I'm here on behalf of the 3.3 million members of the Canadian Labour Congress, and I want to thank you for the opportunity to present our views on this budget implementation act.
The CLC brings together Canada's national and international unions, along with provincial and territorial federations of labour and 130 district labour councils whose members work in virtually all sectors of the Canadian economy and in all occupations in all parts of Canada.
There are many elements of Bill C-15 that will affect our members, but due to the time constraints here, I will focus my comments on old age security and guaranteed income supplement changes, the Employment Insurance Act, and PPP Canada.
We're very glad to see several elements of this bill that will increase simplicity and fairness in taxation, and we expect the Canada child tax benefit to have a very positive impact on lower-income families with children.
With regard to old age security and GIS—I'm sorry I didn't write down their division numbers in the act—Statistics Canada's low-income measure shows that nearly 600,000 Canadian seniors were living on low incomes in 2013. The proposed increase to the guaranteed income supplement top-up for the lowest income seniors will directly help many who are struggling to get by. It's an important part of a wider strategy that includes affordable housing, home care supports, and an expanded Canada Pension Plan. Here I want to thank the government. It looks very much like something we put in the alternative federal budget, and we're glad to see that you're taking our advice.
With regard to employment insurance, we are happy about some things and critical about others. Reducing the 910-hour threshold for new entrants and re-entrants as of July 2016 will be a meaningful change in access for young workers, recent graduates, and new Canadians. Investments in front-line staff will reverse substantial cuts that had been made to administrative staff in EI, and we expect that will reduce delays and confusion for unemployed workers, improving access to the program.
Extending the length of work-sharing programs from 38 weeks to 76 weeks will help workers and employers who are facing tough times or who are going through some kind of structural transition. We encourage the government to work with employer and worker groups to increase awareness of this program because it can be very effective, but the take-up is often low.
Extending benefits to some workers was helpful, but the rationale for limiting benefits, the way that it was done, is difficult to understand. There was sufficient funding in the account to temporarily extend benefits to all unemployed workers in a fair and transparent way and that would have helped more unemployed workers.
Unfortunately some of Harper's changes to employment insurance remain in play. This includes the definition of the long-tenured worker, which Bill C-15 brings into the EI act instead of getting rid of it. Since one of the requirements to be long-tenured is seven years of EI contributions this automatically excludes young workers. The difference between benefits from a long-tenured worker and others is dramatic.
In 2014 the former government created additional regions for Prince Edward Island, Nunavut, Northwest Territories, and the Yukon. These new regions created significant discrepancies in access and duration of benefits for workers who are effectively operating in a single labour market. We would ask that the government immediately reverse these new regions.
I want to take this opportunity to repeat our long-standing call for a single national entrance requirement for employment insurance that will increase fairness of access to EI.
With regard to PPP Canada, we feel transferring responsibility to the Minister of Infrastructure and Communities will improve transparency and oversight, and we're encouraged by that move. However, the budget contained further signals that Ottawa intends to open up public infrastructure to private ownership, including through pension funds and asset recycling.
Along with the Ontario government, Ottawa is laying the groundwork for a major expansion of private investment in and ownership of infrastructure assets. We believe that public infrastructure should be publicly financed and operated. Therefore, we call on the federal government to completely eliminate PPP Canada incorporated and redirect its funding to public infrastructure projects.
We would also like to see comprehensive P3 accountability and transparency legislation to protect Canadians from high cost and high risk P3 projects.
Thank you again for your time.