Mr. Chair, members of the Standing Committee on Finance, thank you for inviting us and for the opportunity to share our thoughts on the emergency measures put in place by the Canadian government in response to the health crisis.
I am the spokesperson for the Conseil national des chômeurs et chômeuses. As such, I will particularly focus on income replacement measures for workers who have lost their jobs as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. This pandemic literally shattered the labour world, putting millions of people out of work in one fell swoop. In our recent history, this shock is pretty much unprecedented, except for the Great Depression caused by the stock market crash of 1929.
To date, it is estimated that more than one-third of the labour force has become unemployed. As of April 23, yesterday, 7.1 million people had applied for the Canada emergency response benefit (CERB). That is a huge number. The anxiety over the health crisis has been compounded by the unemployment crisis. As you know, income is central to the lives of people and of families. It's what we use to pay bills, rent or mortgage, groceries, medication and other family needs.
While the Service Canada machine was imploding, with a staggering number of claims for benefits from all directions, while its online system was breaking down, while the telephone lines were no longer being answered, and while the offices were closing, people were wondering what they would live on and what income replacement they would be eligible for in the face of unemployment. We were asking ourselves the same questions, and we had to answer the questions of clearly distraught people who were calling our offices, by the thousands, every day. At first, each day of government silence and lack of clear direction seemed to last a century. Would the employment insurance rules be eased to allow all categories of workers to be protected? Would there be temporary emergency measures instead? We had no idea. The public had no idea and that added to the anxiety. It took more than a week to resolve it all.
In fact, since Parliament passed a one-stop emergency income replacement program, the Canada emergency response benefit, on March 25, the air has been cleared. We felt that people, in general, were beginning to feel reassured. Implementing the CERB on April 6 and the speedy payments helped ease the pressure on families. It is important to acknowledge that the coverage of this program was very broad, including not only wage earners, but also self-employed workers who had lost their jobs as a result of the health crisis. However, we must not forget that there were still major holes in this emergency social safety net.
We took strong action on a number of occasions to highlight those shortcomings, and it is clear that we, like other stakeholders from civil society and the political world, have been heard. I think it is to this government's great credit that it has taken into consideration other points of view and incorporated them into the follow-up to the CERB. These measures were announced last week, on April 15, for seasonal workers at the end of their EI benefits and unable to return to their regular jobs; for people who have come to the end or are coming to the end of their EI benefits; and for workers who have suffered a drop in income because they have shifted from full-time to part-time work. Further action was also announced this week, on April 22, introducing the CESB for students, which we applaud. Frankly speaking, many people breathed a big sigh of relief. It was important to ensure that no one was left behind and that there were no more holes in the social safety net.
I would now like to draw your attention to two things. The first one is factual. Even today, Service Canada's service to the people is dysfunctional and highly insufficient, even chaotic. Across the country, the 600 Service Canada offices are closed and no one is answering the phones. Other than an online form to request a call back, there is absolutely no way to contact anyone at Service Canada. This needs to be fixed as soon as possible. Right now, thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of claimants are currently blocked and have nowhere to turn.
Second, for a government program to work, people have to know about it and understand it. The government should really launch a major advertising campaign through mainstream media outlets to inform people about the many programs in place, because there are many of them, along with their terms and conditions. There needs to be a real communication plan, which has been sorely lacking to date.
Finally, I cannot conclude without reminding you that a crisis such as the one we are experiencing can become the necessary driver for rethinking the importance of our social benefits. The crisis of the 1930s led to the creation of the unemployment insurance program. World War II led to the introduction of various social programs to ensure a better redistribution of wealth, what we called the welfare state.
With the current crisis, we have seen the shortcomings of our social protections, particularly our EI system. This crisis must prompt us to completely overhaul the program. We cannot know the solutions beforehand, but we need to reflect and come up with modern answers for the realities of our century, including the reality of self-employment, telework and temporary work, the impact of the environmental transition on the labour world, and many other issues.
The COVID-19 crisis may be just one big rehearsal for the next crisis, the climate crisis, which former Supreme Court Justice Louise Arbour recently referred to in a television interview.
We have tremendous challenges ahead of us, and we will have to meet them. We believe that the current government has the political and intellectual capacity to get things started. It must do so by reaching out to constructive opposition as well as to civil society.
Thank you for your attention.