I want to welcome everyone here today, and certainly our witnesses. I realize that you've probably all come on fairly quick notice, so thank you very much for making your schedule available.

We're still waiting for one more witness, who was given about 24 hours' notice, just slightly less time than you guys were given. What we will do, though, is start the rounds anyway, and when the witness shows up we'll insert him into the lineup.

We have with us today three different groups that are here right now and one more that we're waiting on.

Why don't we start with Mr. Jackson and Ms. Byers from the Canadian Labour Congress. Welcome, again. I know you guys have been here before for various things.

I'm going to give each presenter 10 minutes, or less if they need that. I'll just give you a one-minute warning. Certainly if you're at less time than that, that's fine as well. Then what we'll do is start with a seven-minute round of questions and answers, and then we'll go with five minutes after that. I'll identify you, and the microphones will automatically turn on and off. I think most of you have been here before, but for those who haven't, that's the way it works.

We'll start with a round of Liberal, Bloc, NDP, and Conservative, and we'll proceed in that order.

Welcome, Mr. Jackson and Ms. Byers. We'll give you 10 minutes to get started.

March 6th, 2008 / 9:10 a.m.

Barbara Byers Executive Vice-President, Canadian Labour Congress

Thanks very much for the opportunity to be here. We won't be taking 10 minutes, because we want to get into the discussion as well.

The key reforms to the EI program that have been advocated by labour and anti-poverty groups are a reduction in the number of qualifying hours to 360 in all regions; a longer duration of up to 50 weeks of regular benefits; and an increase to at least 60% in the percentage of insured earnings replaced by EI benefits, based on the best 12 weeks of earnings.

We support Bill C-265, which would reduce the number of qualifying hours to 360 and base benefits on the best 12 weeks.

We are now sitting just two days before International Women's Day, so I want to speak today in particular about the importance of the EI program to working women and the need to make fundamental changes of the kind proposed in this bill.

The Canadian Labour Congress is going to be organizing, commencing Saturday, teach-ins all across this country on the question of women's economic equality, and these teach-ins will continue throughout the course of the year. The need for EI reform is very much on our agenda. I would refer you, beginning tomorrow, to our website, www.onceandforall.ca or www.unefoispourtoutes.ca, because you will see interesting fact sheets on the question of women's economic equality, and in particular on EI.

EI income support during periods of unemployment, maternity or parental leave, and periods of sickness is obviously important in terms of stabilizing and supporting family incomes. EI also supports the economic independence of women, since benefits are not based on family income, with the exception of a small supplement for low-income families. Rather, the benefits are based on insured individual earnings. However, key EI program rules exclude or unfairly penalize women workers, because they fail to take into proper account the different working patterns of women compared to men. While the great majority of adult women now engage in paid work, the hours they work exclude many from EI benefits, as do periods of time spent away from work caring for children or others.

We shouldn't just say that this is a particular kind of worker, because recently, at a meeting with some officials from Service Canada, it was pointed out by the representative of the Canadian Teachers Federation that there are a lot of young teachers who don't have full-time positions who are doing a lot of fill-in work, and a lot them don't quality for their EI. So we can't compartmentalize this and say it's one group of workers. In fact, it cuts across all groups, and in particular, again, it hits women in those groups particularly hard.

I'd like to suggest to the committee, if you haven't already reviewed it, that you look at a report done by Monica Townson and Kevin Hayes for Status of Women Canada. It's a recent report. They document that only 32% of unemployed women qualify for regular EI benefits compared to 40% of men who are unemployed. Over 70% of women and 80% of men qualified for benefits before there were major cuts imposed more than a decade ago. The key reason for the gender gap is that in order to qualify, a person must have worked in the previous year and must have put in between 420 and 700 hours of work, depending on the local unemployment rate. Workers in most large urban areas now have to put in 700 hours, roughly the equivalent of 20 weeks of full-time work.

Fewer unemployed women qualify than do men because many women take extended leaves from work to care for children and for others in their families. After a two-year absence from paid work, the entrance requirement jumps to 910 hours, or more than six months of full-time work. And when they work, women are much more likely than men to be employed in part-time and/or temporary jobs as opposed to full-time, permanent jobs providing steady hours. Because they lack enough qualifying hours, only about half of part-time workers who lose their jobs actually qualify for unemployment benefits.

Even when they finally do qualify, the lower pay of women, combined with more unstable work patterns, means that they usually qualify for lower benefits, an average of $291 per week compared to $351 for men in 2005-06. Only about one-third of the total dollar amount of regular EI unemployment benefits is paid to women, even though women now participate in the paid workforce at almost the same rate as men.

The EI program now provides for up to 15 weeks of maternity benefits and 35 weeks of parental benefits, 90% of which are taken by women. Expansion of maternity parental leave stands as a major gain for working women in recent years, especially the 2001 increase in parental benefits from 10 to 35 weeks.

To qualify, a woman must have worked 600 hours in the previous year. About three-quarters of all women giving birth to a child do qualify, and about 60% claim a benefit, but a full year leave of absence is much more likely to be taken by women who qualify for a reasonable benefit or whose employer supplements the EI benefit. Bill C-265 would increase the proportion of women eligible to take maternity or parental leaves and the proportion who could afford to do so.

In conclusion, the reduction of qualifying hours to 360 for regular and special benefits would result in a major gain for working women, who are unfairly treated by the current EI rules.

I would like to add here that when the change was proposed to move from a weeks calculation to an hours calculation and that everybody would be included, we actually embraced that in the labour movement. We thought that was good, that there would be people who could pay in and who could benefit from it. What we didn't know was that there was this vicious undertow that said, yes, you can pay in, but you're not going to qualify because the number of hours is too high.

I'll look forward to answering questions later on, and we've also provided to the committee an updated version of our policy paper, “Towards a Better Employment Insurance System for Workers in Today's Job Market”.

Thank you.

9:15 a.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Dean Allison

Thank you, Ms. Byers.

Now we're going to move to Pierre Céré from Comité Chômage de Montréal.

Mr. Céré, thank you for being here. We look forward to your presentation. You have 10 minutes, sir.

9:15 a.m.

Pierre Céré Spokesperson, Comité Chômage de Montréal

Thank you for having invited us, Mr. Chair, members of Parliament.

I represent Comité Chômage de Montréal, but more broadly, the Conseil national des chômeurs et chômeuses, the CNC, for which I am a spokesperson. The CNC is an umbrella organization comprised of groups from different regions throughout Quebec.

To begin with, I'd like to see if we can agree on three simple matters.

The first point is that the unemployed are not marginal. An unemployed person is not defined in society based on his or her social status. You're not defined as an unemployed person, you are defined first and foremost by your work, your profession, your roots, the places where you have ties, and your family. Unemployed people are workers. An unemployed person is someone who used to work and who will work again, but between jobs, such individuals are temporarily unemployed. And let me be clear: “are temporarily unemployed”.

In 1940, when you needed replacement income between jobs, it was called unemployment insurance. Since 1996, it has been called employment insurance. And it is also for a limited period of time. That's the first thing I'd like us to agree on.

The second thing—and it would seem more and more that this is true, according to the prognosis of a number of economists—is that we are heading into a period of labour shortage. So that raises the question: why do you need employment insurance and unemployment insurance if you are about to face a period of labour shortage?

We believe that even during a period of labour shortage, you never actually eliminate unemployment or the need for employment insurance. Now, why is this? Well, it is because of what has characterized the new jobs created in Canada over a good many years and the way in which work has been reorganized over the past 20 years. This has been documented by Statistics Canada, for example. Most jobs created in Canada for many years have been described by academics as atypical: part-time work, temporary or seasonal work. That's what jobs look like nowadays. Between two temporary jobs, obviously, people need a replacement income. And that's what employment insurance does.

Let's see if we can agree on a third point. We all know that the employment insurance system has been pruned over the past 20 years. This has been documented and publicized. It's now time to stop documenting these cutbacks because we are aware of them and have fought against them. We will continue to fight against them. But the time has come to find solutions.

We believe that Bill C-265 is part of this groundswell movement to find solutions to the problems which exist.

On behalf of our organization, I'd like to take this opportunity to commend the sponsor of this bill on his devotion and tireless hard work. He has fought hard for many years to find solutions to the problems faced by thousands of people throughout Canada who don't qualify for employment insurance benefits.

We believe that there is a political solution to these problems. There will not be a political solution without a political and social majority. The one and only eligibility criterion which features in Bill C-265 is the 360-hour minimum, and in our opinion, it is the way of the future. The CNC has been fighting for this for over 10 years.

The dialogue and exchange between a number of organizations and political parties over the past several years has not led to a majority of people being willing to find solutions to the problems which exist.

Last year, we brought together the three opposition parties: the Bloc Québécois, the NDP, and the Liberal Party of Canada. We got them to all sit around a table just like this one with representatives from Québécois and Canadian labour associations and groups of unemployed persons. We had a discussion and an exchange of points of view. Sometimes we agreed, sometimes we managed to find solutions, and to reach compromises. We agreed to a five-pronged agreement in order to improve the employment insurance system in the way that it needs to be improved.

Included in this five-pronged approach is the 12 best weeks benefit-setting formula. However, the single eligibility criteria was not included because we didn't manage to reach a consensus on this issue. We agreed on relaxing the eligibility criteria by 70 hours. There are two categories of beneficiaries: ordinary beneficiaries and new beneficiaries. The ordinary beneficiaries qualify based on a variable standard ranging between 420 and 700 hours; we would suggest that this range be lowered to 350 to 630 hours.

BillC-265 impacts on two areas: the eligibility criteria and the 12 best weeks benefit-setting calculation. Both here and in other areas, we find ourselves at a crossroads: either we get boxed in by the rationale for our demands—the fact is that we do not have a majority—or we look for a more appealing solution so that we can get a majority that will actually be able to impose a solution. This formula must be the result of a compromise and it will enable us to enhance the current level of protection provided to workers in Canada.

When Parliament debates this issue, it always says that it is going to cost the government money, and that it doesn't have this money. We asked an economist to calculate how much these two measures would cost, i.e. the 12 best weeks formula and relaxing eligibility criteria by 70 hours. A very serious individual who worked for a political party's research service and then at a union produced a document stating that relaxing the criteria by 70 hours would cost $400 million and that the 12 best weeks formula would cost $320 million, for a grand total of $720 million. Now you can play around for a long time with these figures, but that's the assessment that we made.

We know that the employment insurance fund is posting surpluses. On March 31, 2007, there was still an additional surplus of $3 billion, totalling $54 billion. We know that on March 31, 2008, or in a couple of weeks—the figures will be announced in a couple of months—there will once again be a surplus. So the money is there.

The creation of a crown corporation on unemployment insurance funding should help to strike a balance. A document submitted to the committee by the Conseil du patronat du Québec in 2003, in reference to comments made by the employment insurance chief actuary, stated that: “each 10 cent variation in the premium rate would affect revenue to the tune of [...] $840 million”.

In other words, we believe that the premium rate won't even need to be changed because the money is already there. But if necessary, there would be an increase in the premium of less than 10 cents which would enable more Canadians, in fact tens of thousands of people, to qualify for employment insurance. That's not a lot, considering that the premium rate was much higher in the past: it's previously been over $3.

I'd like to quote a line from the Conseil du patronat: “[...] the employment insurance system must rediscover its original mission which is to provide replacement income.”

It is our belief that we need a compromise formula that will help us garner this majority. It's time for solutions, and we need a majority so that we can impose these solutions. The debate has to take place above the partisan fray and it needs to focus on the welfare and betterment of our society. We need to find better ways of protecting our workers.

9:25 a.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Dean Allison

Thank you, Mr. Céré. We appreciate your presentation.

We're now going to move over to the Canadian Auto Workers Union, and I have Ms. Ritchie.

You have 10 minutes.

9:25 a.m.

Laurell Ritchie National representative, Canadian Auto Workers Union

I wanted to make a preliminary request. I know this is out of the ordinary, but since we had little time, there was no opportunity to have this document translated, and I'd really like to be able to refer to the first two pages with people having this in their hands. Some of it's numbers, a universal language.