Apologies from our president, Ken Georgetti. We had a change of time.
Thank you for listening to us. I think our brief was circulated earlier. It was prepared some time ago, so I'll just provide a bit of updating.
There are really three key issues that we'd identify for action in this budget: first of all, pensions; second, employment insurance; and third, jobs.
As many members know, we were meeting with a number of MPs on the Hill yesterday, on the pensions issue. Probably people are familiar with our advocacy of an expansion of the Canada Pension Plan. I see Mr. Menzies shaking his head. I could provide all the details.
Basically, there's a general recognition that the private part of that pension system is in some considerable difficulties. People aren't saving enough, they're not getting decent enough returns on those, and there are a number of options in play. Our proposal is to have a fully pre-funded expansion of the Canada Pension Plan, which would take the benefit from 25% to 50% of pensionable earnings, with an affordable pension increase.
We're very pleased that the proposal is under serious consideration by the federal government and the provinces. Today we'd just confine ourselves to saying we'd hope that in the 2011 round of federal and provincial budgets there may be occasion to announce some agreement for moving forward on that and other pension issues.
On employment insurance, clearly this is a critically important program in tough economic times. Workers need adequate benefits to support themselves and their families, and improving EI is now viewed as an effective form of economic stimulus. There's no doubt that the EI program did respond in a significant way to the recent recession. Benefits expanded by something in the order of $5 billion over the two years of recession, as compared to the status quo. The improvements to the program and the action plan were certainly appreciated: the extra five weeks of benefits and the additional benefits for long-tenured older workers.
I would underline for you today that there is today a very serious issue in terms of workers running out of EI benefits. Just to throw one number at you, since June 2009, when the number of EI beneficiaries peaked, and last month, which was July 2010, the number of regular EI beneficiaries has fallen by almost 150,000—that's by 18%—even though the number of unemployed has actually only fallen by 6%. So the proportion of all unemployed workers collecting unemployment benefits has fallen from 51% to 45%. Certainly, in our view, a major priority should be a further extension of EI benefits. Given the very high level of unemployment we still have, the fact that there are over 1.5 million unemployed workers, 20% of whom have now been out of work for more than six months, there's a case for that.
What I would flag is that the government did just announce that there was an extra five weeks being reinstated under a pilot project. So in 21 regions there will be an additional five weeks still available, and that is certainly appreciated. But I would note to the committee that those 21 regions are the regions that had unemployment rates of over 10% five years ago. It doesn't really match the reality across Canada today. So if you look at Windsor, Oshawa, a number of hard-hit industrial communities in Ontario, they will not qualify for extended benefits.
Just a brief word around jobs. As stated in the economic update, we are now back to the level of employment we had before the recession, which is worthy of some celebration. However, we're still down 211,000 full-time permanent jobs, compared to before the recession. The real unemployment rate, counting involuntary part-timers and people who have dropped out of the labour force, is still over 10%. The youth unemployment rate is 15%.
In a nutshell, our pitch would be that there is a case for continuing investment in effective job creation programs in the next budget rather than a premature turn to fiscal austerity.
The Government of Canada today can borrow under 10-year bonds for well under 3%. There are a lot of public investment projects, from infrastructure to investment and training, to education, that could more than cover an interest rate of under 3% for long-term borrowing. So we'd urge that the budget make some investments in those long-term projects.
I'll wind up there, Mr. Chair.