Human Resources Committee on Oct. 6th, 2009

[Paul Thompson]

Those weeks of EI use from any of those categories are not included in this calculation of 35 weeks. It's simply the use of regular benefits.

[Ed Komarnicki, Conservative, Souris—Moose Mountain, SK]

And I take the point that not only are you going retroactive in its application for a period of time of up to nine months, but you're also having to calculate from an operational point of view what's happened to a number of claimants over a five-year period for this purpose, and then for a period of seven to 15 years for other purposes. So a number of variables have to be addressed from within the data within the system.

Is the system well-prepared to handle that within the confines of what's in this bill, and would any changes affect that?

[Paul Thompson]

As I indicated in my remarks, fortunately one of the advantages is that we're using the same definition we've used for the existing economic action plan measure or the career transition assistance, so it's a definition that's already programmed into our system.

I'll ask Philip to elaborate on our readiness to implement the measure from an operational perspective.

[Philip Clarke, Director General, Benefits Processing, Service Canada]

We're fully ready. We'll be automating the extension of payments as of November 8. We have a process in place to treat them manually between coming into force and November 8, when the system will be ready, so we're ready to go.

[Ed Komarnicki, Conservative, Souris—Moose Mountain, SK]

Thank you.

With that, I'll pass it over to Mr. Cannan.

[Ron Cannan, Conservative, Kelowna—Lake Country, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

And thank you to the witnesses. I can tell you've put a lot of time and thought and effort into preparing this bill, which unfortunately is required in this economic situation. Coming from British Columbia, forestry is a big economic driver for our community, and I know it is for Quebec and Ontario and other members around the table. Forestry is a big sector for Canada.

In B.C., I guess we had the perfect storm, with not only the housing crisis but the high Canadian dollar, and of course the nasty pine beetle that has devastated a lot of northern British Columbia. I wonder if you are able to elaborate on how this bill would help the forest workers.

[Paul Thompson]

I would be happy to speak to it.

Before I get into certain sectors, maybe I should note again that this isn't a measure that's targeted for particular industry sectors or parts of the country. It is targeted at certain types of workers, but those workers are found across the country. In fact the distribution of long-tenured workers in our analysis roughly mirrors the distribution of the labour force as a whole. We find long-tenured workers showing up across the country in proportion to the distribution in the labour force, which I think is an important point.

Other parameters of the bill are certainly sensitive to the issues facing different industry sectors. When we established this 35-week limit on prior EI use, it did take into account the use of EI by certain sectors. I mentioned manufacturing, but it's important to note that included in manufacturing are parts of the forestry sector, any of the processing parts of forestry. Forest products are statistically part of the manufacturing sector.

If you look at patterns of EI use, a 35-week threshold does allow a high degree of access for sectors across the economy, including the forestry sector.

[Ron Cannan, Conservative, Kelowna—Lake Country, BC]

I appreciate the fact that it's long-tenured workers.

Don Drummond, who is a well-respected TD Bank economist, said:

Without the extension, their benefits would soon expire.... ...the measure will alleviate some of the pain in the hard-hit auto, forestry and manufacturing sector....

Those are, in many cases, the long-tenured workers.

For my last question, Mr. Clarke, there are tens of thousands of people who are going to be eligible for this. What provisions have you taken to help the transition within the staffing of Service Canada?

[Philip Clarke]

Thank you.

As you're aware, I believe, we've hired significant numbers of people to ensure we're able to pay benefits in a timely manner. This measure will be done primarily by the systems automatically. As soon as we get the coming into force, we can finish the computer programming. On November 8, we will be all ready to go. For people who are already getting pay, there will be no interruption for them going forward. We'll be able to take care of that in a manual intervention, but as of November 8 it will all flow through.

[Ron Cannan, Conservative, Kelowna—Lake Country, BC]

So basically they're briefing all the Service Canada personnel.

Our constituency office often gets a lot of questions as well, and we work closely with Service Canada, so we want to make sure these unemployed workers get their dollars in their hands as soon as possible.

[Philip Clarke]

Training has been provided.

It's ready to go as soon as we get the go-ahead.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Thank you.

I'm now going to move to Madame Folco.

We're going to start five-minute rounds.

[Raymonde Folco, Liberal, Laval—Les Îles, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Welcome, gentlemen.

My question has something to do with the question that Mr. Cannan just asked regarding, once again, the choices that you made, or the government made, with regard to the 190,000 beneficiaries of the program. Given the fact that huge preparations were made, I suppose, with regard to this legislation, that you have produced a study of the origins of the 190,000 beneficiaries, by region, by gender, by field of activity etc.?

The reason why I am asking this question is that it is a well-known fact that in general, women on the labour market very often do not work the same hours nor do they work according to the same standards as men do. Men tend to work from 8:30 or 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Women very often have split schedules, which means that they are working part-time, sometimes for a few hours in the morning and a few hours in the afternoon. Therefore, they were the first ones to be laid off and they generally do not participate in employment insurance programs.

I was wondering whether they were included in your analysis on the one hand, and on the other hand, in sectors such as forestry, or automobiles, as my colleague said. Did you seek out specific sectors or did you do a sector-by-sector study to see how much workers will benefit from this program in some sectors that were hit hard by the economic downturn?

[Paul Thompson]

Regarding the first question, the estimated number of 190,000 workers who will take advantage of these measures cannot be divided by regions or by sectors, because it is based on a projection of the national unemployment rate, and these figures are not available for specific genders, sectors etc. Nevertheless, the bill has provisions that cover the needs of all beneficiaries, including women.

[Raymonde Folco, Liberal, Laval—Les Îles, QC]

What about women who have worked part-time? Could you give me some concrete information?

[Paul Thompson]

This measure targets full-time workers. This is the objective of the bill, and with regard to full-time workers, we are looking at a proportion of 7 out of 10 in terms of premiums, which means that some of them may have been absent from the labour market for 3 years. Moreover, we are not including the use of special benefits. We did these two things to allow more people to become eligible.

[Raymonde Folco, Liberal, Laval—Les Îles, QC]

If I have a moment left, Mr. Chair, I would like to say that it is a pity. To me, it's a real pity that in the 21^st century in Canada, with all the instruments available to the Canadian government, no preliminary analysis was made and that there was not more focus on the one hand on the regions, on the other hand the kind of sector and industry, and the gender of the beneficiaries, because we know that the kind of work done by men is very different from the kind of work done by women, and I am referring just to this example. The ways in which women work, their working hours and the sectors in which they work are very different from those of men. I find that it is a pity that no such analysis was done.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Mr. Vellacott is next for five minutes.

[Maurice Vellacott, Conservative, Saskatoon—Wanuskewin, SK]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

First off, in my own province there's wide support, obviously, for this kind of initiative. The past social services minister of Saskatchewan, Janice MacKinnon, says that it would be better--and she's speaking in reference to the 360-hour proposal--to expand coverage and improve the benefits of those who have paid into the program for years but find themselves unemployed. Bill Ferguson, the president of the United Steelworkers Local 8782, says that it's going to be quite good and will give workers a little more time, that it's a good thing to extend benefits to people like that.

I think on the main there is very widespread support for the merits of the measures being taken here, and I commend you as individuals in terms of the work you did to put this together.

I guess I would like to also know, and maybe have reiterated for all of us here and for the public as well, about some of the other measures that the government has taken in the recent months to help long-tenured workers and older workers through the economic action plan. Second, how does this particular legislation before us now relate to them, to the older workers, the long-tenured workers? I'm thinking of particular things like the career transition assistance, the targeted initiative.

Could you give us a quick summary on each of those, and then talk about the extra five weeks that was in the prior proposal?

[Paul Thompson]

Certainly.

I mentioned briefly the career transition assistance initiative in my opening remarks because that's a fairly significant measure that was introduced in the action plan targeted at the same population that we're dealing with in this legislation. The difference is that the extended benefit was for a longer period of time, but targeted at those people who make the significant decision of undertaking long-term training for up to two years. So if an individual wanted to make a fairly fundamental change in their occupation or career, they would work in conjunction with their provincially delivered training providers, and the federal employment insurance program would provide income support for up to two years.

There's also a related measure. At present there's a period of time, if you're in receipt of severance, to wait before benefits can start. If that individual decides to invest part of their severance package in training, they can claim EI and receive benefits much earlier than before.

Those are two measures that were done as part of the career transition assistance for the economic action plan and are being unfolded.

The other measure specifically targeted to older workers—this isn't specific to EI eligibility—is the targeted initiative for older workers, focused on smaller communities, less than 250,000 population, that are facing particular challenges. This is supporting fairly innovative projects across the country to deliver group-based projects for groups of older workers who are facing similar challenges. There are projects unfolding across the country. There were previously a limited number of provinces participating in the initiative. We've now signed new agreements with Manitoba, Nunavut, and Ontario, so now all jurisdictions except Alberta are participating in the targeted initiative for older workers that saw some enhanced investments in the economic action plan.

[Maurice Vellacott, Conservative, Saskatoon—Wanuskewin, SK]

Thank you, Mr. Thompson.

Mr. Lobb.

[Ben Lobb, Conservative, Huron—Bruce, ON]

Thanks again.

Being from southwestern Ontario and a community that had a significant amount of manufacturing and has seen some losses, I can really see how this bill will help many people with extending their benefits, many of my former colleagues, both male and female. Specifically in the one community I live not too far from, there was definitely an older workforce there.

Again, I wonder if you could elaborate a little more about what is going to be put forward for older workers.

[Paul Thompson]

These two measures are very significant investments in the income support for older workers, whether they need additional time to find a new job--which this measure is intended to do--or whether they are undertaking training. These two EI measures are providing the income support.

The targeted initiative for older workers is really another project delivered in partnership with provinces. The Government of Ontario is fairly new to this program. It is figuring out ways of launching the kinds of innovative projects that we've seen in other parts of the country where, as I say, groups of older workers facing very similar challenges can come together and tackle their problems collectively, whether it's to enhance their skills, market their skills for new jobs, or learn how to prepare CVs--how to face the fairly fundamental challenges that an older worker would.

It's proven to be a pretty successful initiative in other jurisdictions, and we hope to see Ontario ramping up quickly in that project as well.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Thank you very much, Mr. Thompson.

We're going to now move on to Madame Beaudin. You have five minutes.

[Josée Beaudin, Bloc, Saint-Lambert, QC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Thank you very much, gentlemen, for being here.

I imagine that you have estimated the current unemployment rate in Canada. What is this rate?