Evidence of meeting #24 for Finance in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was regions.
A video is available from Parliament.
Director General, Employment Insurance Policy, Skills and Employment Branch, Department of Employment and Social Development
In a given year, 1.8 million Canadians receive EI benefits, and 1.3 million receive EI regular benefits.
Liberal
Director General, Employment Insurance Policy, Skills and Employment Branch, Department of Employment and Social Development
The annual cost is tracking right now just short of $16 billion in the combined set of benefits.
Liberal
Robert-Falcon Ouellette Liberal Winnipeg Centre, MB
You talked about fisheries and how self-employed workers in the fisheries industry can receive EI benefits, which is unusual in that most people working in other sectors can't receive them if they're self-employed. I was wondering if you could give a bit more information about how that came about and why it doesn't apply to people up north who are hunters. Indigenous people often do a lot of hunting, and it would be an interesting extension of benefits for some other groups in our society.
Director General, Employment Insurance Policy, Skills and Employment Branch, Department of Employment and Social Development
That's a wide question, Mr. Chair.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Wayne Easter
Answer what you can. It came in during Roméo LeBlanc's time when he was Minister of Fisheries. I do know that. That'd be Dominic's dad.
Director General, Employment Insurance Policy, Skills and Employment Branch, Department of Employment and Social Development
The fishing benefits date to the 1950s and target self-employed workers. In recent years the program has extended employment insurance special benefits to the self-employed, but not the fishing benefits that you described. Why a program wasn't expanded is beyond my scope to comment on.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Wayne Easter
We're always open to political initiatives, Mr. Ouellette.
Ms. May, did you want to ask your question on long-tenured workers?
Green
Elizabeth May Green Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC
Mr. Chairman, I would love to, because these are the appropriate witnesses to ask.
Green
Elizabeth May Green Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC
You were here when I put the question to the minister, so as you probably know, the Canadian Labour Congress has already raised this issue in testimony before the committee.
Since the difference between the benefits for long-tenured workers and others is quite dramatic, there is a concern about subclause 207(1) at the beginning of division 12. Why has that been done, and can that be omitted without doing any...? That would improve the EI system, in my view, but I'll leave it to you to explain it.
Director General, Employment Insurance Policy, Skills and Employment Branch, Department of Employment and Social Development
Thank you for the question.
The definition of long-tenured workers, just to start there, is someone who has contributed at least 30% of the maximum employee contributions into the program in seven of the last 10 years and has not drawn more than 35 weeks of EI regular benefits in the last five years. This is a definition that was put in place during the 2009 recession and the extraordinary measures that followed.
The intent of it has a number of antecedents, if I can put it that way. To go back to the work that we had been doing in terms of monitoring the increase in claims that we saw and analyzing the background of the people who were exhausting their benefits, what we saw was that a preponderance of these people were long-tenured workers who were aged 45 years and older and had essentially the highest benefit rate amounts in their weekly cheque.
In terms of past work that we've done and the wider research on that particular age group, there's a wide body of work, particularly in Canada, to the effect that for those workers starting at age 45, if they experience a job loss, alarming proportions of them do not work again, essentially, until they can access a pension income. I'd point to David Gray and Ross Finnie at the University of Ottawa, who have done quite good work on this front.
The claims analysis that we were doing, coupled with the wider research of the difficulties that this group in particular can face in reattaching to the labour market, were considerable reasons for continuing the extension that was granted during the recession. I think there are other considerations, such as the degree to which they have also contributed to the program without drawing on it in the past.
Green
Elizabeth May Green Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC
I'll be able to revisit it at clause by clause, but yes.
Thank you. I'll dig up some more information on why I'm worried about it.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Wayne Easter
Go ahead, Mr. Caron, and then we have to go to division 14. There's not too much time.
NDP
Guy Caron NDP Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC
I have two other questions.
I asked whether the budget implementation bill contained measures for regions in which seasonal employment is prevalent. I was told that the measures in place, namely, reducing the waiting period from two weeks to one week, applied to everyone.
Would you be able to confirm that the budget implementation bill contains no other measures specifically for regions that depend heavily on seasonal employment?
Director General, Employment Insurance Policy, Skills and Employment Branch, Department of Employment and Social Development
There are two types of measures in the budget. There are those that will be implemented by the bill, including the waiting period, provisions for new entrants and re-entrants to the labour force, as well as changes with regard to the extension of benefits.
These are the three measures that are in the bill. They have a differential impact for seasonal areas. I am quite confident that the analysis of the one-week waiting period is a relatively strong benefit to regions with seasonal workers.
The new entrant and re-entrant provisions will have their largest, if you will, dollar figure in urban areas. They're measures that benefit youth and immigrant groups in particular.
That measure will also have a relative impact in regions with high rural youth populations. In particular the northern regions of Quebec do relatively well in our analysis. In terms of the extended benefits, to the extent that there are seasonal workers in the 12 to 15 regions that will receive the extended benefits, they would be eligible for the extra five weeks depending on when they qualify.
NDP
Guy Caron NDP Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC
Okay.
I will ask my next question.
In its commitments, the government said it would like to remove the condition of a person having to have been diagnosed as terminally ill in order to receive employment insurance benefits for compassionate care leave. That's not in the budget implementation bill.
Have you started working on this? If so, could you tell us how much a program like this might cost?
Director General, Employment Insurance Policy, Skills and Employment Branch, Department of Employment and Social Development
In the current budget, the government has committed itself to holding consultations in order to determine which measures will be proposed in the 2017 budget. We have started working towards that goal.
The costs will correspond to the definition chosen. It is important to establish a clear definition in a prudent manner. In fact, 8.1 million Canadians take care of a family member, while compassionate care benefits are currently being provided to only 6,000 individuals every year. That's a huge difference. It is important to get it right when we come up with that definition.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Wayne Easter
You can probably detect that Mr. Caron is expecting great things in the 2017 budget.
NDP
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Wayne Easter
Thank you.
I don't think there are any other questions.
Thank you, Ms. Venne and Ms. Ryan.
We'll turn to division 14 of part 4, dealing with the Jobs, Growth and Long-term Prosperity Act.
We have as witnesses Ms. Sheehy, director of operations, machinery of government, PCO; and Mr. Smith, vice-president of finance, risk, and administration and chief financial officer, and vice-president of strategy and organizational development at PPP Canada Incorporated.
Thank you for coming. You have some remarks, and then we'll go to questions.
Heather Sheehy Director of Operations, Machinery of Government, Privy Council Office
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
In the budget the government committed to ensure that government institutions are aligned to best support infrastructure innovation by transferring responsibility for PPP Canada to the Minister of Infrastructure and Communities. Currently PPP Canada is a subsidiary of the Canada Development Investment Corporation, which is a parent crown corporation in the finance portfolio.
Created in 2008 by OIC and incorporated under the Canada Business Corporations Act, PPP Canada is a small organization whose mandate relates to two things: first, providing advice on P3 opportunities to the federal government and to others, and second, managing the PPP fund on behalf of the federal government.
Division 14 of the budget legislation provides for two things to effect the transfer of PPP Canada from the Minister of Finance to the Minister of Infrastructure and Communities. First, as required under the FAA, it allows the shares of PPP Canada to be transferred to the Minister of Infrastructure. Second, as is currently the case, the legislation preserves the government's oversight of PPP Canada by authorizing the Governor in Council to amend key business characteristics, such as mandate and business restrictions, the selling or disposal of shares or assets, amalgamation or dissolution of the corporation, and its agency status in the future.
As it is a parent crown, there needs to be an act of Parliament to do these things. Previously or currently, when it was a subsidiary, they could be done by OIC.
That's a brief overview of the legislation.