Thank you for the opportunity to present.
The Manitoba Federation of Labour, or MFL, is Manitoba's central labour body, chartered by the Canadian Labour Congress. It represents the interests of more than 100,000 unionized working people from every sector and every region of the province.
The MFL works to promote good jobs, fairness, and social and economic justice for all. The priorities outlined in the submission are informed by long-standing MFL policies, convention resolutions and emerging needs identified by our members.
As part of budget 2019, we recommend that the federal government prioritize health care services that families depend on, as well as look for opportunities for improvement as follows.
One, begin budgetary planning to implement a national, universal, single-payer pharmacare program in order to ensure universal access to prescription drugs, save Canadians money and improve health outcomes.
Two, commit to a long-term national health care funding arrangement with provinces and territories to reverse the cuts implemented by the Harper government and continued under this government.
Three, increase the federal government's share of health care spending while enforcing the principles of the Canada Health Act.
Four, work with provinces and territories on a national strategy for seniors care, including investments in public home care and community support services.
In order to address Canada's long and poor record of productivity growth, the federal government must put quality jobs at the heart of its agenda. Labour market and social policy should systemically restrict precarious work and the exploitation of vulnerable workers. We urge the federal government to take immediate action on pay equity to ensure that women are paid the same as men for the same work. Don't delay this until after the next election; women have already waited far too long for this fairness.
We'd like the government to prepare workers to adapt to technological change and emerging skills needs to ensure workers are able to meet the job requirements now and in the future, including making sure that Canada is the leader on implementing a right to continuous workplace training and lifelong learning.
We'd like the government to prioritize access to training opportunities for groups with fewer opportunities, including youth, low-skilled workers, workers with disabilities, newcomers to Canada and workers of colour. It should also expand vocational opportunities through apprenticeship and on-the-job experience, while recognizing the vital role of labour, employers and post-secondary educational institutions in partnering to deliver those opportunities.
Finally, it should mandate that employers hire and train apprentices on federally funded infrastructure projects, including utilizing community benefit agreements and project labour agreements to maximize local job and training opportunities.
To support working families, the federal government needs to invest in more supports for working families to ensure that life is affordable and that parents, especially women, have greater opportunities to get good jobs and contribute to our economy. We call on the federal government to transfer $1 billion in 2019-20 to provinces, territories and indigenous communities in order to establish universal, accessible, affordable, high-quality and fully-inclusive early learning and child care in Canada. Delivered by public or not-for-profit providers, this funding must come with a strings-attached approach to ensure universality and affordability.
We'd like to see reform to the EI system to better reflect the realities of working people, especially women, including reducing the number of qualifying hours to 360, measuring a week as 30 hours instead of 35 to reflect the average Canadian workweek, and reforming the EI sickness benefit to permit working while on claim, while expanding the number of weeks for sickness benefits to deal with episodic or long-term illness.
We'd like to see restoration of the more than $58 billion that's been withdrawn by government from the EI fund, and we'd like the government to end the use of EI funds for non-EI purposes. We'd like to see increased training supports for EI recipients, including targeted programs to help workers from equity-seeking groups to overcome barriers to employment, gain valuable, on-the-job experience and acquire training in high-demand occupations. We'd like to bring back the ability for workers to drop periods of low and zero earnings from the calculation of their CPP benefit and increase the CPP income replacement rate further, raise the ceiling on pensionable earnings, and further enhance the portion of employee contributions that are tax-deductible. These continued inequalities primarily impact women and the disabled.
Finally, on poverty reduction, too many Canadians live in poverty, especially women, indigenous people and children. The federal government's strategy to reduce poverty must include a comprehensive plan to eliminate poverty in Canada by raising the federal minimum wage to a living wage of $15 an hour, which sets the standard for provinces to follow; increasing the Canada social transfer to fund social assistance and support for people with disabilities; increasing the flat rate old age security benefit and indexing it to average wage growth; and reforming the federal insolvency regime in order to better protect workers' pensions and benefits in creditor protection and bankruptcy.
Thank you.