Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I thank my friends from the central labour bodies and I thank Ms. Washington for having come to testify here today. You must be aware that, in the House of Commons, opinion is divided about Bill C-50. This committee is studying it to get a better understanding of if, and most of the time, we are guided by clarifications from people like yourselves.
Sometimes, by wanting to rush things, we miss out on the clarifications. The motion that was tabled yesterday by our colleague Mr. Godin could have deprived us of the clarifications. Others will provide clarification too. When we are just dealing with a technical measure that is intended to determine the way in which the bill will be implemented, an exercise like this is worthwhile in any democracy. I believe that you work in the same way in the labour movement.
Mr. Georgetti, I entirely agree with your opinion about the comprehensive reform of employment insurance that must be done. You probably know that I tabled Bill C-308 on behalf of my party; it includes most of the measures that you mention. During the previous session of Parliament, we, together with the Liberal Party and the NDP, made some headway towards some amendments to the bill. We could have done it, but because of the rules of Parliament and the election, everything was dropped.
I am also reminded that, as we listen to you here, we are consulting, and in every one of our ridings, my colleagues, even those who are now talking and disturbing everyone, are also holding consultations. For a bill of this nature, we consulted with those whom we call the have-nots, as well as labour confederations, groups of the unemployed, and so forth. You are probably aware that they think that this bill should not be held up.
Mr. Chair, this is such a disturbance. I do not know if they are at same meeting as we are. I do not want this to eat into my time. I find it very disturbing and lacking in courtesy towards our guests. I hope that we have not upset them too much.
In a word, this bill establishes that there are good unemployed people and bad unemployed people, with all the disqualification that implies. You have done an extraordinary job, as we have, in amending the employment insurance system so that more unemployed people can have access to it. However, this bill contains measures that will eliminate as many people as possible. The minister has said that this bill is for those workers who have become unemployed through no fault of their own. There cannot be many unemployed people who are responsible for their own unemployment. I think that we share this opinion.
This bill is based on a similar principle. I would like to hear more from you about the good and bad aspects of this bill. Let me finish with this, just to make myself clear. This bill disqualifies people. Senior officials told us that, of the 757,000 unemployed people in July, only 30% were close to exhausting their benefits. Twenty-one per cent of this group would be affected by Bill C-50; that comes to 49,600 unemployed people in all of Canada. This is far from the figure of 190,000 unemployed.
I would especially like to hear from you, Mr. Georgetti, and probably you too, Mr. Weir, because, like the NDP, you maintained that the real figure was not $935 million but $1 billion. To get to $1 billion, 85% of the claimants would have to have exhausted their benefits.
I would like to hear what you have to say about that.