Finance Committee on May 31st, 2016

[A voice]

It's deemed moved.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

It is deemed moved, so we do have to deal with it—my mistake.

There's nobody to speak to it.

I would rule the amendment inadmissible. Bill C-15 seeks to amend the Employment Insurance Act by increasing benefits for long-tenured workers. Amendments PV-3, PV-4, and PV-5 attempt to remove all references to “long-tenured workers” from the bill.

House of Commons Procedure and Practice, Second Edition, states, on pages 767-8, “Since an amendment may not infringe upon the financial initiative of the Crown, it is inadmissible if it imposes a charge on the public treasury, or if it extends the objects or purposes or relaxes the conditions and qualifications specified in the royal recommendation.” Therefore, in the opinion of the chair, the amendment would impose a charge on the public treasury by relaxing the conditions and qualifications specified in the royal recommendation. Therefore, I rule the amendment inadmissible. That ruling also applies to PV-4 and PV-5.

Turning to BQ-2, is there somebody who wants to speak to that?

Mr. Marcil, the floor is yours.

[Simon Marcil, Bloc, Mirabel, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Amendments BQ-2 and BQ-3, by correlation, seek to restore the presumption of innocence for workers applying for employment insurance. The adoption of amendment BQ-2 would by correlation lead to the adoption of amendment BQ-3. The goal is to restore justice to unemployed persons who are treated differently if their employer is a family member. The assumption that people who work for their family are fraudsters is unique in Canadian law. Even members of organized crime are presumed innocent until proven guilty and their benefits are not cut until then.

The unemployed are not fraudsters, Mr. Chair. This presumption of innocence must apply to everyone, including the unemployed. The unemployed should be granted the presumption of innocence when applying for benefits, even if they work for family members. That is what the amendment says.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

Thank you, Mr. Marcil.

I would also rule that in the opinion of the Chair, these amendments, both BQ-2 and BQ-3, are inadmissible. The amendment seeks to add a definition in the Employment Insurance Act in relation to BQ-3 and seeks to amend section 5 of that act. House of Commons Procedure and Practice, Second Edition, states on pages 766-7, “an amendment is inadmissible if it proposes to amend a statute that is not before the committee or a section of the parent Act, unless the latter is specifically amended by a clause of the bill.”

Since section 5 of the Employment Insurance Act is not being amended by Bill C-15, I would rule that the amendments are inadmissible. That applies to both BQ-2 and BQ-3.

(Clauses 207 and 208 agreed to on division)

(On clause 209)

There's an amendment, BQ-4.

Go ahead, Mr. Marcil.

[Simon Marcil, Bloc, Mirabel, QC]

Amendment BQ-4, and by correlation amendments BQ-5, BQ-6, BQ-10, BQ-11, BQ-12, and BQ-13, pertain to access to the program. This amendment is probably the most important of all of them since it affects the greatest number of people.

The employment insurance program, as the name indicates, is designed to serve as insurance. When it was created in the 1930s, it was indeed a type of insurance. When Quebec agreed to the constitutional amendment that made this a federal program—it had been under provincial jurisdiction—, it was on the understanding that it would truly be insurance for employment that would provide a safety net to people who lost their job.

At present, fewer than 40% of the unemployed qualify for employment insurance. The figure is less than 40% for women and even worse for young people, less than one third.

We would like to restore the eligibility requirement to what it was, 360 hours. Right now, the government no longer contributes to EI; it simply draws on the EI fund, which reduces access for workers who might need this wage loss insurance.

Even someone in the Gaspé region who works in the hotel industry could lose their job in the summer. Seasonal workers lose out because they do not quality for EI. Our amendments would improve access to the program.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

Thank you, Mr. Marcil.

I would rule that due to the need for a royal recommendation, this amendment is inadmissible. BQ-4 seeks to amend section 7 of the Employment Insurance Act to reduce the number of hours of insurable employment required to qualify for benefits.

House of Commons Procedure and Practice, Second Edition, states at pages 767-8, “Since an amendment may not infringe upon the financial initiative of the Crown, it is inadmissible if it imposes a charge on the public treasury, or if it extends the objects or purposes or relaxes the conditions and qualifications specified in the royal recommendation.”

The amendment proposes to relax the conditions and qualifications specified in the royal recommendation, so it is inadmissible.

(Clause 209 agreed to on division)

(On clause 210)

I have amendments BQ-5 and BQ-6.

[Phil McColeman, Conservative, Brantford—Brant, ON]

On a point of order, Mr. Chair, for the sake of time, and I won't take up a lot here, I have been on committees, and chaired one where it was appropriate at times, given the conditions, at the chair's call that you could on clauses, as Mr. MacKinnon said, rule on them prior for a time-saving initiative. That is your prerogative, and I would ask that you consider that, sir.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

Okay. Could you tie amendments BQ-5 and BQ-6 together? We'll give you a quick comment. Keep it as short as you can, because we are going to rule, based on the royal recommendation, that these are inadmissible.

[Simon Marcil, Bloc, Mirabel, QC]

Okay. Amendments BQ-10, BQ-11, BQ-12, and BQ-13 are similar to amendment BQ-4. So I can withdraw them.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

Okay, thank you, Mr. Marcil.

(Clause 210 agreed to on division)

(On clause 211)

We have amendment NDP-11.

[Guy Caron, NDP, Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC]

Mr. Chair, amendments NDP-11 and NDP-12 are similar. Ultimately, we want to make sure that the 20-week extension of the benefits period during a year will apply to long-tenured workers as well. Under the act, long-tenured workers do not qualify for this extension. We don't see why and would like these workers to be eligible for this extension.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

Thank you, Mr. Caron. Because it requires a royal recommendation, I would rule that the amendment is inadmissible. That is amendment NDP-11, and that ruling would apply to amendment NDP-12.

(Clause 211 agreed to on division)

We are not going to finish before question period. Do people want to break until 3:30? There are a lot of amendments on clause 212, so I would suggest we break now and come back here at 3:30.

I understand there are votes later today.

Go ahead, Ms. O'Connell.

[Jennifer O'Connell, Liberal, Pickering—Uxbridge, ON]

Mr. Chair, I'm wondering, since we will be breaking, if you could let the members know which clauses or amendments you will be ruling out of order so they can determine if they want to speak to them when we return, or if they want to withdraw the amendments, just to save time?

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

I don't think I can until we get to them.

[Jennifer O'Connell, Liberal, Pickering—Uxbridge, ON]

That's fine, thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

We will be sitting in another room, room 237 at 3:30.

The meeting is adjourned.