difficulty, this is when we need to invest in employment insurance, because employment insurance assists Canadians when they need it the most, through no fault of their own from a work stoppage. It should not be made harder because of a labour disruption in the previous qualifying period.

Economic Recovery Act (stimulus)

[Libby Davies, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to rise in the House today to speak to report stage of Bill C-51, which, ironically, is called the economic recovery act (stimulus).

The NDP has been supporting the bill because it does contain some significant measures that were in the budget that we approved last spring but were never actually implemented. They are now included in this bill, and I will go into that later. I did want to reflect on the fact that this is called the economic recovery act and, as we heard today, there was not good news for Canadians, in terms of the number of people who are unemployed.

We know that over the last year we have had a net loss of about 400,000 jobs in Canada. That is very significant. However, the numbers today show us that there has been a further increase of 43,000 to 44,000 people who are unemployed and the heaviest losses were in B.C. and Alberta, being 13,000 and 15,000, respectively.

I raised this today in question period because I guess the one thing that really bothers us is that we have seen the so-called economic action plan and the stimulus program from the current government and yet, we continue to see these heavy losses and erosion of jobs. From the numbers that we saw released today, it is particularly difficult for women and young people. Many of the jobs that were lost were part-time jobs. That means that they were people who were already having a really hard time dealing with this economic crisis. They may be people who will not qualify for EI.

The NDP has spent a lot of time in this House bringing forward very substantive proposals. In fact, we have 12 bills concerning reform of the EI. That just shows how bad the program is. This is a program that was designed to help unemployed people and yet, we have 12 different bills on different aspects of the program because we think it so badly needs to be fixed.

So, for those unemployed folks who, over the last month, lost their jobs, just think about the impact that would mean. They might have had a part-time job in the first place or maybe they were a young person, or a woman contributing to the family's income, or a lone parent, and they have to face the fact that they cannot even rely on employment insurance.

I think it is a very serious and dire situation for so many Canadians. Juxtapose that against all of the rhetoric that we hear from the government side. We are told that the worst of the recession is over. We are told that its economic stimulus plan is working. We are told not to worry about it, that the government is going to take care of things. Yet, these jobless numbers keep rising and the impact on our local communities keep mounting. I think that we are facing a very serious situation.

I know that yesterday in question period my colleague from Winnipeg Centre had one of the doorknocker propaganda pieces that the government has been distributing, we understand, to 3.5 million households, concerning the home renovation tax credit.

That is one of the measures that is contained in this bill and is actually one of the reasons we are supporting this bill. It was a measure announced in the last budget, but it was not actually in the budget implementation bill. For some strange reason, it was left behind and then had to be introduced later through a ways and means motion, and now it is in this bill. There is no doubt that it is a very popular program. We see it advertised on TV by home improvement centres and there is probably very good awareness about that program.

There are two things here to note.

First, why is it that the Conservative government would then spend, presumably, millions of dollars on further propaganda messaging and advertising about the program when it is already very well known? In fact, people can receive information at building improvement and home improvement centres.

There has been so much emphasis on the politicization of the economic stimulus program, whether it is the oversized cheques that had the Conservative logo or individual MPs signing these cheques. These things are pretty outrageous and I think people feel pretty cynical about it.

The question from the member for Winnipeg Centre really highlighted that the government will leave no stone unturned when it comes to promoting itself and its political message, but when it comes to really, truly helping people, really digging in and finding out what is wrong or what needs to be done, the government kind of shuffles it along and says it is doing a good job.

On the home renovation tax credit, we do support it. As far as it goes, we do support it and there is no doubt that there has been a lot of pickup on the program, but we ask the question, why does it not go further? Why was it not linked to a broader green energy retrofit program, particularly for low income Canadians? There are many Canadians right across the country who live in housing that is substandard. Their heating systems are very poor. They are not energy efficient.

These are the people who need help. These are the people who would have welcomed a broader program that would have helped them maybe with some other kinds of incentives beyond a tax credit. The fact is that many people cannot take advantage of this program because they may not have the money to actually spend on that home renovation.

I know, for example, that there was some money in the economic stimulus program to help housing co-operatives. Many co-ops that were built in the seventies and eighties are facing envelope failures. Some of them were not well constructed. They are certainly not energy efficient, and although there was some money earmarked in that budget to assist those co-ops, we do know that the demand and the applications that have gone in have far exceeded what is actually available. There is a very good example of where this home renovation tax credit program actually could have been part of a much broader program that would really tackle this major question of energy efficiency and housing affordability in this country.

Yesterday at the HRSD committee, I appeared as a witness before that committee in support of my bill, Bill C-304, which calls for a national housing strategy, something that we do not have in Canada, which is really quite unbelievable. We are the only industrialized country that does not have a national housing strategy.

In putting forward this idea for a framework and a strategy for housing and leadership from the federal government, we come back again to this question of needing to have a coordinated and comprehensive approach to housing in this country. There are something like four million Canadians who are in housing insecurity. They are either paying too much for their housing, living in very substandard housing, facing eviction or one paycheque away from being on the street, or it might be all of the above. They might be in housing that is overcrowded and very inappropriate for a family situation. Certainly, that is a huge issue for remote aboriginal communities on reserve, where we have seen the most appalling conditions for aboriginal people in this country.

There is no question that we need a national housing strategy, that we need leadership from the federal government, but it is not only a question of good public policy. It is also a question of very sound economic policy, and in my mind, if we had a really good housing supply program in this country, something that we have talked about for years and that we have suffered from because we do not have it, it would be a huge economic stimulus. Generally, building housing creates good jobs for carpenters, electricians, plumbers, drywallers, architects, landscapers, and the list goes on.

The question of housing affordability and generating the comprehensive program with leadership from the federal government would be something that would be a really significant economic and social investment in the future of our country. We would actually be helping people. There is no question that having housing security and knowing that one's housing is affordable, accessible, safe and appropriate is one of the most basic things in our lives. If we do not have that, we know how hard it is to do anything else such as going to school, going to work, raising kids, and knowing what is going to happen at the end of the month.

That is one of the reasons I wanted to focus on that. It really bugs the hell out of me that there is this very small home renovation tax program that is popular and yet so much more could have been done, if we only had a government that was seriously focused on a substantive economic stimulus program that would actually help people.

There are other provisions in Bill C-51 that we are supportive of. The home renovation tax credit is one. The first-time home buyers' tax credit is another. The revenue sharing agreement with Nova Scotia is another one. Members have already raised the issue of drought relief for livestock owners.

There are also some provisions around pensions and some fairly minor adjustments in terms of pension changes. I want to spend a few minutes on this. This has been the other key substantive proposal advanced by the NDP.

We are very worried about what is happening to seniors in Canada. There are seniors who are living below the poverty line. They depend on old age security and the guaranteed income supplement. Even those seniors are still living below the poverty line, particularly if they live in urban areas where they do not have good housing. One can see how it relates back to affordable housing again.

I am very proud of the fact that the NDP has made very substantive proposals to reform the pension program just as we have done for EI. We see these as the basic foundations of what quality of life is about in Canada, and what human dignity means in this country. As Canadians, we tell ourselves that we live in a fair-minded country; we live in a country where there is equal opportunity, where there is no discrimination and where everybody has the right to use their own human potential, yet, we have seen so much over the last couple of decades.

We have seen a growing gap between wealth and poverty. We have seen the incomes of CEOs rise and rise, sometimes in an utterly obscene way. Just look at the pension investment board and the millions of dollars in bonuses that are being paid out. It is unbelievable. I am sure that those people are doing their jobs, although one could argue that the pension programs have not been well managed. They get these massive bonuses and yet, on the other side, there are people who are really hurting and are having a tough time getting by every month.

The pension system itself is something that I think more and more people are understanding is in serious trouble, whether it is a private pension program, or whether it is a senior who is dependent on OAS and GIS. We have seen the situation with Nortel here in Ottawa and what has happened to those people who paid in good faith into their pension plan only to now be terribly worried about whether or not they will ever be able to collect their pension or, if they were on long-term disability, only to find out that their support for that may be in jeopardy.

The proposals we have put forward are very substantive in terms of significant increases to the guaranteed income supplement and say up front that no senior in this country should be living in poverty. When one has worked for decades, whether it is in paid work or unpaid work, when people have contributed to this country, they should at least be assured that they have enough money in their retirement years to live in a decent way. Nobody here is talking about luxury or affluence. We are talking about the basic necessities of life.

The NDP did have a motion that was approved in the House last June. We did a lot of research on the proposals that we have advanced. Our member for Hamilton East—Stoney Creek travelled across the country, talked to seniors and got tons of feedback. He heard and did wonderful things.

It is unfortunate that this so-called economic recovery act that we are debating today is so minuscule. It does not do the job in terms of where people need to get that support from programs, services and investment in our economy. There are other provisions in the bill. One of the provisions concerns the CBC.

How many times have there been questions, at least from our side, on the future of the CBC? This is an iconic institution in this country. It was fighting for its life in terms of financing and asking for bridge financing. We raised that issue over and over again in the House. The reply from the heritage minister was more of a brush off. We are glad to see in the bill some recognition of the financial situation facing CBC and that it will be able to have some of that bridge financing, which we called for and which it was seeking. It is obviously something that is very important to the financial stability of the institution.

I would like to speak about what the Conservative government is doing with respect to economic recovery. I am from British Columbia. I represent the riding of Vancouver East, which by and large is a low income riding. People really do struggle. They do not actually ask for a lot.

I am always amazed when I go out in the community. I hold travelling community offices. People come forward to tell me what is going on in their lives. I am always amazed at how resourceful people are. People are struggling to survive with very few resources, whether it is their housing situation, a work situation, trying to find affordable child care, or a student going to post-secondary education who is struggling with student loans and tuition fees. I am really amazed at how people get it together and keep going, but we can see how hard it is and how stressful it makes people's lives.

It has been pretty rough in B.C. We have seen the re-election of the Liberal government under Gordon Campbell who promised so many things but all he has done is attack workers, rip up collective agreements, allow privatization of health care and has not done anything to support a better child care program. Then kind of the worst happened. After the election, we suddenly learned that B.C. was going to be hit with the HST. The firestorm that has created in my province has just been unbelievable. It has crossed the political spectrum. Former premiers, such as Bill Vander Zalm, business people, small business people, the restaurant association, the labour movement, certainly the provincial NDP and hundreds of thousands of regular folks in B.C. are signing petitions.

Some of the polls that have been done show there is 80% opposition to the imposition of the HST. It is not just the HST itself, which is really a tax shift, but it is a shift from what corporations have paid on to consumers. I do not have the full list of things that it covers in front of me, but I know it includes newspapers, magazines, movie theatre tickets, haircuts, funerals, vitamins, baby diapers, food and clothing. The restaurant association has estimated that for restaurant meals alone the extra cost will be $694 million in B.C.

One issue is the tax itself. It is a regressive tax. It is a shift from corporations on to individual consumers. It is also the manner in which it was done. People are really outraged that during the provincial election there was no discussion of it. In fact, people were told there would be no more tax increases. Yet somehow after the election this issue suddenly started to appear.

We have been asking questions every day. We have been trying to find out when the negotiations took place and what negotiations took place between the federal and provincial governments. We are still trying to find that out. I think people in B.C. would be very interested to know when it was that those negotiations began to take place.

It is sort of ironic that on the one hand we have this bill before us today that promises economic recovery and yet on the other hand we have a Conservative government that is slapping people in B.C. with the HST. In fact, the Conservatives are running from it. They are trying to claim that it is not their problem, that the decision is up to B.C.

We know it originated with the Conservative government. We know it was in the federal budget. We know that the finance minister has actually been campaigning and advocating for this. We know that the Liberal members have been lining up with it as well. It feels like a slap in the face to people in B.C. who are going to feel the impact of this increased tax on the everyday items that they need to purchase.

It is the most terrible timing to think about bringing in this tax during an economic recession. The NDP has been saying loud and clear that this HST proposal must stop. My guess is that the opposition to it will continue to grow in B.C.