Bill C-44 (Historical)

Helping Families in Need Act

An Act to amend the Canada Labour Code and the Employment Insurance Act and to make consequential amendments to the Income Tax Act and the Income Tax Regulations

This enactment amends the Canada Labour Code to provide an employee with the right to take leave when a child of the employee is critically ill or dies or disappears as the probable result of a crime. It also makes technical amendments to that Act.
Furthermore, the enactment amends the Employment Insurance Act to provide benefits to claimants who are providing care or support to their critically ill child and to facilitate access to sickness benefits for claimants who are in receipt of parental benefits.
Lastly, the enactment makes consequential amendments to the Income Tax Act and the Income Tax Regulations.

Helping Families in Need Act

[Rathika Sitsabaiesan, NDP, Scarborough—Rouge River, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to speak to Bill C-44, An Act to amend the Canada Labour Code and the Employment Insurance Act and to make consequential amendments to the Income Tax Act and the Income Tax Regulations and to express my support for this bill at second reading.

New Democrats have long been calling for changes to the current EI system, as well as support for families who find themselves in the situations that are identified in the bill. The NDP is the only party that calls for extending EI stimulus measures until unemployment falls to pre-recession levels. We called for eliminating the two-week waiting period for people to qualify for EI benefits, returning the qualifying period to a minimum of 360 hours of work regardless of the regional rate of unemployment, raising the rate of benefits to 60% rather than what it is today and improving the quality and monitoring of training and retraining across the country, so that individuals have the ability to improve their skills while they are on EI benefits.

Though I am going to be speaking in support of the bill today, what I do find somewhat troubling is that the government is still choosing to ignore the largest problem with our current EI system. As of July 2012, four in ten unemployed Canadians are actually eligible for EI, which means 60% of the people who are unemployed are not receiving EI benefits because they do not qualify. They are part-time and temporary workers, people who are forced into many precarious forms of employment.

Further to this, the funding used to provide the support promised in this legislation to these families is actually going to be coming from EI premiums rather than the general revenue fund, which is exactly what the Conservatives promised in their 2011 election platform. They said it would come from the general revenue fund rather than the EI fund. Not only is this an example of the government breaking yet another election promise, but this is by far the most expensive option and comes at a time when the EI account has a cumulative deficit of $9 billion.

With that in mind, I must also add that the EI program is not one that the government has been paying into. It is one that only employees and employers pay into, and yet the government has decided to have these special benefits come from the EI fund rather than the general revenue fund, as it promised.

Keeping in mind what I just mentioned, I do not think it is appropriate that the funding for this comes from the EI program or that EI is the appropriate vehicle to deliver these special funds. It leaves out a large portion of Canadians who will not have worked the 600 hours that are required to make them eligible for the program. Once again, EI is not a fund that the government pays into. Only employers and employees pay into it.

While this bill addresses some of the issues with the current EI system, it leaves out a large proportion that could be easily changed and would further help parents and families. This bill does not address layoffs during parental or maternity leave. If a woman is laid off by her employer during the time she is on maternity leave, it does not address that situation. Largely it does affect women. Only women are eligible for maternity leave. Women generally take parental leave after the initial maternity leave is complete, so it also does not address the issue of being able to stack any EI regular and special benefits. If I, as a young woman, am on maternity leave and my child becomes critically ill, the bill allows for the stacking of special benefits but does not allow for the stacking of special benefits on top of regular benefits.

New Democrats will continue to fight for an EI system that is fair, accessible and effective for all Canadians. That being said, the changes to this legislation, it goes without saying, will help ease the burden on some of the suffering parents and families who need help.

Across the country, we hear far too many stories of families struggling to make ends meet. With the suffering and emotional burden of a critically ill child or a child killed or missing through an act of violence, finances are the furthest thing from the minds of family members. This is when they need the support of family, friends and the community to come together. These families also need the support of the government to help them through this trying time.

While Bill C-44 does take a step in the right direction, it does not go far enough to support these families. I already mentioned that a large number of families would be left out, as they may not reach the required minimum 600 hours to qualify for EI, and the bill does not include any other support for these families. Also, EI benefits still amount to only 55% of a claimant's income up to a maximum of a certain amount. Furthermore, the bill will not help with the cost of drugs or child care services for other children who may not be ill.

These families also need a pharmacare plan and a catastrophic drug plan to help them through this difficult time, especially with a child who is going through multiple rounds of chemotherapy. Some catastrophic drugs are not covered under provincial drug plans.

Also somewhat problematic is that the bill does not address the concerns about the very black and white definition of critically ill or injured. As it stands, to qualify for these benefits a critically ill or injured child is one who faces significant risk of death within 26 weeks. While this keeps the number of parents eligible to use the program down, it also leaves out many families who are suffering through chemotherapy treatments or organ transplant programs. It also forces parents to make the very difficult admission that their child is likely to die within the next 26 weeks.

It is very unlikely that a parent would reach the stage where they would be able to make such an admission. We know that doctors are hesitant to make such a categorical statement. Families always want to remain hopeful that their child will turn the tide and do better. With the advancements in our medical system, it is completely reasonable that they would hold onto hope.

We have seen many illnesses that a decade ago were considered terminal become more and more treatable, and maybe even curable today. To force families into a position where they must make this categorical statement is quite unfair.

The bill includes a change to the Income Tax Act that would allow for a direct grant to the parents of a child missing on account of a suspected breach of the Criminal Code. While I am supportive of the creation of this much needed support for these families, I am left wondering why it would only be available to parents of children who go missing on account of a suspected breach of the Criminal Code. Why not all parents of missing children?

Regardless of why or how one's child went missing, the child is still missing. Do not all parents deserve and need government support during this trying time when they are frantically searching for their missing child?

I was happy to see the inclusion of changes to the Income Tax Act to allow for a direct grant to the parents of a murdered child. Members may know that this summer we saw alarming incidents of violence in communities in Scarborough, where I am from, and in the greater Toronto area.

One example was the Danzig mass shooting, which saw 23 people injured and two young people lose their lives, 14-year-old Shyanne Charles and 23-year-old Josh Yasay. This shooting and other acts of violence committed in our community are tragic. They have left the entire community and the city mourning the senseless loss of two bright young lives.

The families of these children need support that, unfortunately, was not available to them until now. I am happy that families in the future would have the ability to receive it.

I spent my summer talking to people in the area and the community. I heard time and time again that they wanted to see federal leadership to address violence in our communities and the root causes of crime.

While we know this is a great initiative by the government in taking steps to help the parents of murdered children, parents never want to have to bury their child in the first place. They want preventive measures so their child is not murdered through crime.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, the New Democratic Party, the Liberal Party and all members of the House of Commons have seen the value of this legislation's specifics and ultimately want to see it pass. Having said that, there is some disappointment because there is good reason to do a lot more in looking at ways we can provide assistance on compassionate grounds.

For a good while the Liberal Party has advocated looking at seniors and people who are ill and who need family support and, ultimately, allowing people in the workforce the opportunity to provide care, maybe including some form of palliative care, by giving them access to employment benefits.

Could the member comment on that issue? Would she support providing employment benefits for a longer time to those who want to care for a sibling or parent who is terminally ill?

[Rathika Sitsabaiesan, NDP, Scarborough—Rouge River, ON]

Mr. Speaker, we have seen some improvements in Bill C-44, and as my hon. colleague pointed out, we would like to see further changes that would help families in very difficult situations provide support for an elder in the family. As boomers age, we will see many more people in the sandwich generation taking care of their children as well as their elderly parents.

It would be a very welcome addition to see these type of changes to the EI system that would allow people who are taking care of their children as well as their elders to have these kinds of support.

[Jasbir Sandhu, NDP, Surrey North, BC]

Mr. Speaker, these are good changes that will help families in time of need and we fully support them. However, I want to highlight the bigger problem with the EI program. We have seen the gutting of the EI program by the Conservative government. Bill C-38 not only gutted the benefits paid to Canadians but also cut services for people who want to access these benefits.

I have seen this in Surrey North, where hundreds of people have come to my office. They struggle with the maze that is in place when phoning and getting either no answer or no live person answering. Not only that, but people are also having difficulty accessing the EI benefits they paid for. After two and a half months they have not received their first cheque. Under the Conservative government we have seen the highest personal consumer debt rate among all Canadians, so people who lose their jobs need the money to bridge that gap.

Has my colleague heard these sorts of complaints in her constituency?

[Rathika Sitsabaiesan, NDP, Scarborough—Rouge River, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I have heard very similar stories in my constituency of Scarborough—Rouge River, but I must go one step further. We have extremely high levels of unemployment among adults and youth. My constituency has the highest youth to population ratio in all of the GTA and we know that youth unemployment is skyrocketing. It is the highest in our history and continues to skyrocket.

We know that 4 out of every 10 unemployed workers have not qualified for EI benefits as a result of the continued cuts and clawbacks and changes to the EI legislation from the omnibus Bill C-38, along with other changes that the Conservative government continues to make. These will continue to erode the benefits that employers and employees have paid for.

Finally, we have to remember that the EI benefits fund is one that only employers and employees have paid into, and if the government is not paying into it--

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Barry Devolin]

Resuming debate, the hon. member for Toronto—Danforth.

[Craig Scott, NDP, Toronto—Danforth, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise to speak in support of the bill, although I would say it is critical support. I say this because in many respects the bill is inconsistent, as some of my colleagues have already indicated, in terms of what benefits are covered for what people. I will speak to that concern a little bit.

I first want to acknowledge some of the very important aspects of the bill that we should celebrate and thank the government for moving on. Currently it is the case that employment insurance claimants can access sickness benefits and subsequently access parental benefits. However, at the moment, those same claimants cannot access sickness benefits during or right after they claim parental benefits, because of a technical problem with how the law works. Bill C-44 would amend this. It is extremely welcome and I thank the minister for moving on that.

The Canada Labour Code code changes that will protect the jobs of people who have taken time off work because a child has gone missing or, worse, been murdered as a result of a Criminal Code offence, or a suspected Criminal Code offence, are also welcome. We can all understand the deep trauma and debilitating effects on parents when a child is lost in that way. Therefore, making sure that they are not penalized in the workplace is very humane. The fact that it is 2012 and this is coming into effect only now suggests that many elements of good sense do, unfortunately, take a bit too long to make their way into our legal system. Nonetheless, I thank the minister for her earlier speech outlining this change in the law.

I would like to talk a bit about some of the problems. I mentioned inconsistencies in how this is being approached. Some of the inconsistencies stem from a general problem with our employment insurance and federal benefit system of approaching things in far too ad hoc, piecemeal a fashion, not looking at the overall picture and structural dimensions of unemployment and other related or similar causes for people needing assistance. Instead, we are ending up more and more with an employment insurance system that looks a bit like the tax code, which we are all so keen to attack for it being unprincipled and full of all kinds of piecemeal provisions, without any overarching coherence. Our employment insurance system is approaching that point, and although the benefits in Bill C-44 are very welcome, they add to this piecemeal, ad hoc approach.

Let me give a couple of examples of why we are concerned that something is being moved on but in an inconsistent way that speaks to the rather limited ad hoc approach the bill feeds into.

It is great that once the bill is passed, the labour code will protect the jobs of those who are employed. Obviously I am talking about parents who lose their children, where a child goes missing or is killed through a criminal offence. The labour code in these cases will protect the parents' jobs, and that is great. That should be the case. However, there is no good reason to tie the benefit itself, the grant to the parents, to the fact of someone being employed, especially when the funding is coming from general revenue and is not considered an employment insurance benefit. We do have a problem with the fact that not all the funding for the bill will come from general revenue, but at least this benefit, the benefit to parents who have a missing or murdered child, will come from general revenue. Therefore, there is no technical reason not to be consistent in who receives the benefit. Yet it is being treated as if it is somehow an employment insurance benefit, because it is being linked and limited to those who received $6,500 a year of earned income in the previous year before the benefit.

There is no logical reason why parents who lose children in the way this bill is contemplating merit the benefit if they have been employed in the past to a certain threshold level, while parents with lower incomes, who are unemployed or otherwise, would not qualify by this standard if they also lose a child in the exact same way. The trauma is no different. The debilitating effects are no different. The undermining of their responsibilities, even if they are not responsibilities in the workplace, is no different. Others have responsibilities in their lives, whether they are employed or not, that would be undermined, indeed made impossible to fulfill, if a child is abducted or worse, murdered.

Here are two examples that anybody could recognize as valid. There are stay-at-home parents who are not earning a formal income in the workplace. They are working and in this day and age we all recognize the fact that this is work. Many of us would hope that the system would eventually evolve to the point that this work would be recognized as a form of employment but at the moment that is not the case. There are stay-at-home parents who have other children they are taking care of or an elderly parent or they are trying to hold things together in the house, and they lose a child in the same circumstances as somebody who is employed or had been employed to the $6,500 rate.

The second example is of an unemployed parent who, according to our system and our cultural values, has to spend a lot of time looking for work. That is what we expect somebody to be doing. That person would be undermined by the same event in their life as somebody who is employed. Somebody who is employed would be affected by losing a child and the ability to get back into the job market would also be affected. That inconsistency is something I would love to see looked at in committee, especially because this would be funded from general revenue.

I forgot to mention at the beginning that, if possible, I would like to split my time with the member for Pontiac.

Here is another example of this inconsistency. Precisely why is the benefit to parents who lose a child limited to parents whose children are missing or killed only as a result of a suspected breach of the Criminal Code? Is there something quite arbitrary in drawing the line there? We all have no problem understanding the debilitating effects of crime. There is indeed something hard-wired in all human beings to perhaps react a bit worse when a crime has befallen our family; it is not just the loss of the child but how the child has been lost and I accept that distinction. Yet we can have as much trauma and debilitating effect when children go missing or are killed in other ways.

I draw on the very good speech of my colleague, the hon. member for Hamilton Mountain. In her reply speech to the minister's introduction of the bill she put it so well when she said:

If I am understanding this right, if a family were to go wilderness camping, say, and their toddler wandered away from the campsite and ended up missing, the parents would not be eligible for any support during their time of frantically searching for their child. Why is that?

She went on to say:

Did the government's need to feed the rhetoric of its law and order agenda take precedence over good public policy here? I am simply not understanding why the Criminal Code caveat was deemed necessary to add in this bill.

I echo this concern. As the minister said in the House yesterday, it is not adequate to say that it was judged to be a good public policy because of response to consultations with Canadians. Surely Canadians, upon reflection, would not begrudge extending the benefit to analogous circumstances. Are Canadians so fixated on a crime agenda that they would not see the inconsistency? I very much doubt it.

I end here because I want to hear what my colleague from Pontiac has to say after I take a few questions.

[Costas Menegakis, Conservative, Richmond Hill, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the NDP members for their support for this important piece of legislation. However, I do want to point out perhaps some of the falsehoods that I keep hearing in some of their speeches. They keep claiming that only 40% of workers are eligible for EI. This is clearly wrong; 84% of Canadians are eligible for EI and those who are receive EI benefits. I just want to state that for the record.

Could the member opposite comment on how important these benefits are for families who truly need them?

[Craig Scott, NDP, Toronto—Danforth, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I cannot help but agree and echo the fact that for the families receiving these benefits, they are absolutely important.

My only point, made with some considerable emphasis in my speech, was that other families in directly analogous circumstances would equally benefit from and welcome the same benefits. That was my only point.

[Jasbir Sandhu, NDP, Surrey North, BC]

Mr. Speaker, this is a small step in the right direction. However, the Conservatives have taken giant steps backwards when it comes to Canadians getting benefits and how they qualify. During the time Canadians are getting benefits, if they want to work part-time or earn extra income, the Conservatives are cutting back on the take-home pay people are able to make.

I have watched Conservatives in this House as they constantly play with the numbers. We are seeing that right now. In fact, 40% of unemployed Canadians receive benefits. The other 60% are not receiving any EI benefits at all.

Bill C-38 and the cuts Conservatives brought in to services and benefits are a big issue.

Would my colleague agree that this is a small step in the right direction to help families, yet the Conservatives have taken large steps backwards in providing benefits to the unemployed?

[Craig Scott, NDP, Toronto—Danforth, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I would have to agree that that is generally the case.

On behalf of my party, I would ask that, as we continue with question period, we get some straight answers from the minister on what the latest changes in the EI system actually mean. We have heard some backing away from her earlier statements to make it look like the new system is 100% good with respect to receiving income while on employment insurance, only to have some fudging in the last question period.

This is an example of why Canadians are losing trust in our political system. We are getting answers that appear to be inaccurate, and then we are not hearing a straightforward acknowledgement when a mistake has been made. If the minister continues to mislead Canadians, I think we are going to have a problem.

[Ray Boughen, Conservative, Palliser, SK]

Mr. Speaker, the member has to update his information. He alluded to the fact that there was some discrepancy between what he said and what the minister said this morning. I quote, “People on parental leave from their employer are not considered to be available for work, so they do not qualify for sickness benefits.”

That is old information. Under this bill, the government is waiving, and taking out, in other words, this requirement for parents receiving EI parental benefits so that they can qualify for sickness benefits if they fall ill subject to remaining qualification criteria. The new data is here. It is noteworthy and should be on the record.

[Craig Scott, NDP, Toronto—Danforth, ON]

Mr. Speaker, there is no need to correct the record. I was actually complimenting the government for that exact change. What I was speaking about at the beginning of my speech was the current law. Until this bill is passed, it is not the current law. I was saying the current law is as the member described but that the law will change, and I was thanking the minister.

There is no need to correct the record, because I was completely accurate.

[Mathieu Ravignat, NDP, Pontiac, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I rise in the House today to contribute to a very important debate and to express my support at second reading for Bill C-44, An Act to amend the Canada Labour Code and the Employment Insurance Act and to make consequential amendments to the Income Tax Act and the Income Tax Regulations. This bill is important because it can help all parents who are in a very difficult situation through no fault of their own.

Members may know that I am the proud father of two young girls, Sophia and Gabriella, and even though they are in very good health, thank God, as a father, I am very concerned about this issue. It is not always easy to be a parent nowadays, and it must be much harder when one's children are critically ill.

I believe that this bill can alleviate the suffering of parents who are in need because their child is critically ill or has disappeared or, worse still, died as the result of a crime. It is important to implement measures that can alleviate parents' suffering at such times. That is our duty as compassionate human beings. It simply makes no sense for parents and families not to have access to reasonable government support so that they can take care of their children during very difficult times.

More and more, the sad reality is that informal caregivers are being abandoned and yet are becoming the backbone, albeit invisible, of our health care system. They must take on various crucial roles, including the care of children, aging parents or other family members who need support as a result of injuries, chronic illness or serious disability. They are even more important in the current context, since investments in health care are clearly insufficient and are being increasingly challenged by this government.

For instance, the Canadian Caregiver Coalition estimates that over 5 million Canadians are currently providing unpaid care to loved ones, many of whom are children and family members.

As an elected official, I am here to say that we absolutely must do more for these people. They deserve to have an accessible employment insurance system that addresses the various problems I just mentioned.

The facts are astonishing. Serious unintentional injuries are not only a significant cause of death for Canadian children, but also the leading causes of morbidity and disability for children and youth in Canada. Many people do not know this. They account for 15% of the hospitalizations of children under the age of 12.

Furthermore, many of the issues of ill health and disease that children live with, although not fatal, are of serious concern. Some are of concern specifically in the childhood years, while others can have serious repercussions for these children when they reach adulthood. Consider, for instance, asthma, diabetes and cancer, which are all becoming more common among children. Every year, an average of 800 children under 15 are diagnosed with cancer, and 150 of them will die from the disease. Cancer is the second leading cause of death among Canadian children.

Fortunately, however, there is hope. Over the past 30 years, the survival rate for young cancer patients has improved significantly, increasing from 71% in the late 1980s to 82% in the early 2000s. Fortunately, the five-year survival rate has increased for many types of childhood cancers.

However, even if I support this bill at second reading, I do not believe that it goes far enough in addressing all the problems we have with our employment insurance system, which must be reformed no matter what it takes.

For example, women who lose their jobs immediately after their parental leave ends should have the right to obtain employment insurance benefits. This bill does not go far enough in this regard. Why do we not allow women to receive regular employment insurance benefits and why do we not allow the stacking of special and regular benefits? That would make sense.

It seems to me that the government also missed a good opportunity to help hard-working mothers obtain more justice with regard to eligibility for employment insurance.

I am also disappointed that Bill C-44 is limited to special benefits. It seems that the government is avoiding addressing recurrent problems with the employment insurance system.

The sad reality is that, of the 1,370,000 unemployed workers in Canada in July 2012, only 508,000 received regular employment insurance benefits. That means that 870,000 unemployed Canadians did not receive employment insurance benefits. In fact, fewer than four in 10 unemployed workers are receiving employment insurance benefits, a historically low level in this country. That is completely unacceptable. Basically, it means that there is hidden poverty and that this type of poverty is on the rise in our society.

Clearly, we must continue to fight for an employment insurance system that is fairer and more accessible and effective for all unemployed Canadians.

However, this bill does go ahead with significant reforms that I support, for example, the reforms related to families of murdered or missing children. I support this bill so that families do not have to worry about money when confronted with such difficult situations that are almost impossible for us to imagine.

For parents of young children who are not lucky enough to be in good health as mine are, I support the initiative to extend parental leave and provide financial benefits to parents whose children are sick and whose priority must be parenting. They should not have to worry about money at a time like that, but should be able to focus on being a parent.

I also support the measure to combine special employment insurance benefits if a parent becomes ill or is injured while on parental leave. This would mean that parents would not have less time to spend with their children at the very moment when parents and children need to spend more time together.

Although the bill would not do everything that perhaps myself or my party would like, it would do some key things on a fundamental humanitarian basis.

As a father of two young girls, I cannot imagine being in a situation where one of them falls terminally ill or is victimized by a violent crime. I cannot imagine being in that situation but I know a number of my own constituents who are. They expect their elected officials to be compassionate and to make changes in laws and regulations so that they could be supported financially by the state at such a difficult time. That is the fundamental motivator behind the bill and that is the reason I am proud to stand up for my constituents to support it at second reading.

[Craig Scott, NDP, Toronto—Danforth, ON]

Mr. Speaker, would my hon. colleague from Pontiac comment a bit on the structural situation we find ourselves in financially with employment insurance?

We have talked a lot about inconsistencies and about the need to have a broader federal approach that is humane, but it is the case that we lost a huge amount of money from the employment insurance fund under previous governments, Liberal and Conservative. It was only in 2010 that the employment insurance fund went back to a separate operating fund. A surplus of $57 billion was drawn down and not put back in before the Conservative government created a new, slightly better system than the Liberals had left.

I wonder if the hon. member could comment on our ability to make employment insurance work in terms of--