Bill C-215

An Act to amend the Employment Insurance Act (illness, injury or quarantine)

This enactment amends the Employment Insurance Act to increase from 15 to 52 the maximum number of weeks for which benefits may be paid because of illness, injury or quarantine.

[Bonita Zarrillo, NDP, Port Moody—Coquitlam, BC]

Sure. This is on clause 1. I have an amendment that relates basically to stackability. After the testimony on Monday, it was actually quite powerful, the amount of feedback I got from a lot of women who have experienced their benefits expiring in the past. This amendment relates to that.

I want to thank this committee for the grace to be able to bring in this amendment on such short notice based on the testimony on Monday. The amendment is that Bill C-215, in Clause 1, be amended by replacing line 6 on page 1 with the following: “(c) despite subsection 12(6), because of a prescribed illness, injury or—

[Émilie Thivierge, Legislative Clerk]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'm Émilie Thivierge, and I'm one of the legislative clerks assigned to Bill C-215. I'm here with my colleague to assist the committee with the clause-by-clause consideration of the bill.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

Thank you, committee members.

I would like to provide members of the committee with some instructions and a few comments on how the committee will proceed with clause-by-clause consideration of Bill C-215.

As the name indicates, this is an examination of all the clauses in the order in which they appear in the bill. I will call each clause successively, and each clause is subject to debate and a vote.

If there are amendments to the clause in question, I will recognize the member proposing the amendment, who may explain the amendment. The amendment will then be open for debate. When no further members wish to intervene, the amendment will be voted on. Amendments will be considered in the order in which they appear in the bill or in the package each member received from the clerk. Members should note that amendments must be submitted in writing to the clerk of the committee.

I, as chair, will review slowly and allow all members to follow the proceedings properly.

Amendments have been given an alphanumeric number in the top right corner, which I take all members of the committee have. As I indicated, there have only been three amendments received. There's no need for a seconder to move an amendment. Once moved, you will need unanimous consent to withdraw an amendment.

During debate on an amendment, members are permitted to move subamendments. These subamendments must be submitted in writing. They do not require the approval of the mover of the main amendment. Only one subamendment may be considered at a time, and that subamendment cannot be amended. When a subamendment is moved to an amendment, it is voted on first. Then, another subamendment may be moved, or the committee may consider the main amendment and vote on it.

Once every clause has been voted on, the committee will vote on the title and the bill itself, and an order to reprint the bill may be required—if amendments are adopted—so the House has a proper copy for use at report stage. Finally, the committee will have to order the chair to report the bill to the House. That report contains only the text of any adopted amendments, as well as an indication of any deleted clauses.

Again, I would like to welcome back to the committee the two officials from the department whom you met in the first hour. We will not go through introductions. You know who they are.

At this time, I am going to ask the legislative clerks who are here with us, and who will address any legislative questions you may have, to introduce themselves before we begin the clause-by-clause discussion.

[Benoit Cadieux, Director, Special Benefits, Employment Insurance Policy, Skills and Employment Branch, Department of Employment and Social Development]

Thank you.

Good afternoon, everybody. My name is Benoit Cadieux. I'm the director for employment insurance special benefits policy at Employment and Social Development Canada.

Today, I'm joined by my colleague Mona Nandy, who is the director general of employment insurance policy at ESDC.

As you may be aware, in June 2021, Parliament approved, through the Budget Implementation Act, 2021 No. 1, an extension of employment insurance sickness benefits.

This extension increases from 15 to 26 the maximum number of weeks of EI sickness benefits payable to workers, including the self-employed who are registered, when they are unable to work due to illness, injury or quarantine. The target date for this extension to come into effect is the end of 2022. The exact date will be announced later this fall.

The EI program is a labour market program designed to provide short-term income support to workers during temporary absences from work. A key objective of the EI program is to support labour market reintegration, and it is designed with the expectation that claimants will return to work after interruptions resulting from life events or job loss.

In this context, EI sickness benefits are designed to complement other supports available to workers in cases of longer-term illnesses, such as employer-provided benefits and longer-term disability supports.

Roughly one-third of EI claimants use all 15 weeks currently available under EI sickness benefits. Out of this number, close to half do not return to work following their sickness leave. Most of those who do return to work do so within 10 weeks after exhausting their benefits.

Bill C‑215, as introduced, would amend the Employment Insurance Act to extend to 52 weeks the maximum number of weeks of sickness benefits that may be paid to a worker or self-employed person when they are unable to work because of illness, injury or quarantine.

This bill also contains coordinating amendments to ensure that if this bill should receive royal assent before or on the same day as the extension to 26 weeks comes into force, this bill would repeal the provisions related to the extension to 26 weeks so they don't come into force afterwards.

Finally, this bill does not specify any date of entry into force. It is therefore implicit that it will come into force on the day it receives royal assent.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

If you want to deal with it on Monday, that's fine. Thank you, Mrs. Falk.

Pursuant to the order of reference of Wednesday, June 15, 2022, the committee will resume its study of Bill C-215, an act to amend the Employment Insurance Act.

I would like to inform all members that the witnesses are appearing today virtually, and they have concluded the technical test. Interpretation services are okay to proceed.

I would like to welcome our witnesses to begin our discussion with five minutes of opening remarks. The witnesses today are officials of the Department of Employment and Social Development. We have Anamika Nandy, director general, employment insurance policy, skills and employment branch; and Benoit Cadieux, director, special benefits, employment insurance policy, skills and employment branch.

You will have five minutes for your opening remarks. It's my understanding that Monsieur Cadieux will provide the opening five-minute statement.

Monsieur Cadieux, you have the floor.

[Louise Chabot, Bloc, Thérèse-De Blainville, QC]

Mr. Chair, given the timelines, I believe that we should start our clause‑by‑clause consideration of Bill C‑215, which deals with sickness benefits, as quickly as possible. I don't think we should delay any further. We can go back to the items on the agenda afterwards.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

If there's no further discussion, I will call for a vote on the amendment.

(Amendment agreed to: yeas 7; nays 4)

(Motion as amended agreed to: yeas 7; nays 4)

I have one final item, members. I need direction on a deadline for submission of proposed amendments and a date for the clause-by-clause consideration of the bill currently under consideration by the committee, Bill C-215.

Can I get some direction from the committee on amendments—we're under a tight timeline—and a date for the clause-by-clause?

[José Bazin]

Indeed, when it comes to Bill C‑215, we absolutely have to amend section 12(6) so that everyone can receive the maximum amount of employment insurance and sickness benefits, i.e., 52 weeks.

It is all well and good seeking to change section 12(3)(c), which sets out the maximum amount of employment insurance and sickness benefits that a person can receive, but if we do not amend section 12(6), there will still be problems.

Let me give you an example. In Montreal, we are entitled to a maximum of 36 weeks of regular benefits. That is the maximum period for regular benefits. If I lose my job, I'm entitled to 36 weeks of regular benefits, but if I become sick afterwards. I will not be entitled to more than 14 weeks of sickness benefits under the employment insurance program because I will have already received the maximum amount of benefits. Section 12(6) is very clear on this. As soon as you receive at least a week of regular employment insurance benefits, the maximum that you can receive afterwards is 50 weeks. It is impossible to receive more than 50 weeks of any benefit because you have received regular benefits.

Sometimes, the reverse can also be true. I will give you another example. Say I get sick. I am entitled to 52 weeks of sickness benefits under the employment insurance program. Afterwards, I go back to my job and there's a fire at my place of work. I heard of a similar case recently. There was a fire in the workplace and the person should have received regular employment insurance benefits, which replace normal wages when someone loses their job. However, because that person had already received sickness benefits, they were not entitled to regular benefits due to of section 12(6).

Whichever way you look at it, if you do not amend section 12(6), unemployed workers will not be entitled to wage replacement benefits, whether it be sickness benefits or regular benefits. We really have to proceed with caution here, and that's the reason I would ask the committee to amend Bill C‑215, so that section 12(6) does not cancel out the amendment to section 12(3)(c).

[Bonita Zarrillo, NDP, Port Moody—Coquitlam, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Certainly, the NDP supports this increase in weeks, and the Bloc does as well. I think it's been spoken of today that it's been brought a number of times in the past by the Bloc and also by the NDP, but there has been some lack of political will from the other parties. I'm hoping that today, through this bill, there is some consensus and we can get this increase in weeks happening.

My first question, Mr. Bazin, is around the stacking of benefits. If Bill C-215, the one we're discussing today, gives us a window to very quickly and efficiently increase those weeks of benefit, will there be any problems around the stacking of benefits? Will there be any risks or losses to other benefits that we should know about?

[José Bazin]

Absolutely.

Receiving EI benefits is the best thing for people who are sick, as it is relatively easy to access.

Earlier, we said that having a medical note allowed us to receive EI sickness benefits. Our fight is also to ensure that everyone has access to benefits, whether they are regular or special benefits. EI sickness benefits are special benefits. We must also ensure that we do not prevent the person receiving EI benefits from receiving EI sickness benefits.

Today, I want to make members of the committee aware of the following: if we do not do this job properly, it could lead to a perverse effect. It could result in some people not receiving EI sickness benefits. This could be the case even if we change the law, as proposed in Bill C‑215. Doing the job right is important.

[José Bazin, Community organizer, Mouvement Action-Chômage de Montréal]

Good afternoon.

I thank the members of the Standing Committee on Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities for allowing the Mouvement action-chômage de Montréal to give its opinion on Bill C‑215. I would first like to say that we are, obviously, in favour of the proposed amendments.

I will divide my five-minute speech into two parts. I would like to make it clear that I will be referring to the sections of the Employment Insurance Act that affect salaried workers. Of course, the same thinking applies to self-employed persons who pay into EI special benefits.

First, I would like to draw the committee's attention to subsection 12(6) of the Employment Insurance Act regarding the general stacking of benefits. Indeed, the amendment to paragraph 12(3)(c) of the act may unfortunately be ineffective for some claimants or, at the very least, may not have the intended effect.

Subsection 12(6) prevents claimants with at least one week of regular benefits from accumulating more than 50 weeks of benefits, all benefits combined. Thus, a claimant who has used regular EI benefits in his or her benefit period will not be able to receive the famous 52 weeks of sickness benefits if he or she becomes ill. The reverse is also true: a claimant who has used 52 weeks of sickness benefits and then loses his or her job will not be able to receive regular EI benefits, despite the fact that illness is one of the reasons for extending the qualifying period under subsection 8(2) of the act.

I would therefore invite the members of the committee to consider this issue, so that the amendment to paragraph 12(3)(c) does not leave a proportion of sick claimants without replacement income. Of course, the simplest way to deal with the perverse effect of subsection 12(6) is to simply repeal the entire section, which is a single sentence. Let us eliminate this sentence from the Employment Insurance Act and thus solve the problem of the general stacking of different EI special benefits after or before regular benefits. By adding the amendment to Bill C‑215 to repeal subsection 12(6) of the act, committee members will be able to correct a potential unfairness to a portion of the unemployed who become ill.

Second, while amending a part of the Employment Insurance Act concerning special benefits, in this case sickness benefits, I would invite the legislator to correct the inequity of the act towards women who have received maternity or parental benefits, or their equivalent from a provincial parental insurance plan. Mothers who have received maternity and parental benefits are left without replacement income if they lose their jobs without having worked a sufficient number of hours to requalify for regular benefits. Yet the federal government considered the situation worrisome enough to allow these mothers to receive the Canada Emergency Response Benefit or the Canada Recovery Benefit during the pandemic. In addition, on January 10, the Social Security Tribunal issued a decision stating that subsections 8(2), 8(5), 10(10) and 12(6) of the Employment Insurance Act violate the equality rights protected by section 15 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

I would therefore invite the members of the committee to amend Bill C‑215 to correct this violation of the right to equality. To do so, Parliament should amend subsections 8(2) and 10(10) by adding to each an additional ground for extending the qualifying period and the benefit period. For the record, there are already four grounds for extending the qualifying period and the benefit period. This amendment to subsections 8(2) and 10(10) would add a fifth ground.

This fifth ground for extension could simply be written as follows, obviously using the feminine: “She was receiving maternity or parental benefits or their equivalent from a provincial parental insurance plan”. In addition, Parliament should repeal subsection 8(5), as well as subsection 12(6), which I already mentioned in the first part of my statement.

I know that the second part of my intervention is a bit removed from what you are considering in Bill C‑215. Nevertheless, I preferred to talk about it.

With that, I thank the members of the committee for listening to the opinion of the Mouvement action-chômage de Montréal.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

We'll resume with the second panel, committee members.

Welcome back.

As you are aware, we're studying Bill C-215, an act to amend the Employment Insurance Act (illness, injury or quarantine).

I would like to make a few comments for the benefit of the two witnesses who are appearing virtually with us today.

You have the choice of speaking in the official language of your choice. To get my attention, please use the “raise hand” icon at the bottom of your screen. If for any reason we lose translation, please get my attention, and we'll suspend while it is corrected. I would also remind you to please direct all questions through the chair.

I would like to begin by welcoming, as an individual, Marie-Hélène Dubé, and from Mouvement Action-Chômage de Montréal, José Bazin.

Each presenter has five minutes.

We will begin with Madame Dubé for five minutes, please.

[Louise Chabot, Bloc, Thérèse-De Blainville, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Gourde and Mr. Sansfaçon, thank you for your testimony.

It is always troubling to hear about the reality of individuals with an incurable illness—or curable illness, we hope—who are hampered by our inability to support them in these circumstances.

Mr. Gourde, you said our committee is a committee of hope, and I would like you to elaborate on that.

Your Bill C‑215 is the twelfth bill put forward on this matter since 2009. Of the eleven previous ones, four were introduced by the NDP, six by the Bloc Québécois, and one by the Liberal Party. In that case, Denis Coderre was calling for sick benefits to be extended to 50 weeks.

In the last session, the Bloc Québécois introduced Bill C‑265, the “Émilie Sansfaçon bill“ , which was unanimously approved by this committee. Unfortunately, the bill died on the Order Paper when the election was called.

Mr. Gourde, what makes you think this new bill will succeed?

[Stephanie Kusie, Conservative, Calgary Midnapore, AB]

Thank you.

I also thank you for moving Bill C‑215; it’s a great contribution.

According to the Parliamentary Budget Officer, getting 52 weeks instead of 15 weeks will cost $8 billion over five years.

Why do you think this is worth it?

[Stephanie Kusie, Conservative, Calgary Midnapore, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I also thank Mr. Sansfaçon for being here today. I offer my condolences for his daughter.

Mr. Gourde, I also thank you for being here today.

Mr. Gourde, why do you think that 52 weeks is not enough?

Why did you decide to introduce Bill C‑215?