Bill C-38 (Historical)

Jobs, Growth and Long-term Prosperity Act

An Act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on March 29, 2012 and other measures

Part 1 of this enactment implements certain income tax measures and related measures proposed in the March 29, 2012 budget. Most notably, it
(a) expands the list of eligible expenses under the Medical Expense Tax Credit to include blood coagulation monitors and their disposable peripherals;
(b) introduces a temporary measure to allow certain family members to open a Registered Disability Savings Plan for an adult individual who might not be able to enter into a contract;
(c) extends, for one year, the temporary Mineral Exploration Tax Credit for flow-through share investors;
(d) allows corporations to make split and late eligible dividend designations;
(e) makes the salary of the Governor General taxable and adjusts that salary;
(f) allows a designated partner of a partnership to provide a waiver on behalf of all partners to extend the time limit for issuing a determination in respect of the partnership;
(g) amends the penalty applicable to promoters of charitable donation tax shelters who file false registration information or who fail to register a tax shelter prior to selling interests in the tax shelter;
(h) introduces a new penalty applicable to tax shelter promoters who fail to respond to a demand to file an information return or who file an information return that contains false or misleading sales information;
(i) limits the period for which a tax shelter identification number is valid to one calendar year;
(j) modifies the rules for registering certain foreign charitable organizations as qualified donees;
(k) amends the rules for determining the extent to which a charity has engaged in political activities; and
(l) provides the Minister of National Revenue with the authority to suspend the privileges, with respect to issuing tax receipts, of a registered charity or a registered Canadian amateur athletic association if the charity or association fails to report information that is required to be filed annually in an information return or devotes resources to political activities in excess of the limits set out in the Income Tax Act.
Part 1 also implements other selected income tax measures and related measures. Most notably, it
(a) amends the Income Tax Act consequential on the implementation of the Marketing Freedom for Grain Farmers Act, including the extension of the tax deferral allowed to farmers in a designated area who produce listed grains and receive deferred cash purchase tickets to all Canadian farmers who produce listed grains and receive deferred cash purchase tickets;
(b) provides authority for the Canada Revenue Agency to issue via online notice or regular mail demands to file a return; and
(c) introduces a requirement for commercial tax preparers to file income tax returns electronically.
Part 2 amends the Excise Tax Act to implement certain excise tax and goods and services tax/harmonized sales tax (GST/HST) measures proposed in the March 29, 2012 Budget. It expands the list of GST/HST zero-rated medical and assistive devices as well as the list of GST/HST zero-rated non-prescription drugs that are used to treat life-threatening diseases. It also exempts certain pharmacists’ professional services from the GST/HST, other than prescription drug dispensing services that are already zero-rated. It further allows certain literacy organizations to claim a rebate of the GST and the federal component of the HST paid on the acquisition of books to be given away for free by those organizations. It also implements legislative requirements relating to the Government of British Columbia’s decision to exit the harmonized sales tax framework. Additional amendments to that Act and related regulations in respect of foreign-based rental vehicles temporarily imported by Canadian residents provide, in certain circumstances, relief from the GST/HST, the Green Levy on fuel-inefficient vehicles and the automobile air conditioner tax. This Part further amends that Act to ensure that changes to the standardized fuel consumption test method used for the EnerGuide, as announced on February 17, 2012 by the Minister of Natural Resources, do not affect the application of the Green Levy.
Finally, Part 2 amends the Air Travellers Security Charge Act, the Excise Act, 2001 and the Excise Tax Act to provide authority for the Canada Revenue Agency to issue via online notice or regular mail demands to file a return.
Part 3 contains certain measures related to responsible resource development.
Division 1 of Part 3 enacts the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act, 2012, which establishes a new federal environmental assessment regime. Assessments are conducted in relation to projects, designated by regulations or by the Minister of the Environment, to determine whether they are likely to cause significant adverse environmental effects that fall within the legislative authority of Parliament, or that are directly linked or necessarily incidental to a federal authority’s exercise of a power or performance of a duty or function that is required for the carrying out of the project.
The Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency, the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission, the National Energy Board or a review panel established by the Minister are to conduct assessments within applicable time limits. At the end of an assessment, a decision statement is to be issued to the project proponent who is required to comply with the conditions set out in it.
The enactment provides for cooperation between the federal government and other jurisdictions by enabling the delegation of an environmental assessment, the substitution of the process of another jurisdiction for an environmental assessment under the Act and the exclusion of a project from the application of the Act when there is an equivalent assessment by another jurisdiction. The enactment requires that there be opportunities for public participation during an environmental assessment, that participant funding programs and a public registry be established, and that there be follow-up programs in relation to all environmental assessments. It also provides for powers of inspection and fines.
Finally, the enactment specifies that federal authorities are not to take certain measures regarding the carrying out of projects on federal lands or outside Canada unless they determine that those projects are not likely to cause significant adverse environmental effects.
This Division also makes related amendments to the Environmental Violations Administrative Monetary Penalties Act and consequential amendments to other Acts, and repeals the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act.
Division 2 of Part 3 amends the National Energy Board Act to allow the Governor in Council to make the decision about the issuance of certificates for major pipelines. It amends the Act to establish time limits for regulatory reviews under the Act and to enhance the powers of the National Energy Board Chairperson and the Minister responsible for the Act to ensure that those reviews are conducted in a timely manner. It also amends the Act to permit the National Energy Board to exercise federal jurisdiction over navigation in respect of pipelines and power lines that cross navigable waters and it establishes an administrative monetary penalty system.
Division 3 of Part 3 amends the Canada Oil and Gas Operations Act to authorize the National Energy Board to exercise federal jurisdiction over navigation in respect of pipelines and power lines that cross navigable waters.
Division 4 of Part 3 amends the Nuclear Safety and Control Act to extend the maximum allowable term of temporary members of the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission from six months to three years. It is also amended to allow for a licence to be transferred with the consent of that Commission and it puts in place an administrative monetary penalty system.
Division 5 of Part 3 amends the Fisheries Act to focus that Act on the protection of fish that support commercial, recreational or Aboriginal fisheries and to more effectively manage those activities that pose the greatest threats to these fisheries. The amendments provide additional clarity for the authorization of serious harm to fish and of deposits of deleterious substances. The amendments allow the Minister to enter into agreements with provinces and with other bodies, provide for the control and management of aquatic invasive species, clarify and expand the powers of inspectors, and permit the Governor in Council to designate another Minister as the Minister responsible for the administration and enforcement of subsections 36(3) to (6) of the Fisheries Act for the purposes of, and in relation to, subject matters set out by order.
Division 6 of Part 3 amends the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, 1999 to provide the Minister of the Environment with the authority to renew disposal at sea permits in prescribed circumstances. It is also amended to change the publication requirements for disposal at sea permits and to provide authority to make regulations respecting time limits for their issuance and renewal.
Division 7 of Part 3 amends the Species at Risk Act to allow for the issuance of authorizations with a longer term, to clarify the authority to renew the authorizations and to make compliance with conditions of permits enforceable. The Act is also amended to provide authority to make regulations respecting time limits for the issuance and renewal of permits under the Act. Furthermore, section 77 is amended to ensure that the National Energy Board will be able to issue a certificate when required to do so by the Governor in Council under subsection 54(1) of the National Energy Board Act.
Part 4 enacts and amends several Acts in order to implement various measures.
Division 1 of Part 4 amends a number of Acts to eliminate the requirement for the Auditor General of Canada to undertake annual financial audits of certain entities and to assess the performance reports of two agencies. This Division also eliminates other related obligations.
Division 2 of Part 4 amends the Trust and Loan Companies Act, the Bank Act and the Cooperative Credit Associations Act to prohibit the issuance of life annuity-like products.
Division 3 of Part 4 provides that PPP Canada Inc. is an agent of Her Majesty for purposes limited to its mandated activities at the federal level, including the provision of advice to federal departments and Crown corporations on public-private partnership projects.
Division 4 of Part 4 amends the Northwest Territories Act, the Nunavut Act and the Yukon Act to provide the authority for the Governor in Council to set, on the recommendation of the Minister of Finance, the maximum amount of territorial borrowings and to make regulations in relation to those maximum amounts, including what constitutes borrowing, the relevant entities and the valuation of the borrowings.
Division 5 of Part 4 amends the Financial Administration Act to modify, for parent Crown corporations, the period to which their quarterly financial reports relate, so that it is aligned with their financial year, and to include in the place of certain annual tabling requirements related to the business and activities of parent Crown corporations a requirement to make public consolidated quarterly reports on their business and activities. It also amends the Alternative Fuels Act and the Public Service Employment Act to eliminate certain reporting requirements.
Division 6 of Part 4 amends the Department of Human Resources and Skills Development Act to establish the Social Security Tribunal and to add provisions authorizing the electronic administration or enforcement of programs, legislation, activities or policies. It also amends the Canada Pension Plan, the Old Age Security Act and the Employment Insurance Act so that appeals from decisions made under those Acts will be heard by the Social Security Tribunal. Finally, it provides for transitional provisions and makes consequential amendments to other Acts.
Division 7 of Part 4 amends the Department of Human Resources and Skills Development Act to add provisions relating to the protection of personal information obtained in the course of administering or enforcing the Canada Pension Plan and the Old Age Security Act and repeals provisions in the Canada Pension Plan and the Old Age Security Act that are substantially the same as those that are added to the Human Resources and Skills Development Act.
Division 8 of Part 4 amends the Department of Human Resources and Skills Development Act to add provisions relating to the social insurance registers and Social Insurance Numbers. It also amends the Canada Pension Plan in relation to Social Insurance Numbers and the Employment Insurance Act to repeal certain provisions relating to the social insurance registers and Social Insurance Numbers and to maintain the power to charge the costs of those registers to the Employment Insurance Operating Account.
Division 9 of Part 4 amends the Parks Canada Agency Act to provide that the Agency may enter into agreements with other ministers or bodies to assist in the administration and enforcement of legislation in places outside national parks, national historic sites, national marine conservation areas and other protected heritage areas if considerations of geography make it impractical for the other minister or body to administer and enforce that legislation in those places. It also amends that Act to provide that the Chief Executive Officer is to report to the Minister of the Environment under section 31 of that Act every five years. It amends that Act to remove the requirements for annual corporate plans, annual reports and annual audits, and amends that Act, the Canada National Parks Act and the Canada National Marine Conservation Areas Act to provide that that Minister is to review management plans for national parks, national historic sites, national marine conservation areas and other protected heritage areas at least every 10 years and is to have any amendments to a plan tabled in Parliament.
Division 10 of Part 4 amends the Trust and Loan Companies Act, the Bank Act and the Insurance Companies Act in order to allow public sector investment pools that satisfy certain criteria, including pursuing commercial objectives, to directly invest in a Canadian financial institution, subject to approval by the Minister of Finance.
Division 11 of Part 4 amends the National Housing Act, the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation Act and the Supporting Vulnerable Seniors and Strengthening Canada’s Economy Act to enhance the governance and oversight framework of the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation.
This Division also amends the National Housing Act to establish a registry for institutions that issue covered bonds and for covered bond programs and to provide for the protection of covered bond contracts and covered bond collateral in the event of an issuer’s bankruptcy or insolvency. It also makes amendments to the Trust and Loan Companies Act, the Bank Act, the Insurance Companies Act and the Cooperative Credit Associations Act to prohibit institutions from issuing covered bonds except within the framework established under the National Housing Act. Finally, it includes a coordinating amendment to the Supporting Vulnerable Seniors and Strengthening Canada’s Economy Act.
Division 12 of Part 4 implements the Framework Agreement on Integrated Cross-Border Maritime Law Enforcement Operations between the Government of Canada and the Government of the United States of America signed on May 26, 2009.
Division 13 of Part 4 amends the Bretton Woods and Related Agreements Act to reflect an increase in Canada’s quota subscription, as related to the ratification of the 2010 Quota and Governance reform resolution of the Board of Governors of the International Monetary Fund, and to align the timing of the annual report under that Act to correspond to that of the annual report under the Official Development Assistance Accountability Act.
Division 14 of Part 4 amends the Canada Health Act so that members of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police are included in the definition of “insured person”.
Division 15 of Part 4 amends the Canadian Security Intelligence Service Act to
(a) remove the office of the Inspector General;
(b) require the Security Intelligence Review Committee to submit to the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness a certificate on the Director of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service’s annual report; and
(c) increase the information on the Service’s activities to be provided by that Committee to that Minister.
Division 16 of Part 4 amends the Currency Act to clarify certain provisions that relate to the calling in and the redemption of coins.
Division 17 of Part 4 amends the Federal-Provincial Fiscal Arrangements Act in order to implement the total transfer protection for the 2012-2013 fiscal year and to give effect to certain elements of major transfer renewal that were announced by the Minister of Finance on December 19, 2011. It also makes certain administrative amendments to that Act and to the Canada Health Act.
Division 18 of Part 4 amends the Fisheries Act to authorize the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans to allocate fish for the purpose of financing scientific and fisheries management activities in the context of joint project agreements.
Division 19 of Part 4 amends the Food and Drugs Act to give the Minister of Health the power to establish a list that sets out prescription drugs or classes of prescription drugs and to provide that the list may be incorporated by reference. It also gives the Minister the power to issue marketing authorizations that exempt a food, or an advertisement with respect to a food, from certain provisions of the Act. The division also provides that a regulation with respect to a food and a marketing authorization may incorporate by reference any document. It also makes consequential amendments to other Acts.
Division 20 of Part 4 amends the Government Employees Compensation Act to allow prescribed entities to be subrogated to the rights of employees to make claims against third parties.
Division 21 of Part 4 amends the International Development Research Centre Act to reduce the maximum number of governors of the Centre to 14, and to consequently change other rules about the number of governors.
Division 22 of Part 4 amends Part I of the Canada Labour Code to require the parties to a collective agreement to file a copy of it with the Minister of Labour, subject to the regulations, as a condition for it to come into force. It amends Part III of that Act to require employers that provide benefits to their employees under long-term disability plans to insure those plans, subject to certain exceptions. The Division also amends that Part to create an offence and to increase maximum fines for offences under that Part.
Division 23 of Part 4 repeals the Fair Wages and Hours of Labour Act.
Division 24 of Part 4 amends the Old Age Security Act to provide the Minister of Human Resources and Skills Development with the authority to waive the requirement for an application for Old Age Security benefits for many eligible seniors, to gradually increase the age of eligibility for the Old Age Security Pension, the Guaranteed Income Supplement, the Allowance and the Allowance for the Survivor and to allow individuals to voluntarily defer their Old Age Security Pension up to five years past the age of eligibility, in exchange for a higher, actuarially adjusted, pension.
Division 25 of Part 4 dissolves the Public Appointments Commission and its secretariat.
Division 26 of Part 4 amends the Seeds Act to give the President of the Canadian Food Inspection Agency the power to issue licences to persons authorizing them to perform activities related to controlling or assuring the quality of seeds or seed crops.
Division 27 of Part 4 amends the Statutory Instruments Act to remove the distribution requirements for the Canada Gazette.
Division 28 of Part 4 amends the Investment Canada Act in order to authorize the Minister of Industry to communicate or disclose certain information relating to investments and to accept security in order to promote compliance with undertakings.
Division 29 of Part 4 amends the Customs Act to allow the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness to designate a portion of a roadway or other access way that leads to a customs office and that is used by persons arriving in Canada and by persons travelling within Canada as a mixed-traffic corridor. All persons who are travelling in a mixed-traffic corridor must present themselves to a border services officer and state whether they are arriving from a location outside or within Canada.
Division 30 of Part 4 gives retroactive effect to subsections 39(2) and (3) of the Pension Benefits Standards Act, 1985.
Division 31 of Part 4 amends the Railway Safety Act to limit the apportionment of costs to a road authority when a grant has been made under section 12 of that Act.
Division 32 of Part 4 amends the Canadian International Trade Tribunal Act to replace the two Vice-chairperson positions with two permanent member positions.
Division 33 of Part 4 repeals the International Centre for Human Rights and Democratic Development Act and authorizes the closing out of the affairs of the Centre established by that Act.
Division 34 of Part 4 amends the Health of Animals Act to allow the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food to declare certain areas to be control zones in respect of a disease or toxic substance. The enactment also grants the Minister certain powers, including the power to make regulations prohibiting the movement of persons, animals or things in the control zones for the purpose of eliminating a disease or toxic substance or controlling its spread and the power to impose conditions on the movement of animals or things in those zones.
Division 35 of Part 4 amends the Canada School of Public Service Act to abolish the Board of Governors of the Canada School of Public Service and to place certain responsibilities on the Minister designated for the purposes of the Act and on the President of the School.
Division 36 of Part 4 amends the Bank Act by adding a preamble to it.
Division 37 of Part 4 amends the Corrections and Conditional Release Act to eliminate the requirement of a hearing for certain reviews.
Division 38 of Part 4 amends the Coasting Trade Act to add seismic activities to the list of exceptions to the prohibition against foreign ships and non-duty paid ships engaging in the coasting trade.
Division 39 of Part 4 amends the Status of the Artist Act to dissolve the Canadian Artists and Producers Professional Relations Tribunal and transfer its powers and duties to the Canada Industrial Relations Board.
Division 40 of Part 4 amends the National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy Act to give the Round Table the power to sell or otherwise dispose of its assets and satisfy its debts and liabilities and to give the Minister of the Environment the power to direct the Round Table in respect of the exercise of some of its powers. The Division provides for the repeal of the Act and makes consequential amendments to other acts.
Division 41 of Part 4 amends the Telecommunications Act to change the rules relating to foreign ownership of Canadian carriers eligible to operate as telecommunications common carriers and to permit the recovery of costs associated with the administration and enforcement of the national do not call list.
Division 42 of Part 4 amends the Employment Equity Act to remove the requirements that are specific to the Federal Contractors Program for Employment Equity.
Division 43 of Part 4 amends the Employment Insurance Act to permit a person’s benefits to be determined by reference to their highest earnings in a given number of weeks, to permit regulations to be made respecting what constitutes suitable employment, to remove the requirement that a consent to deduction be in writing, to provide a limitation period within which certain repayments of overpayments need to be deducted and paid and to clarify the provisions respecting the refund of premiums to self-employed persons. It also amends that Act to modify the Employment Insurance premium rate-setting mechanism, including requiring that the rate be set on a seven-year break-even basis once the Employment Insurance Operating Account returns to balance. The Division makes consequential amendments to the Canada Employment Insurance Financing Board Act.
Division 44 of Part 4 amends the Customs Tariff to make certain imported fuels duty-free and to increase the travellers’ exemption thresholds.
Division 45 of Part 4 amends the Canada Marine Act to require provisions of a port authority’s letters patent relating to limits on the authority’s power to borrow money to be recommended by the Minister of Transport and the Minister of Finance before they are approved by the Governor in Council.
Division 46 of Part 4 amends the First Nations Land Management Act to implement changes made to the Framework Agreement on First Nation Land Management, including changes relating to the description of land that is to be subject to a land code, and to provide for the coming into force of land codes and the development by First Nations of environmental protection regimes.
Division 47 of Part 4 amends the Canada Travelling Exhibitions Indemnification Act to increase the maximum indemnity in respect of individual travelling exhibitions, as well as the maximum indemnity in respect of all travelling exhibitions.
Division 48 of Part 4 amends the Canadian Air Transport Security Authority Act to provide that the chief executive officer of the Authority is appointed by the Governor in Council and that an employee may not replace the chief executive officer for more than 90 days without the Governor in Council’s approval.
Division 49 of Part 4 amends the First Nations Fiscal and Statistical Management Act to repeal provisions related to the First Nations Statistical Institute and amends that Act and other Acts to remove any reference to that Institute. It authorizes the Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development to close out the Institute’s affairs.
Division 50 of Part 4 amends the Canadian Forces Members and Veterans Re-establishment and Compensation Act to provide for the payment or reimbursement of fees for career transition services for veterans or their survivors.
Division 51 of Part 4 amends the Department of Human Resources and Skills Development Act to add powers, duties and functions that are substantially the same as those conferred by the Department of Social Development Act. It repeals the Department of Social Development Act and, in doing so, eliminates the National Council of Welfare.
Division 52 of Part 4 amends the Wage Earner Protection Program Act in order to correct the English version of the definition “eligible wages”.
Division 53 of Part 4 repeals the Kyoto Protocol Implementation Act.
Division 54 of Part 4 amends the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act and the Budget Implementation Act, 2008 to provide for the termination of certain applications for permanent residence that were made before February 27, 2008. This Division also amends the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act to, among other things, authorize the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration to give instructions establishing and governing classes of permanent residents as part of the economic class and to provide that the User Fees Act does not apply in respect of fees set by those instructions. Furthermore, this Division amends the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act to allow for the retrospective application of certain regulations and certain instructions given by the Minister, if those regulations and instructions so provide, and to authorize regulations to be made respecting requirements imposed on employers in relation to authorizations to work in Canada.
Division 55 of Part 4 enacts the Shared Services Canada Act to establish Shared Services Canada to provide certain administrative services specified by the Governor in Council. The Act provides for the Governor in Council to designate a minister to preside over Shared Services Canada.
Division 56 of Part 4 amends the Assisted Human Reproduction Act to respond to the Supreme Court of Canada decision in Reference re Assisted Human Reproduction Act that was rendered in 2010, including by repealing the provisions that were found to be unconstitutional and abolishing the Assisted Human Reproduction Agency of Canada.

The Environment

[Peter Kent, Conservative, Minister of the Environment]

Mr. Speaker, I remind my colleague opposite that legislative improvements to the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act in 2010 did go some distance toward eliminating duplication in environmental assessments. However, we would build on that with Bill C-38 and we have introduced timelines. We would also contemporize processes under the National Energy Board and the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission. We would strengthen and improve what was already in place.

[Anne Minh-Thu Quach, NDP, Beauharnois—Salaberry, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the problem is that it is now 2012.

Other Conservatives are against Bill C-38, including voters and the hon. member for Kootenay—Columbia.

The government claims that overlap in federal and provincial jurisdictions is creating delays and unnecessary costs. That is absolutely not true. An internal document prepared for the Minister of the Environment confirms that there has been no overlap since last fall.

What, then, is the real reason behind the government's decision to dismantle environmental assessments in Bill C-38?

[Anne Minh-Thu Quach, NDP, Beauharnois—Salaberry, QC]

Mr. Speaker, on the contrary, this bill will create a lot more uncertainty.

There was a time when the Conservatives thought it was very important to protect the environment. That is why the Mulroney government implemented the Fisheries Act, which the Conservatives are trying to destroy today.

Yesterday, the former Conservative fisheries minister, Mr. Siddon, told the subcommittee that responsible parliamentarians would withdraw these changes from Bill C-38.

Will the Minister of the Environment listen to his Conservative colleague and split up this irresponsible bill?

Fisheries and Oceans

[Randy Kamp, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans and for the Asia-Pacific Gateway]

Mr. Speaker, the measures we have introduced in Bill C-38 would allow Fisheries and Oceans Canada to focus its efforts in a practical, sensible way on managing threats to Canada's recreational, commercial and aboriginal fisheries. I know he likes to use former minister Siddon to criticize this new direction we would take here, but let me read this for him. It states, “The policy applies to those habitats directly or indirectly supporting those fish stocks or populations that sustain commercial, recreational or Native fishing activities of benefit to Canadians.”

Who wrote that? It was the Hon. Tom Siddon in the 1986 habitat policy that is still in force here in Canada.

The Budget

[Peggy Nash, NDP, Parkdale—High Park, ON]

Mr. Speaker, at the C-38 hearings, the Conservative majority is pushing through dozens of pieces of legislation with little study. With 753 clauses, that is just three minutes of study per clause.

Now even former Tory ministers are testifying that Conservatives railroading these changes through are wrong.

Last night it got even worse. The Conservatives voted to block bringing ministers back to testify. Why will they not come back? Is the Minister of Natural Resources afraid he will be called on his boast about drinking from tailing ponds?

The Environment

[Peter Kent, Conservative, Minister of the Environment]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague forgets that on the first day that the subcommittee met to consider Bill C-38, all three ministers met, the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans, the Minister of Natural Resources and I. We provided two hours of enlightenment to an opposition that was hard-challenged to come up with questions material to the subcommittee's work.

Opposition Motion—Employment Insurance

[Laurin Liu, NDP, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC]

Mr. Speaker, we are in the House to discuss a motion by the official opposition concerning employment insurance.

Our motion essentially asks the Conservative government to abandon its plans to further restrict access to employment insurance. The proposed changes arise from Bill C-38 to implement the budget. In addition to containing no job creation measures and triggering the dismissal of tens of thousands of public servants, the latest Conservative budget tightens access to employment insurance by giving the Minister of Human Resources and Skills Development the authority to create new rules to define what constitutes “suitable employment” and “reasonable and customary efforts to obtain suitable employment.” That appears in a budget of more than 400 pages.

Incidentally, the minister refuses to provide all the details of her reform, but is asking us to vote for Bill C-38, which will give her the authority to change the employment insurance plan as she wishes. She is in fact asking us to sign a blank cheque.

We do not have all the details of this reform. However, on May 24, the minister tried to clarify the government's intentions in part, although without disclosing all the details. Essentially, unemployed workers are now more than ever being compelled to find a job outside their area of activity and their area of residence.

We also know that the government will establish three classes of workers based on the frequency with which they file employment insurance claims. After receiving benefits for a certain period of time, unemployed workers will be required to accept lower-paying jobs or else their benefits will be reduced. Frequent claimants, who have filed three or more claims and received more than 60 weeks of benefits in the past five years, will, after a period of time, be required to accept jobs at 70% of their previous earnings. We find those changes unacceptable for a number of reasons.

The main problem with this reform is that it disregards the fact that many businesses operate on a seasonal cycle, particularly those in the tourism, agri-food, forest and other sectors. Seasonal industry makes a major contribution to economic activity. What would Lac-Saint-Jean be without forestry? Where would eastern Quebec be without the fisheries? What would Quebec City and a number of Quebec communities be without the economic contribution of tourists? These industries and the workers who support them contribute to the economic growth of Quebec and the rest of Canada. It is essential that the federal government acknowledge through its programs that these sectors are important and legitimate.

For lack of adequate coverage by the employment insurance program, many workers are abandoning these sectors of activity, leaving business people without skilled workers. For example, Le Quai des Bulles, a Kamouraska business employing a dozen seasonal workers, is afraid it will lose workers as a result of the reform. It is important to understand that 26% of employment insurance claims are filed by seasonal workers, and 30% of those are Quebeckers.

I will be pleased to continue my speech after question period.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, Liberals understand that the changes the government is bringing forward would have a devastating impact on tens of thousands of Canadians. We believe that the government is using the back door to implement these changes in Bill C-38. That is most unfortunate. We should be allowed to have a full, healthy debate in the House on separate bills as opposed to bringing in the changes in Bill C-38 through the back door. That is one point I would appreciate the member's comment on.

The second point is about the uncaring attitude of the government with regard to individuals who, in essence, ensure that industries are viable. They may be seasonal jobs, but they are important too. We need to emphasize that all jobs, even seasonal jobs, are important. The Canadians filling those jobs should be recognized and appreciated for their efforts, not penalized by the government taking action of this nature, which is going to hurt Canadians more.

[François Lapointe, NDP, Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am not at all pleased to be rising in the House today. In general, I am happy, indeed very happy to be here, but I am less happy to have to debate this issue.

I will say at the outset that I will be sharing my time with my colleague from Rivière-des-Mille-Îles.

I would like to go back a few years in time to the root of the matter to remind hon. members that the problem we are facing today has been fabricated. It has been created by those who are now exploiting it for the purpose of making decisions that are truly contemptuous of Canadians in general, more particularly Canadians who are currently having trouble finding a job.

If, a few years ago, the Liberal and Conservative governments had not dipped into this fund, which Canadian workers paid into out of their own pockets, it would now stand at more than $50 billion and not be an underfinanced fund of less than $2 billion. Now, the government can exploit the idea that the fund needs attention because it will be short of money. It can say that people are abusing this paltry sum of $2 billion. Collectively, we had produced a $50 billion cushion, but it is no longer there. If we had that money today, we could introduce a pilot project to help the regions solve the problems the seasonal industries are facing. There would not be a problem.

There could be a major reform to do exactly what countries with few human resource problems, such as Germany and Norway, are currently doing: focus on ensuring the money is used for their obsession with ongoing training. That is the key. In Germany and Norway, when someone wants to take a course, they do not take away his employment insurance benefits if that course serves economic needs. If someone does not know how to read but wants to learn, he does not lose his benefits. He is asked if he is able to learn to read within a certain number of weeks. Those countries have understood that if they support their citizens in learning basic skills or trades that are in great demand, the entire community will be more prosperous in the short and medium terms.

If Canada had the $50 billion in its possession right now, it could start establishing those policies across Canada and see Canada become as prosperous as Norway and Germany.

I would like to remind the House that the two countries in question are not at the same end of the spectrum. The Norwegians are clearly social democrats, but the situation is not that clear in Germany. However, both countries share this obsession with ongoing training and use job search tools with a view to training people. And yet they are stuck in an economic quagmire much worse than ours.

The U.S. economy is struggling to get back on its feet, but it is not a disaster. Yet, these two economies are located close to partners, Greece and Spain, which are having major problems and are on the verge of economic disaster. Despite this terrible mess, they are succeeding with fewer human resource problems and a level of prosperity that is comparable or superior to our own. They have not used tools as big as $50 billion to help people prepare for employment. This money was squandered on all sorts of things, so that now this government can exploit the bogus underfunding of what should have been a major tool for Canada’s prosperity.

Now we have before us Bill C-38, which reduces human resource and environmental problems to budgetary issues. The budget will fix everything.

I made an important note to myself: the budget is the top priority. The proof of this is that the vast majority of NDP governments in the provinces have an exemplary roadmap enabling them to deliver balanced budgets, with a few rare exceptions. Overall, the NDP has been more successful in this regard than other provincial governments. It is a top priority.

The problem, when it comes to the big issues and the major responsibilities in society—the environment and human resources—is that when things are limited to a budgetary analysis, it is easy to lose sight of the investment and sustainability side of things.

This is normal. If I am responsible for the budget, the only question I ask myself is whether I can save $2 tomorrow. I want to save $2 tomorrow. I do not ask myself whether that $2 is going to cost us $25 in terms of loss of skills and investments for the future. Bill C-38, the mammoth budget bill, reduces hugely important responsibilities, such as the environment and human resources, to a simple budgetary calculation, and nothing lacks long-term vision more than that.

My next comments will focus on what is happening in the regions. Since I was elected, Service Canada centres have actually been closed in the regions despite the fact that in the last election campaign the Conservative Party unveiled with great fanfare, in Quebec at least, a slogan that read “power to the regions”—that vaguely reminded me of slogans from a gentleman by the name of Duplessis, in Quebec—and despite the fact that for 40 days they plastered telephone poles with the slogan. In towns in my riding, 20%, 25% or 30% of the postal services have been closed.

We have just learned that there will be a 50% cut in rail service between Halifax and Toronto. Why not? The government is going to hit the tourism industry hard. Why not also arrange things so that fewer tourists can take the night train to go and spend a week in the maritime provinces or Quebec? Why not? An excellent idea, good timing, terrific.

And now here we are, dealing with this employment insurance reform that deals a huge blow to the tourism industry, which by its very nature is highly seasonal. Many regions are extremely attractive in the summer, but not in winter. They therefore find it difficult to develop. Even the most brilliant business people in these regions are unable to develop a 12-month cycle. Believe me, if they could they would. These are business people and they are brilliant. If there was a way to come up with an initiative that would be the least bit viable in December, January and February, they would do it.

For almost a month now, in my role as the NDP critic for SMEs and tourism, I have met with many people from Quebec and the maritime provinces. I met with Minister Paris in Nova Scotia. And of course, I met with the organizations in my own bailiwick, such as Tourisme Rivière-du-Loup. I met with the people who handle tourism for the Acadians, those who administer tourism for all of Newfoundland and Labrador and all of Nova Scotia, and those who handle special tourism development projects in southern Nova Scotia.

I met with dozens of organizations. Fully one-third of them said that they were worried. Two-thirds told me that they were truly angry about the decisions currently being made. They all said that they had never been consulted. We are talking about an industry that is worth billions of dollars. We are talking about close to $1 billion for New Brunswick alone, approximately $2 billion for Nova Scotia and over $5 billion for eastern Quebec. We are talking about a multi-billion dollar industry that necessarily goes through difficult economic cycles. The people in this industry are therefore directly affected by the kind of employment insurance reforms that are going to be forced down the throats of Canadians, even though they were never consulted.

The current government is telling them not to worry because of the so-called “reasonable””clause. They put the word “reasonable” in their bill. The word means absolutely nothing if it is not defined first. It will be reasonable based on what and from whose point of view? I will give just one example of something impossible.

Like me, a senior Conservative government official from eastern Canada asked the question, and he had no more of an answer than I did. Let us imagine a hotel manager who, in the four winter months, loses 80% of his business. It is a seasonal industry and there is no ski hill beside his inn. Will he work at the corner hardware store for four months?

The businessman who owns the corner hardware store knows that the hotel manager is a bright man and, for years, he has not hired him for those four months because it is not cost-effective to give him two months of training for him to learn all about paint, when he will then leave to go back to the hotel.

Business people in the regions are not idiots. They are bright people. I find this government extraordinarily presumptuous when it says that it will establish a system that will finally work for them.

[Scott Armstrong, Conservative, Cumberland—Colchester—Musquodoboit Valley, NS]

Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time today with the Minister of Veterans Affairs.

As many government members have already stated, we cannot support a factually incorrect motion.

I would like to drill down on some of the details of what our government is actually proposing with this legislation.

The changes we will make will ensure that unemployed Canadians are made aware of all available work in their local labour markets within their skill set. However, if there is no available work within their skill set, then EI will be there to support them. It always has been there to support them and always will be there to support them.

As indicated in Bill C-38, the jobs, growth and long-term prosperity act, the government intends to establish clear definitions for suitable employment and reasonable job search. Please note that these improvements can only apply to Canadians receiving regular EI benefits and EI fishing benefits. They will not apply to Canadians receiving EI for special benefits, such as maternity, parental, compassionate, or sickness.

Let me focus on suitable employment for a moment.

Several factors will affect the definition for suitable employment. These factors will include, first and foremost, the personal circumstances of that person who applies. This is a point that the opposition members have been very ignorant on as they attempt to scare Canadians with respect to the impact of these changes. As a member of Parliament from Atlantic Canada, I want to assure my constituents that the personal circumstances of an EI claimant will always be taken into account when determining what is considered suitable employment.

Claimants receiving EI will not have to accept work if they have a health problem that prevents them from taking a particular job, or if they have family obligations that prevent them from working at certain times of the day or if they have limited transportation options for commuting them to and from work. If they are not physically capable of performing work, they will not be required to take that job.

As the minister of HRDSC stressed again at committee yesterday, these changes would be implemented in a fair, practical and reasonable way.

What has not been reasonable is for the opposition to enlist in a campaign of fearmongering on topics such as commuting time. Under our proposed changes, a workplace must be within an hour's commute unless the claimant's previous commuting history and the community's average commuting times are longer than that. It is simple common sense.

Let me focus on the two criteria for suitable employment that are drawing the most attention. They are the type of work and the wages that are considered reasonable. In determining what criteria apply, EI claimants will be placed in one of three categories: long-tenured workers, frequent claimants and occasional claimants.

Let me take a few moments to define each of these categories.

Long-tenured workers are those who have paid into the EI system for seven of the past 10 years and who over the last five years have collected EI or fishing benefits for 35 weeks or less. These workers would be initially required to look for a similar job that would pay for 90% of their previous wages. After 18 weeks on EI benefits, long-tenured workers would be required to expand their job search to jobs within the field of one they previously held and to apply for jobs that would be above 80% of their previous wages.

Frequent claimants are those who have had three or more claims for regular or fishing benefits and have collected more than 60 weeks of EI benefits in the past five years. They would be required to expand their job search to jobs similar to the job they normally performed from the start of their EI claim. They would also be required to look for work that paid wages starting at 80% of their previous hourly wage. After receiving benefits for six weeks, they would need to expand their search to any work they would be qualified to perform so long as the wages would be within 70% of their previous employment.

Occasional claimants would include those not captured by the definitions of frequent and long-tenured workers. Occasional claimants would be allowed to limit their job search for their usual occupation, with similar wages of at least 90% of their previous hour wage for the first six weeks of their claim. After receiving benefits for six weeks, they would have to expand their job search to jobs similar to the one they normally performed, with wages that would be within 80% of their previous earnings. After 18 weeks, they would then need to further expand their job search to include any work they would be qualified to perform, as long as the wage would be at least 70% of their previous earnings.

It is a sad testament to fearmongering in which the opposition has engaged that I feel the need to point out the obvious, which is that no one would ever need to accept employment below minimum wage in Canada. The simple truth is that under these changes, EI claimants will always make more money working than by collecting EI, which is currently not the case.

As many people know, employment insurance pays 55% of an individual's average weekly income. The maximum annual salary used to calculate the weekly average is $45,900 per year. Therefore, if an individual is a frequent claimant and a reasonable job search will offer at least 70% of previous earnings, that is a substantial increase over 55% of the earnings that would be collected on EI.

This is why the opposition motion we are debating in the House today is factually incorrect. Canadians receiving EI will only be required to look for work that pays significantly more than they are currently collecting on EI. It is a net benefit to claimants.

Let me also be clear on a further point. As a Canadian from Atlantic Canada, I understand that in many small communities there may not always be economic opportunities outside peak seasons of employment. The Prime Minister has been perfectly clear on this point. If there are no available jobs in one's community, EI benefits will continue to support Canadians as they always have.

Let me turn briefly to the topic of a reasonable job search.

Canadians receiving EI benefits will be required to undertake job search activities, including researching and assessing job prospects, drafting a resumé, searching for job vacancies, applying for positions, attending interviews and undertaking other efforts to improve their employability, such as attending workshops, going to employment agencies and also job fairs.

EI claimants will also be required to look for a job daily and to keep records of their job searches. These search efforts will be consistent with the opportunities that are available. For example, in a community with few job openings, a job search should focus on identifying new opportunities and not applying for the same job or to the same business every day. In comparison, a job search in an area with numerous job opportunities should focus on both identifying and applying for available positions.

As part of the investment we are making under this initiative, EI claimants will be made aware of local jobs in their local labour market.

These improvements to EI will help more Canadians get back into the labour force and enable them to better support themselves and their families.

Unfortunately, we have seen the opposition attempt to play politics of fear and to confuse Canadians into believing some of these things are not true. Sadly, this is not the first time we have seen members of the opposition ignore clear realities of the Canadian economy in order to advance their narrow interests.

I would ask all hon. members in the House to support our government's plan for jobs, growth and economic prosperity. This is the reason Canada is leading the G8 in growth of 750,000 net new jobs created since the depth of the recession in July 2009. Therefore, I encourage members to join me in voting against this factually incorrect motion.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, what the Conservative government is doing in terms of these changes will have a profoundly negative impact on seasonal jobs from coast to coast, and in particular, as our Liberal Party critic talked about, in the province of Quebec, in Atlantic Canada and so forth.

One needs to question why the government decided to bring in these changes through the back door of Bill C-38, thereby preventing debate on this issue and, most important, to then have the debate carry on into a committee of the House where experts from across Canada could participate and provide what I believe is absolutely critical information because of the impact this change will have on our economy and on industries that are so dependent on seasonal jobs.

Does the member not agree with the Liberal Party's stand that Bill C-38 should have been broken down, that there should have been several pieces of legislation brought in and that this should be a stand-alone debate taking place on a separate bill?

[Marjolaine Boutin-Sweet, NDP, Hochelaga, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to support the motion of the hon. member for Hamilton Mountain, which reads:

That this House call on the Conservative government to abandon plans to further restrict access to Employment Insurance for Canadian workers who have followed the rules and who will now be forced to choose between taking a pay cut of up to 30% or losing their Employment Insurance benefits.

I support this motion. It is necessary to do so because we have before us Bill C-38, a budget implementation bill that we call the Trojan Horse bill because there are so many things hidden in it. It is extremely controversial for this reason as well as others. It contains far too much. We have said many times that this bill should be split into at least five parts. It cannot be examined in the proper committee because the Standing Committee on Finance is discussing the environment. This bill should be examined by the Standing Committee on Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities or the Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development. It needs to be examined in the proper place.

Moreover, the Conservatives are limiting debate. They are not only reducing the time the committees have to debate this bill, but they are also passing time allocation motions in the House. Once again, the Conservatives are trying to distract Canadians while they impose major, negative changes on them. By way of evidence, did the Conservatives talk about changes to environmental law, old age security and employment insurance during the election campaign? No. They did not say a word about those issues. They hid their intentions throughout the election campaign.

Let us now discuss the section of Bill C-38 that deals with employment insurance, which is also very controversial. Members of Parliament have to vote without having received much information. The Minister of Human Resources and Skills Development said that she has not yet announced the details as she wants to make sure that the bill passes first.

What details are we talking about? Just trifles; for example, the definition of suitable employment or the acceptable distance to be travelled. The bill abolishes the existing definitions, but when we ask for clarification and new definitions, the information is very vague. For example, a reasonable commuting time is said to be one hour. Is that one hour by car? If I drive for one hour, I will be halfway to Montreal.

What about the people in remote areas who do not own cars? Will they also have to travel one hour by car? In some parts of my riding, there are far fewer north-south public transit routes. Will these people have to spend one hour on the bus? How will it work? We do not know. In short, major changes to employment insurance are hidden inside a mammoth bill. Once again, the Conservatives are controlling the debate on the bill. That is not all.

When we listen to what some of the Conservatives are saying we can hear the contempt they have for employment insurance recipients. During her appearance yesterday at the Standing Committee on Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities, the Minister of Human Resources and Skills Development said that the government was working on removing disincentives to work. She added that it is question of improving the federal system in order to ensure that Canadians better understand what is expected of them when they receive employment insurance benefits.

Such comments suggest that EI recipients are abusing the system. There are indeed people who abuse the system, but they are the exception. Not everyone abuses the system, but they are being treated as though they do. I invite the Conservatives to come to Hochelaga and see what life is really like, what people really need. Employment insurance is a social safety net that was established decades ago to respond to a real need. This tool that Canadians created to be used when they need help is getting a bad rap from the Conservatives. I wonder sometimes whether they really know anyone who is poor.

Let us now talk in greater detail about the changes proposed by the Conservatives and the ensuing problems. Take job search, for example. The government says that it is going to send out emails about available jobs twice a day.

I knocked on a lot of doors during the election campaign. When I told people to consult our website to learn more about the NDP platform, they would often tell me that they did not have Internet access, that they could not afford it or that they did not have a computer. They could have gone to the library, but the Conservative government has cut the community access program, so there are a lot fewer computers available in libraries.

The hon. members might recall that, a few months ago, the Service Canada job search website did not work for a number of weeks. So what happens in those types of situations? Are the people going to be penalized? But one of the biggest problems—and we are going to hear about it a lot—is the impact on the regions and on seasonal work. Let us talk about seasonal work. Seasonal workers are often highly skilled workers. You cannot just drag people around from job to job.

Under the proposed measures, these people could be forced to leave their skilled occupations or their regions or both. As an example, a witness who raises silver foxes recently appeared before the Standing Committee on Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities. That industry has a six-month season and he has one employee who has very specific expertise and who returns every year.

This employer told us that if his employee did not come back, he would not know what to do or where to find another employee with that kind of expertise. The witness also told us that the same is true in horticulture and livestock farming.

In-school child care services are another example. Do we really want to have to look for new child care providers every year? Do we want people with a lot less experience looking after our children every year?

Every January and February, only a few groups came to visit the museum where I used to work. As a result, at least 10 of the 20 guides would not get any hours. Zero. So they needed employment insurance every year. Since those guides have been there for three or four years, they would automatically fall into the new category of frequent claimants. This means that if they have not found another job after six weeks, they would have to accept work at 70% of their previous hourly wage or they would no longer be entitled to employment insurance.

By the way, in Quebec, 15% of employment insurance claimants are seasonal workers. Instead of a short-term and repressive view for reducing the unemployment rate, perhaps there might be other options. For example, we could invest in training. But no, the Conservatives are making cuts to training.

I have two examples from the recent budget. First, we see cuts of $44 million—so, 64.7%—to contributions that help older unemployed workers in communities with a high unemployment rate or those affected by downsizing. Then, transfer payments to apprenticeship incentive grants and apprenticeship completion grants, worth $155 million, are being cancelled completely. It makes no sense.

Furthermore, when the government gives grants to large companies, perhaps it could ensure that jobs are created quickly—in Canada, not in Mexico or the United States—and that the companies do not take the money before relocating elsewhere, which is what Caterpillar and Electrolux did.

I have three more comments to make before I wrap up. First, employment insurance is fully funded by employees and employers. It belongs to employees and employers. What is the point of paying into it if you are not allowed to use it? It would be like buying a car and not being allowed to drive it.

The new definition of suitable employment suggested by the minister is at odds with the International Labour Organization's, which says that a government seeking to promote employment and guard against unemployment should take into account the claimant's training, experience and qualifications.

The third and final point I would like to make is that by forcing workers to take lower-paying, less fulfilling jobs that they are likely to quit more rapidly, the government will increase rather than decrease poverty.

I would like to reiterate what I said at the beginning of my remarks: this motion is important and must be adopted.

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

Madam Speaker, I would like to share my time with the member for Montmorency—Charlevoix—Haute-Côte-Nord.

First I would like to say that I am proud the NDP has proposed this motion on employment insurance.

I find it sad that the government thinks that people who receive employment insurance are a bunch of lazy slackers. As the member for Madawaska—Restigouche put it so well, there are still people who prefer to receive employment insurance because they want to go hunting. That is how the Conservatives think.

The parliamentary secretary asked whether it was not better to have a job 12 months a year rather than six months a year.

Yes, it is much better.

The parliamentary secretary said she went to visit Newfoundland. I would like to know whom she spoke to in Newfoundland. Let her report to the House on whom she met in Newfoundland, because there is a fishing industry in Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island and the Gaspé.

If the Conservative government is so smart, I invite the Prime Minister to introduce a bill to melt the ice in Chaleur Bay so that people can fish in winter. If he is so smart, if he really believes in jobs 12 months a year and if he wants to support the fishing industry, I invite the Prime Minister to melt the ice in Chaleur Bay. That way, people could fish 12 months a year.

In addition, let him put some fish in the sea because this same government shut down the groundfish fishery. I invite the parliamentary secretary to come and tour New Brunswick. Let her come, and I will take her around to the employers who are having problems as a result of seasonal jobs: they want to keep their employees. However, the government's bill does the exact opposite. It wants those employees to go work elsewhere.

Industry back home in New Brunswick, and in the riding of Acadie—Bathurst, amounts to fishing and peat moss. Has anyone ever wondered how you harvest peat moss under the snow? This Conservative government is really out of touch with the reality of the regions to a ridiculous degree. The parliamentary secretary says she comes from a rural area. All right, but she may come from a rural area where there are secondary or tertiary processing jobs and employment 12 months a year.

If the Conservative government wants to do the right thing, let it put tools in place. Let the human resources minister put the tools in place for us to do the secondary and tertiary processing instead of sending all our fish to Japan.

Under these new regulations, unemployed workers are required to look for work twice a week. Some 3,000 people lose their jobs at the end of June because the fishery winds up in June and starts again in mid-August. The biggest surprise this government could have right now would be for fish plant employees to decide, twice a week, to go and see employers one hour’s drive away about jobs those employers do not have. Employers would tell the Conservative government to get those workers off their backs because they would not be able to produce anymore with them coming to work in their yards when there are no jobs.

The government's parliamentary secretary said they were going to send unemployed workers job alerts twice a day to tell them where they could find work, but the problem that was raised is that some of them do not even have a computer. The government responded that 85% of people filing employment insurance claims did so online.

They file employment insurance claims online because the government requires them to do so. It has shut down human resources offices everywhere. There were more than 100 human resources offices in Canada, and since the Conservatives intend to close some of them, there will only be 22 left.

Applying once for employment insurance means going to a neighbour and asking to use his computer. This happens once a year. But if a person has to ask to use his neighbour’s computer twice a day to check jobs, the neighbour will get fed up.

The government is saying that if you want a job, you will have to use a computer to get it, because that is where the jobs are. Is the government telling us that it is going to send out two letters a day to Canadians to tell them that jobs are available? My goodness, I do not know what planet I am living on. If there are that many jobs in Acadie—Bathurst, I cannot wait to find out where they are. I am sure that the residents of Acadie—Bathurst cannot wait to know where all these jobs that the government is announcing are.

We are not against motherhood and apple pie, we are not against the fact that the government is telling people that there are going to be jobs available at specific locations. We are not against employers posting jobs or workers being available. The problem is telling somebody that if he does not go to a specific location for a job and accept it, his employment insurance will be cut off. If I were an employer, I would tell the government to mind its own business because it is not up to the government to dictate who should be in the private sector. If the government forces somebody to work for a particular employer and the person does not like the job, how productive will he be?

The 70% model sounds good, does it not? For those who get a job at 70% of their salary and are then laid off, will the next job be at 70% of that salary? Will it be 70% until the person receives the minimum wage? The government wants to help employers keep wages down. The government is going to play a role in forcing people to go and work for employers who will not increase wages. The Conservatives are going to make sure that people remain in poverty. That is what this measure is all about.

Furthermore, this measure is found in Bill C-38. Why did they not separate it from Bill C-38? They should let the Standing Committee on Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities conduct a real study. If the bill put forward by the minister and the federal Conservative government is so good, why is the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador not satisfied and why was it not consulted? Why is the Province of Nova Scotia not satisfied and why was it not consulted? Why is the Province of Prince Edward Island not satisfied and why was it not consulted?

The exception is New Brunswick, because we know that our premier, Mr. Alward, follows everything that the Prime Minister of Canada says. The Conservatives are in power in New Brunswick and they will not touch this with a 10-foot pole. The premier might have to answer for this in the next election in New Brunswick, because at the moment he does not represent the seasonal workers in our province.

The people in our province who work in the fisheries are wondering where they are expected to find a job. What will happen to the 60-year-old woman in Caraquet who has almost reached retirement age if she tries to take her car to work at a McDonald's in Bathurst with the winter road conditions that we have? By the way, it is not funny when you drive along the coast. With the wind, even if there is not much snow falling, it becomes a storm. On the peatlands and in open country, the roads can be impassable just because of the winds. This is what they are doing; they are putting people's lives in danger.

The Conservatives think that people are happy to receive 55% of their salary and feel as though they are on vacation. They should see these people's living conditions and they should live in these conditions. They should answer the calls that I get in my office from people saying that they would like to work. They should remember the time when the fisheries were good and people worked 35 weeks per year. They worked 15- and 16-hour days, 7 days a week, for 35 weeks. I will never allow them to call our workers lazy slackers. These are the same people who leave our region to go work out west, where they can find jobs.

If the Conservative government wants to help people get jobs, it can help us get a better airport in Bathurst. The runway needs to be lengthened. It can give us a building that is capable of handling our people travelling up to the far north for jobs. This is the same government that cut $18 million from ACOA and that gives us no tools. Tools are what we want. It is the government's responsibility to provide tools and to make it possible to get jobs, not to do what it is doing at the moment, cutting employment insurance so that people fall on hard times, sending them onto welfare and putting all the burden onto the provinces.

I hope that the Premier of New Brunswick is also listening to me; I hope he realizes that we, the taxpayers of New Brunswick, are the ones who are going to be paying for the federal government's mistakes—

[Laurel Rothman, National Coordinator, Campaign 2000]

Hello. Thanks for the opportunity to appear before you.

You're probably aware that Campaign 2000 is a network of organizations representing low-income people, affordable housing, child care and health care providers, food banks, labour organizations, and women's groups. We've been tracking progress, or lack thereof, on child and family poverty for at least 20 years.

We were quite disappointed not to see measures addressing poverty or inequality in Bill C-38, and I guess we were jarred again by the recent report from UNICEF measuring child poverty in the world's richest countries, which reminds us that even among our peers, the economically advanced nations, Canada ranks 24th out of 25. UNICEF also emphasizes that poverty is one of the most costly mistakes a society can make—and it is indeed one that we can ameliorate.

The most recent statistics show that 639,000 children, or about one in 10, are still living in poverty. That doesn't well reflect the numbers in first nations communities, where it's closer to one in four. It's important to remember that about one in three of those children in poverty has a parent already working full time. So the issues we've been talking about with regard to labour market and labour replacement income under EI are relevant to poverty reduction.

UNICEF also confirmed that public policies in the form of taxes and transfers make a big difference, which is why we had wanted to see some progress on that. Of course, in Canada we have strong evidence in the progress we've made to date, both from our programs assisting seniors—OAS, GIS—as well as with children. I don't know if you have in front of you a copy of the report card that was sent, but we have a good chart where we show the impact of taxes and transfers, including employment insurance, the Canada child tax benefit, the national child benefit supplement, and the GST credit. Before those were taken into account, we would have had 25% of children, one in four, in poverty, and after those taxes and transfers, the rate went down to 14%, preventing about 770,000 children from living in poverty.

The other important point is that the CCTB and the NCB address both poverty and inequality. The maximum benefit goes to families with net incomes under $24,000, but the progressive nature of the benefit trails out so that almost 90% of children receive something. Obviously, in families with more income they receive less.

So what we are suggesting is that to both prevent and strengthen child and family poverty we need to retain, if not enhance, those existing taxes and transfer measures, including EI, the national child benefit. I think we need a more updated look at the GST credit—or now we'd call it the HST credit in many places—and we need to focus on creating better jobs. Specifically, the child benefit needs to be increased to a maximum of $5,400, and even at that, our lone-parent mother would need to earn at least $12 an hour for at least 34 hours a week, plus the child benefit, to bring herself and her child out of poverty.

We believe that poverty reduction and eventual eradication is a key part of a prosperity agenda. Remember, these funds in families on tight incomes are all spent in local communities. They're not sent abroad. Unfortunately, people aren't able to save, but they desperately need that money for food and rent. So this direction will address some critical needs of our most vulnerable Canadians and will reduce intractable social and economic problems for years immediately ahead and to come.

Thank you.

[Diane Brisebois, President and Chief Executive Officer, Retail Council of Canada]

Good morning. Mr. Chair, members of the Standing Committee on Finance, we would like to thank you for inviting us to talk about the retail sector's concerns and recommendations regarding Bill C-38.

You have in front of you today a copy of the brief that was recently presented to the Standing Senate Committee on National Finance relating to the study on the potential reasons for price discrepancies in respect of certain goods between Canada and the United States, given the value of the Canadian dollar and the effect of cross border shopping on the Canadian economy.

Because we only have five minutes to present our comments and recommendations, I will get to the point immediately. I hope you will have time to carefully review our submission, which includes more details.

Of course, we will be very pleased to answer all of your questions after our presentation.

Our comments are timely considering that Bill C-38 will significantly change the personal exemption limits for Canadians bringing goods back into Canada, making it even harder for Canadian retailers to compete with their U.S. counterparts. We will focus on three significant areas that we believe need to be addressed by this committee. They include import duties on finished goods, supply management affecting prices of food products such as dairy and poultry, and regulatory harmonization. You'll also note that the submission before you speaks to vendor pricing, which is a matter we discussed at length with the Senate committee.

Let me quickly address import duties. One of the main areas where the federal government has a role to play in levelling the playing field for Canadian retailers and importers is in eliminating the outdated tariffs on finished goods entering into Canada. While Finance officials often note that these tariffs are only applied to 10% of all products entering Canada, they unfortunately are overly represented in the retail sector. For some retailers they represent close to 100% of the items they import into the country.

As an example, on page 9 of our submission, which we circulated

—it is on page 8 in the French—

we have listed the tariffs applied to sports equipment. For the most part, there are no duties applied in the United States for retailers importing those goods, yet the same products entering into Canada carry tariffs as high as 18%.

On page 10 of both the French and English versions of our brief, we provide another sample list of some of the tariffs we believe should be eliminated.

We thus urge the government to support the elimination of tariffs, as the minister had noted in the budget that he would be looking at this issue seriously.

The second matter relates to supply management, which we all agree is not always a very popular issue to discuss. One area that has not been discussed in full is the effect of the difference in pricing of dairy and poultry products between Canada and the United States. I draw your attention to page 12 of the report and the table that shows the difference in prices between both jurisdictions for supply managed food products. I think you will find it as shocking as we have.

While retailers fully respect and support Canada's agricultural community, we do know from our members that these products are the most popular products purchased by consumers during the great majority of the same-day cross-border shopping trips. In fact, dairy products, poultry, gas, alcohol, and cigarettes are the five top items that are brought in on same-day trips. There is a trend.

At the very least, should the current system continue to be sustained, the government must acknowledge its role in supporting marketing boards and higher prices in Canada for those popular grocery products. If the government wanted to provide retailers in Canada with a level playing field, it should have exempted or restricted these supply managed products from the personal exemption limits that have been increased by this bill, as it has done with tobacco and alcohol, and actively enforce those rules at the border.

The final point is regulatory harmonization. I would like to speak briefly about the need for better harmonization of regulations and policy.

Lack of harmonization and different standards and requirements contribute to increased prices of products in Canada and decreased productivity.

We applaud the government's creation of the Canada-U.S. Regulatory Cooperation Council. However, even after this was announced in February 2011, as our submission outlines, a new car seat testing regulation came into force, which was not at all harmonized with that of the United States.

Because of time, I will immediately conclude my remarks and thank the committee for its consideration of issues of concern to our sector.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.