Human Resources Committee on Nov. 3rd, 2009

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

I'm asking Ms. Hughes, why is there that distinction? It's a simple question.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Mr. Godin, on a point of order.

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

Just to satisfy the Conservative member, we'll make an amendment to assure that it will be equal on both sides.

Is that what you're looking for?

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

I'm not asking Mr. Godin the question. It's his resurrected bill.

I just want know if there's a reason. If there isn't, that's fine. If you're not able to say, that's fine. Are you, or are you not, able to explain why?

[Carol Hughes, NDP, Algoma—Manitoulin—Kapuskasing, ON]

As I said, the bill was my colleague Mr. Godin's first, so he'd probably be in a better position to really answer that. However, it's my understanding that we have the regional differences there that we are asking to get rid of, but with regard to the qualifying amount, that's where this part of what you're talking about would actually be based.

The fact of the matter is that when someone loses their job, no matter where they live, they've lost their job and they need access.

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

We're not arguing that.

[Carol Hughes, NDP, Algoma—Manitoulin—Kapuskasing, ON]

I've had tons of people in my riding call and say, “You know, I call one week and my requirement is 480 hours, and then I call another week and it's 490 hours.” So they have to call on a weekly basis to decide whether they can actually access their benefits that week. If it happens to be within that window of opportunity, they may be able to access it for a year, whereas someone else who had that same amount of hours won't be able to.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

That's all the time we have. We're going to have to maybe catch you in the second round.

We're going to move now to our second round.

Ms. Minna, you have five minutes.

[Maria Minna, Liberal, Beaches—East York, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you for coming here today.

Obviously the entry accessibility is an important part of the bill, as is the 12 weeks, but what I wanted to ask about is to focus in a little bit on women.

When all the changes took place in the 1990s, my understanding at the time was that there was supposed to have been an evaluation afterwards, in four years or two years—I forget the timeline—specifically to look at the impact the legislation would have had in regard to unintended consequences. One fact that I was very interested in at the time was about women and how it affected women.

There was a study done, as you may be aware, by the Standing Committee on the Status of Women in June of 2009 with respect to women accessing EI. There's a piece in there where one of the witnesses is stating this very clearly and pointing out the fact that the government says there's 80% or 81% accessibility to EI by all people. It states:

However, this ignores the fact that job loss particularly affects those with unstable patterns of work, such as workers on reduced hours before a layoff as well as part-time, temporary, and contract workers. It also ignores the fact that many unemployed workers qualify for EI for a shorter period of time but quickly exhaust their benefits.

Then it goes on, of course, to talk further about this.

One of those groups of people that I have seen in the Standing Committee on the Status of Women also did a study on what's called women's economic security. Again, this issue came up even in that study with respect to the number of women who lose jobs or are in temporary, part-time, or short-term jobs because they're in and out of the labour force due to their caregiving roles and so on. They're not able to take on full-time jobs, but they are never able to access parental leave and other things.

Have you done a bit of an analysis on that perspective, the gender perspective, to see to what extent these changes actually make a difference for that component of the population? I'm just curious to see if the CLC has done some evaluation on that.

[Barbara Byers]

Over the years, we've done about three sort of in-depth studies, I think, using Statistics Canada's work around the loss of finances to communities because of the UI changes. Certainly in our last one that we did, which is a few years ago now, there was an analysis of what the gender breakdown was as well. It is quite appalling. At one point, there are several cities where the access by women is coming in at 9% and 16%.

We know quite clearly that people are paying into the system, and women in particular, and they can't.... For example, we visually can see if a plant closes down or if a mine closes down. You see the gates close behind people. It's shut down. You know that's a group of people. What you don't see is women who work in hotels, for example, or in restaurants, or in any other kinds of part-time work where they have their hours cut or where they go through periods where they don't get any hours at all in some weeks. They're the ones who are really being hammered with this as well, because they can't accumulate the number of hours to be able to access even any EI.

[Andrew Jackson]

If I could add one point that was alluded to in the presentation, I just crunched a few numbers the other day, and if we just look at this period of recession, we see that the proportion of unemployed workers collecting benefits has increased as unemployment has risen, as one would expect it to, but it's been far, far higher among men than among women.

So the proportion of women unemployed workers collecting EI benefits has changed, but it's just a very, very little increase, which I think does suggest that the 360 hours, the hours base for getting in, is.... I don't think we have numbers, but I think it would be overwhelmingly women and young workers who would benefit from changing that.

[Maria Minna, Liberal, Beaches—East York, ON]

What you've just said is interesting because you can look at that number in two ways.

Earlier I was told—I forget which meeting we were at—that the reason there's a smaller number of women collecting EI as a result of the recession is that they're doing better in the recession. It could actually be the fact that most of them are not eligible to access EI, that is, they are doing jobs that don't actually give them the opportunity because of the entry and the level.

As you were saying, Ms. Byers, they have lost jobs but cannot necessarily access in that situation.

There's also the situation that I've seen recently in families where the husband may have lost a job. He may have worked in one of those industries. The wife has gone back to work to try to make up for that because EI has been exhausted by the husband. So she's gone back to work part time. This again goes to family stresses and so on.

So is 360 hours, in your view, the optimum or the ideal spot? I'm just wondering about trying to make sure that the women I'm talking about in this report would be able to access it.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

That's all the time you have, but I do want an answer from Ms. Byers.

[Barbara Byers]

Just briefly, the 360 hours is not some sort of number we drew out of a hat. It's based on 12 weeks at an average of 30 hours a week. Again, as I say, we didn't make this number up. It's based on some statistics about the average work week, and so on.

But you're right. There are people who are holding down two, three, or four part-time jobs to try to keep their family afloat.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

I know Mr. Hamilton has to step away to catch a flight.

Do you have any closing comment before you leave?

[Rick Hamilton]

Thank you very much for having me. It has been a wonderful experience. I've never experienced this before. I'm usually the person asking the questions, not answering them.

And thank you very much, Ms. Hughes, for inviting me down to Ottawa.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Thank you. Have a safe trip home.

We will now move back to the Conservative side.

Mr. Lobb, you have five minutes.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair. It's too bad the mayor is leaving, because I was just going to say what a nice part of the country it is. I've been there, around the Thessalon area and all the way up through to Chapleau a few times. The Laurentian Lodge is a place that my family has been to a couple of times.

The first question I have is for the Labour Congress. It goes directly to the document they provided.

On page 3 of that document, something that stood out for me is where it talks about the cost of the program. It talks about HRSDC and the Parliamentary Budget Office, that they calculated this at $1.1 billion.

That's contrary to what I understand. Our department has generated a number. It's somewhere in the neighbourhood of $4 billion. So I wonder whether that's a typo or some other report.

[Andrew Jackson]

I haven't had the opportunity to see the HRSDC study, but the Parliamentary Budget Office was given that study. My understanding is that HRSDC did one costing based on no impacts on behaviour of individuals. The Parliamentary Budget Office thought that HRSDC estimate was an accurate depiction of the costs, so there was no dispute between HRSDC and the Parliamentary Budget Office about a plain vanilla version of costing the proposal.

HRSDC then added onto the cost some assumed impact, saying there would be more unemployed workers if the entrance requirement were lowered. That's how you got the much bigger number.

I hope I'm not misleading people. I think HRSDC came up with two numbers: there was the $1.1 billion, and then there was a higher cost based on an assumed second-round impact.

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

You could certainly argue the reverse theory that you just mentioned.

Ms. Hughes, have you or has anyone in your party independently costed your proposal around the 360 hours?

[Carol Hughes, NDP, Algoma—Manitoulin—Kapuskasing, ON]

It was costed when it was first introduced. I can't give you the costing number now, but as my colleagues from the Canadian Labour Congress have mentioned throughout their speeches, and so have I, when you are looking at costing, the government of the day happens to know that when they projected their deficit, they projected a much lower one than was actually being projected by the Parliamentary Budget Officer.

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

Seriously, though, I'm not trying to be partisan or tricky here. Where did you quantify the proposal?

[Carol Hughes, NDP, Algoma—Manitoulin—Kapuskasing, ON]

Where did I quantify it? It was basically on the fact that people need access to employment insurance. So when you're looking at the numbers, you have to look at whether the benefit outweighs the expenses. The benefit would be that the economic stimulus is certainly much higher.

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

I think you're misunderstanding what I'm saying. I was just trying to see if there was a number that you put to your proposal, but fair enough.

[Carol Hughes, NDP, Algoma—Manitoulin—Kapuskasing, ON]

Just to add to that as well, when this was being drafted, it was actually based on a lot of statistics, and we've done a lot of work with the Canadian Labour Congress. They've given you their costing budgets and we've worked in conjunction with them on a number of occasions. I guess it's safe to say that their total--