Evidence of meeting #18 for Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities in the 39th Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was cost.
A recording is available from Parliament.
9:15 a.m.
Conservative
9:15 a.m.
Liberal
Michael Savage Liberal Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS
I'm just trying to ascertain. This bill will require a royal recommendation from the government. Has the government officially indicated they will not give the royal recommendation, or is that something we would find out?
Maybe Monsieur Godin.... Monsieur Godin, in one of his speeches, indicated, I think, that the government wasn't going to provide a royal recommendation. Did I read that correctly? Have you received confirmation of that?
9:15 a.m.
Conservative
Lynne Yelich Conservative Blackstrap, SK
I think it's rather amusing we're not even going through the bill. What would that have to do with studying the clause? We just found out its costs. We certainly would have to see what the costs are and if it's even possible. You're not going to deem it without....
9:15 a.m.
Liberal
Michael Savage Liberal Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS
But on that point, we heard about this, I think, at least a week or it might have been two weeks ago, that the government had some costing on this. I asked at the time for that information—
9:15 a.m.
Liberal
Michael Savage Liberal Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS
The cost of the bill is important to us. That's why we're making an amendment, because we think there need to be some reforms on EI, but I would have liked to have had the costing prior to immediately going into clause-by-clause. I think it would be helpful. I don't know what the protocol is. I'm not blaming anybody for that, but it would have been helpful in the consideration of the bill to have had that costing in advance so we could have considered that as part of our amendment process.
9:15 a.m.
Bloc
Yves Lessard Bloc Chambly—Borduas, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
First of all, I want to thank you for coming here this morning. You have helped shed light on the current situation. However, I must say that I'm a little surprised by your answers this morning. Not that I doubt you, but I am worried about what has transpired. We produced a report, as you know. Part 1 of this report was adopted on December 16, 2004 and Part 2, on February 15, 2005. The committee's report was entitled “Restoring Financial Governance and Accessibility in the Employment Insurance Program“. The report consisted of parts 1 and 2.
Recommendation 10 in the report called for the following:
[...] that the government implement a uniform 360 hours qualification requirement, irrespective of regional unemployment rates or the type of benefit. This would establish a qualification requirement based on a 30-hour week over a 12-week period.
Recommendation 14 also contains a reference to the best 12 weeks, something that we also see in the bill now before the committee.
These are the two main measures proposed in this bill. They are found in the recommendations adopted by a majority of committee members. Our colleagues Mr. Godin and Mr. Cuzner also sat on this committee. If memory serves me well, they worked on this report from September to December. From the outset, we asked for an estimate of the cost of implementing all of these measures, and specifically these two measures, namely the best 12 weeks and the 360 hour qualification requirement. The result was the report prepared for us by Mr. Malcolm Brown, Assistant Deputy Minister of Human Resources and Skills Development. That was the department's name at the time.
You're telling us this morning that the report was drawn up in two days. Perhaps you had only two days to prepare it, but we worked on this for several weeks and each time we asked, we were told that work was progressing.
First of all, I have to question your explanation as to the difference in the numbers and your claim that you had little time. That could be a plausible explanation, but we understood at the time that the work was being done over a longer period of time.
Secondly, not only were we given an estimate in the millions of dollar, we were also given an estimate of the number of unemployed workers who would be affected. The 360-hour requirement represented a cost of $390 million. Mr. Brown informed us at the time that an additional 90,000 unemployed workers would be affected, which explained the figure quoted of $390 million. He also said that the best 12 weeks measure would cost $320 million and affect 470,000 unemployed workers.
I now have to wonder if all of the work that was done at the time was based on false information. Is the information we're being given today incorrect? As parliamentarians, I have to say that we did some serious work. Since then, the Bloc has tabled two bills, that is billsC-278 and C-269. The NDP has proposed some measures and tabled some bills. A tremendous amount of work has been done.
I have to say that I am quite concerned about the possibility that all of our work was based on false information.
9:20 a.m.
Liberal
Michael Savage Liberal Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS
On a point of clarification, Mr. Chairman, I think Bill C-278 was a Liberal bill proposed by Mark Eyking.
9:20 a.m.
Conservative
9:20 a.m.
Bloc
Yves Lessard Bloc Chambly—Borduas, QC
I would just like to clarify one thing. Two bills have been put forward, Mr. Chairman. One proposed a complete overhaul of the program and a second was tabled when Bill C-278 was voted down by the House. Both the Bloc's bill and Bill C-269 proposed a complete overhaul of the program.
We have always worked with the figures that I have here. The new figures that we have been given, Mr. Chairman, show that our original figures were wrong. That's what worries me.
I'm not trying to cause problems, but if we truly want to do a serious job here, regardless of the differences of opinion that we may have, each political party must base its work on figures that have been supplied.
Mr. Lake wondered the same thing about the figures quoted this morning.
9:20 a.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Dean Allison
Thank you.
Maybe we'll have a response after Mr. Godin. Did you want to have a quick comment? Then we'll get a response from Mr. James.
9:20 a.m.
NDP
Yvon Godin NDP Acadie—Bathurst, NB
All right. I would like to comment on what Mr. Lessard said, because he raised a valid point. This happened back in 2004. However, several bills have been tabled since then. At no time did Human Resources and Skills Development say the figure of $390 million was incorrect. When we draft a bill, we use the figures made available to us. In every speech I delivered in the House of Commons, I said that the figure was $390 million and that this was not the end of the world. It's unfortunate, but today, four years later, we've been given new figures and been told that finally, they found the time to do some calculations and that it wasn't easy. I don't know if, with the computers we have today, it's hard to find out what's happening and who exactly is applying.
I agree with Mr. Lessard. His point of order was sound and he asked a good question. Our technicians have just disclosed the figures to us. We're not talking about a mere one million, but about several million dollars.
9:25 a.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Dean Allison
Sure.
Mr. James, I want to give you a quick comment, then we'll get into clause-by-clause.
9:25 a.m.
Director General, Employment Insurance Policy, Skills and Employment Branch, Department of Human Resources and Social Development
Sure. All I can mention is that the costs associated with the change to the program are very dependent on the specificity with which we're provided in terms of the change. So it's not to say the costs provided in 2004 were incorrect; they were the baseline preliminary estimates we could do in two days, based on the question we had from the committee. There's a lot more detail in the proposed changes in the context of Bill C-265. We've tried to cost it based on the way it's described in the bill.
If we go back to 2004, the question was quite a general one posed by the committee, and we did the best we could, I think, as Mr. Brown mentioned at the time, in the time we had. The cost estimate at that time, again, was a minimum cost and a preliminary estimate, and I believe it was indicated that with additional detail and more time we could improve on those estimates.
For the purposes of Bill C-265, we've taken the much more specific information provided in the proposed bill and we've costed those individual elements, and that's how we've arrived at a more accurate estimate.
9:25 a.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Dean Allison
We will come back to that. We said we'd cost the amendments as well, so maybe we'll just touch on that before we get started with the clause-by-clause.
Ms. Yelich.
9:25 a.m.
Conservative
Lynne Yelich Conservative Blackstrap, SK
I think it doesn't take much to figure it out. This was done four years ago, and of course, yes, you were under a lot of stress; probably at that time it was two days, and you have had a lot more time because of this specific bill. Have you been approached before to cost this bill? Is this the first time for your department in the four years since? I would say this bill hasn't been changed. Just because it hasn't been changed, they can't expect you to.... I'm just wondering, did they ever ask you again from the first approach four years ago?
I find it really odd that we are even going back to estimates from four years ago; things have changed so dramatically. If that's the case, then I don't know how you could be expected not to do a better job right now, four years down the road.
We're looking at a bill clause by clause. We have never looked at another bill that you had to cost so specifically. I'm just trying to make sense of why they would expect you to have such a detailed cost if they've never asked for it before.
If they're going on figures that are four years old--this is the point, right? The first time you've been approached for the cost--
9:25 a.m.
Director General, Employment Insurance Policy, Skills and Employment Branch, Department of Human Resources and Social Development
To my knowledge, this is the first specific and detailed proposal we've had to cost, yes. In 2004, again, it was a general question from the committee, and we did our best in the available time.
It's important to recognize that small amounts of additional specificity can change the cost of the change by hundreds of millions of dollars. For example, whether it includes special benefits or not, what the benefit entitlement would be for the people who aren't being newly allowed into the program, these are things that weren't available at the time and we've made some assumptions about for this bill.
9:25 a.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Dean Allison
If I could also clarify, I'm reading from the report of December 2004. It states in here:
Finally, when I do get to costing, which I think is one of the things that's of interest to members of the committee, it's not possible to add A plus B plus C in each of the five or six items here because of....
I think we need to keep in mind, Mr. James, that you have costed A plus B plus C at this particular time to get this number, which was not what was done back in 2004. Is that correct?
9:25 a.m.
Director General, Employment Insurance Policy, Skills and Employment Branch, Department of Human Resources and Social Development
We've costed each of the elements individually.
9:25 a.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Dean Allison
Right, but now you've given us a total of A plus B, essentially. Is that correct?
9:30 a.m.
Director General, Employment Insurance Policy, Skills and Employment Branch, Department of Human Resources and Social Development
I think what Mr. Brown was mentioning at the time was that the addition of the individual costs for the program was a minimum estimate—and that applies to the 2004 numbers as well. The combined package is something we weren't able to estimate, and we haven't estimated it for this bill either.