Human Resources Committee on March 4th, 2008

[Mike Lake, Conservative, Edmonton—Mill Woods—Beaumont, AB]

Monsieur Godin, I'm curious. I think you said you believe this bill would cost $300 million. It seems you haven't got a lot of research on the costing of it. I know the department says $1.5 billion. There's a big difference between $300 million and $1.5 billion.

You would think this would be part of the process of coming forward with a bill like this, that studying what it would cost would be the first thing you would do. Why haven't you done that?

[Yvon Godin, NDP, Acadie—Bathurst, NB]

First of all, I didn't do it because when the bill was put in, some costs were already done, and I don't believe those numbers are correct. When we look at the 360 hours and we look at the best 12 weeks, I don't really think they go to $1.5 billion, but let's say we pass this and it's $1.5 billion.

We still have a surplus of $2 billion. The reason it will cost that is that the government has cut it to that point. The government is the one that cut employment insurance and now says it will cost a lot to bring it up.

Do you know the human and social costs it creates? Does the government ever evaluate what it does in the field, what it does in a region where suicide is up because people cannot feed their families? The kids go to school...when the employment insurance cuts happened, the schools said the number of people going to school with nothing in their lunch boxes went up 25%. Would you ever care about the human costs?

[Mike Lake, Conservative, Edmonton—Mill Woods—Beaumont, AB]

Mr. Godin, I often say we're often trying to accomplish the same types of things. I'm concerned about human costs as well, but I think this is an example of where there could be some very serious unintended and very negative consequences to a bill like this.

I refer to a report on poverty, Reducing Poverty by John Richards of the C.D. Howe Institute. One of the points he makes is this: “The impact on employment among those at high risk of incurring poverty should always be a criterion for assessing proposed policy reforms, and policies that embody powerful incentives to enter the labour market usually make sense.” At another point in the report he talks specifically about EI and says, “...note that changes in EI eligibility and benefits were among the shifting incentives that contributed to the rise in the Canadian employment rate and consequent decline in aggregate Canadian poverty rate.”

So he is talking about the very changes that you are talking so negatively about. He is talking about their having led to a decline in our aggregate poverty rate and an increase in employment.

What kind of research have you done that leads you to believe that your changes will increase employment and reduce poverty in this country?

[Yvon Godin, NDP, Acadie—Bathurst, NB]

I'm not a researcher, but I can tell you the person who wrote that report is totally wrong. He's not living the real day-to-day of what's happening.

There is a group of people who are just there to look at reports that big business wants to do, big corporations, but not look at what is happening in the field, and I said very clearly that in the field, families are suffering, totally suffering. People are not lazy in this country, and I don't believe the change in EI made that difference. What it did was make people poorer; that's what it did. The person at the institute who wrote that enjoys good pay, but I bet after he loses his job we'll know what he is going to be talking about.

[Mike Lake, Conservative, Edmonton—Mill Woods—Beaumont, AB]

Mr. Godin, given the high levels of access among premium payers, is there evidence that a drastic decrease in entrance requirements would help a significant number of people? What evidence do you have of that?

[Yvon Godin, NDP, Acadie—Bathurst, NB]

I'm sorry. Could you repeat that?

[Mike Lake, Conservative, Edmonton—Mill Woods—Beaumont, AB]

Given the high levels of access among premium payers, what evidence do you have that a drastic decrease in entrance requirements would help a significant number of people? Evidence.

[Yvon Godin, NDP, Acadie—Bathurst, NB]

I don't think there's a high level of entry. I don't know if you have any evidence on that, but the evidence we have is that only 32% of women and 38% of men who pay into it get it.

When we did a study on the previous bill, Human Resources had a hard time answering the question, until we said we wanted the answer. The answer was that it's only 32% of the women paying into it who qualify for employment insurance, and only 38% of men are getting employment insurance. This means that many part-time women and people going to university or to schools pay into the system knowing they do not qualify for employment insurance.

One issue that has never been talked about is how many people working for their relatives--their brothers or sisters--have never applied to the employment insurance, but when they apply 10 years down the road, they say,“Well, because you are related to your brother, we cannot give you employment insurance.” They will pay the difference of what they have paid in premiums to that person, but the ones who are working for their families will never qualify.

When I raised the question to Human Resources, they said it's not up to us; they have the right to go to Revenue Canada and ask whether they will have employment insurance if they are laid off. How many family businesses do we have in this country with people who will not qualify for EI? It's just going right to the bank, to the government's coffers, and not one word is said.

What study has been made by the Government of Canada? I raise that question.

[Mike Lake, Conservative, Edmonton—Mill Woods—Beaumont, AB]

Changing the lines of thinking for a second, we know that employers pay 1.4 times what workers pay into the system. I'm wondering what the impact of the bill would be on employers who are experiencing labour shortages. I'm wondering who you've consulted in terms of the employers.

[Yvon Godin, NDP, Acadie—Bathurst, NB]

Let's not forget that I've been here since 1997. We've had discussions left and right, left and right. At no time did I ever see any employer at a rally saying they are paying too much EI.

[Mike Lake, Conservative, Edmonton—Mill Woods—Beaumont, AB]

So you've never spoken with an employer who's paying into EI, then. I think virtually any employer you talk to--

[Yvon Godin, NDP, Acadie—Bathurst, NB]

Are you listening to what I said? I said at no time has an employer ever been at a street rally saying they have paid too much employment insurance.

I have heard some employers at committees telling us they would like to pay the same thing as the employees pay.

If we go to the history, the reason the 1.4 was put there is that the employer has a certain responsibility to keep their employees employed. They're the ones making the money. They say they will participate because they care about workers, and they will pay a bit more to make sure that if they cannot give them jobs they will help their families put some food on the table. Good employers don't mind paying the 1.4, because they know they're helping the person.

That's why we raised the question, that if we bring it down to one person--the employer--would that create more jobs? Well, it's not because the employer says, “Well, now that I make more money because they cut my EI premiums, I will hire two more people.” He will only hire people if he needs them in his business. He will run to the bank with a big smile and say he made more profit.

[Mike Lake, Conservative, Edmonton—Mill Woods—Beaumont, AB]

Did you talk to any employers?

[Yvon Godin, NDP, Acadie—Bathurst, NB]

Yes, I did--many times.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

We're going to move to our second round, which will be five minutes.

I have, Mr. Savage, sir.

[Michael Savage, Liberal, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS]

Thank you, Chair.

Mr. Godin, thank you for the work you've done on this.

In your speech on this bill in March, at one point you said, “The government says that workers are dependent upon employment insurance. That is not true. The government is dependent on employment insurance because it balances its budget...”. There's certainly truth to that. I also think the government is dependent upon employment insurance because seasonal industries simply couldn't exist if we didn't have employment insurance; it is part of that process.

I think we're at a point in time, regardless of what's happened.... At one point employment insurance was in deficit and then it was in surplus. We've racked up billions of dollars more in premiums every year than we have paid out. In the last 10 years, premiums have actually gone down, but so has the workers' payout. So in my view, we have to do something to rebalance that; we have to invest in Canadian working men and women. So the question is, how do we do it?

You have some good suggestions here, but if you look at what we can do for employment insurance, and you look at Bill C-269 from Madame Deschamps of the Bloc, and Bill C-278 from Mr. Mark Eyking of Sydney, there are a number of things we can do. The question is, what should we do with employment insurance?

The committee that you and Mr. Cuzner sat on had some ideas. We could get rid of the two-week waiting period. That would make sense. We could get rid of the five-week black hole at the end. That would make sense. We could increase the rate of weekly benefits from 55% to 60%, as is part of Bill C-269. The cost of that, given to us at the time, was $1.2 billion. That's a lot of money. The arm's-length problem of people working for relatives, we could fix. We could be more generous with maximum insurable earnings. We probably should be doing something about part-time workers, self-employed workers, and creators and artists, who aren't eligible for EI, who are part of that large group of people who just don't have access to EI. I like Mark Eyking's bill very much, which would increase the sickness benefits from 15 weeks to 50 weeks—and that was well defended at this committee.

As for the regional rates of employment you're proposing we take out of this bill, we were told when we did Madame Deschamps' bill that the cost would be about $400 billion or $390 billion to go to 360 hours. We could do the best 12 weeks. We now have a situation as well where a province like Ontario, which has been a net payer into the system as opposed to payer out, is now saying, wait a second, our workers are discriminated against because we don't have the same access to EI as a lot of other people.

So it seems to me that we have to do something. But I want to get your opinion.

In the budget, the government spoke about this new crown corporation, and all they referred to were the people paying the premiums, that Canadians were growing tired of paying premiums and that they had to ensure that premiums would be no higher than required. It's all about the employers in this book—and there is a balance, recognizing that we will not be giving up our right, as parliamentarians, to set the rates. Clearly if we go in the direction of a crown corporation, we could end up in a situation that could be hurtful to workers.

This is a long preamble. I usually don't talk as much as you do, or as fast, but I want to ask you, of all these things, what would you say are the priorities? Are they the ones that are in your bill? And I would understand it if they are, but of all these things, what would be the two or three that you would most want to fix the employment insurance system and make sure workers get a fair deal?

[Yvon Godin, NDP, Acadie—Bathurst, NB]

As I said previously, I had a bill that looked at the whole problem when I did my tour across the country. My friend Mr. Lake asked if I spoke to the employers. I went across the country. I went to 22 municipalities and 53 public meetings announced in advance. So I went across the country, as you will see in my book.

The two-week waiting period is something that the workers asked about: why should I be punished, and why should my family be punished, for two weeks when I didn't quit my job, I got laid off? So at the end of the day, you have to look at where you put the priority. If you don't quality at all, you have to ask what the two weeks means.

The first one I used for the bill, which came from section 10 of the act, was, I felt, a priority. If only 32% of women are qualifying for EI and only 38% of the men are qualifying--and as I keep saying, they are paying into it--the priority should be to resolve that first. If we use the amount that the government has used, $1.2 billion or $1.4 billion, it's not much, in a program of $15 billion, to resolve it. If that's what resolves the problem, it's not much.

I have to comment here that in this budget they talk about the premiums only. I'm not surprised; when the Conservatives were the opposition, the only thing they talked about was the premiums. They were more interested in big business not paying any premiums than about working people. At no time did I ever hear how we could fix this to help the working person except, “Well, if we're too generous, they won't want to go to work.”

This is bull. This is not true. People are not lazy. People want to work. People work hard. And they're not the ones who decide if they're going to work or not, it's the employer. As a matter of fact, when the employer gives him a call saying, “Look, the job is starting next Monday, so now you can come back to work”, and he says no, and won't go to work, then his employment insurance is cut right away. The safety net is there for that.

This one here is to make sure we have a program that belongs to the worker and to business, and not to the government. In the one about the premium, the danger is that a crown corporation, when the premium is being set, will continue with the wish they have to bring the premium down; the premium will continue to go down; and then we will say, “Now we're not going to have employment insurance anymore because we don't have any money to pay into it.”

The money that's paid by the workers is money that they don't mind paying. In a previous study that we did, workers said they didn't mind paying premiums if they were allowed to get their employment insurance.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Thank you, Mr. Savage.

We're going to move to Ms. Yelich for five minutes.

[Lynne Yelich, Conservative, Blackstrap, SK]

Thank you.

You say you believe it is important to create jobs and you don't want to see these older workers moving. What about some of the programs that have been introduced, for example, the targeted initiative for older workers? You haven't told us if you've seen how those programs are working. Of course they're new. Many programs have been introduced that are trying to get people back into the workforce because of our skills and labour shortage.

There has even been money put toward literacy--Ms. Savoie brought up literacy. There has been money through the workplace skills initiative. So moneys like that are going directly to help those who don't qualify for employment insurance--plus the labour market agreements.

If we decided to take this program, which will cost about $1 billion--and as Mr. Savage said, there are very many other programs that are looking to employment insurance to be the solution for the problems of some of the unemployed--we would probably have to let some of those programs go. You haven't examined that yet to see if it would be a good thing to do. Do you know what the impact of this bill will be? Have you seen how some of the programs we have delivered are working?

As you said, you've been around for 20 years and you've been with this bill for seven. Perhaps you should go back to the drawing board and see what has been implemented. Maybe some of its benefits or requirements have to be modernized. But I think employment insurance is trying to work with the employees and employers of the day. To say that it's all about big business, many small businesses also sat at that table and said that any increases in premiums would hurt them. They aren't all big companies. So I'm just wondering how much detail was put into the impact.

There are many ways we could be addressing the people you've identified. In Saskatchewan, when the economy is booming and the jobs are increasing significantly we put more women and aboriginal people to work. So any time you can create a good and healthy economy...and that's what we are trying to do.

I think the government is trying to concentrate more on training, skills, and having a well-educated and flexible workforce. We can't do that if we just pay people to stay home. There should be initiatives for businesses to do retraining. There are so many businesses now going into high tech. I was in a welding shop not long ago and they were using a computer. So people who weld can make a transition.

I'm not sure if you can come into a new timeline. Perhaps it's time to look at what the government has been doing and see the successes. I don't think your province would like to see the labour market agreement cut. I'm sure they're putting a lot of their people to work with that, because those are people who can't qualify for employment insurance.

[Yvon Godin, NDP, Acadie—Bathurst, NB]

With all respect, I don't know if you were listening to what I was saying, because you said I have not talked about the labour market, about training programs, and all of that. Right from the beginning I've said that the labour market has done part of their job, but there's not enough money. I talked about the labour market and the training.

I said there were some programs there, and it was too bad that the demand was so high for literacy. I did not say there was no money for literacy; I said they cut back on the numbers in grade 8 and grade 9 who could get into the program. They want to have the program; they want to be able to learn. I have never said I wanted the labour market training program to be scrapped. I said it should get better.

[Lynne Yelich, Conservative, Blackstrap, SK]

In this budget that you're going to vote against, the target initiatives for older workers was increased. The spending was $90 million.

[Yvon Godin, NDP, Acadie—Bathurst, NB]

On the budget I'm going to vote against, the government had a mini-budget not too long ago giving a $14 billion tax cut to big businesses that make money. But when we look at the working people, the only thing you have to say this morning is that we're not going to pay people to stay home and not work. You just don't understand the labour market. When a person loses their job, they have a family. They were paying for insurance so they would be paid, and in the meantime they are looking for a job.

If we go through the economic development...the people of Canada are not lazy. They will go to work, and we have to provide them with access to work, instead of just saying people want to be paid to be at home and not working.

[Lynne Yelich, Conservative, Blackstrap, SK]

Maybe you're saying that. I am--

[Yvon Godin, NDP, Acadie—Bathurst, NB]

I think it's an insult to all working people of this country that you think they want to be at home and not working.

[Lynne Yelich, Conservative, Blackstrap, SK]

You are saying that. You are saying that by your--