Thank you, Madam Chair.
I'm pleased to be here in front of the committee again on behalf of the 3.2 million members of the Canadian Labour Congress, workers in virtually every occupation in communities all across this country.
The CLC has long supported the provision of special benefits—maternity/parental/adoption benefits, sickness, and compassionate care—through the employment insurance program. Those benefits now make up an important part of the Canadian income security system. Maternity and parental benefits allow working parents, especially women, to better balance the demands of work and family care, helping equalize labour market outcomes between women and men while also contributing in a central way to the well-being of very young children. Sickness benefits provide an important income cushion to cover an involuntary absence from work of up to 15 weeks.
The CLC welcomed a major expansion of maternity and parental benefits in 2001, when parental benefits were increased from 10 to 35 weeks, bringing the total leave period up to one year, counting the two-week waiting period. Given the fact that a significant and rising proportion of all labour force participants, not least women, are self-employed, and that the trend to self-employment may continue, it's important that self-employed workers be given access to many of the same protections and rights provided to employees where this is feasible and appropriate. We believe that it is both fair and feasible to provide access to maternity and parental benefits comparable to those of employees.
We strongly support the principle of extending maternity and parental benefits to self-employed workers, but this must be done in a manner that is consistent with the basic principles of a social insurance program. A basic principle of social insurance is that participation is mandatory, so that costs are pooled across the workforce. The labour movement welcomed the introduction of the Quebec Parental Insurance Plan in 2006 as a progressive step forward that greatly improved access to, and the level of, maternity parental benefits for all Quebec workers, and also extended these benefits to the self-employed. In our view, Bill C-56 falls well short of the Quebec model. It does not improve access to or the level of maternity/parental benefits for employees, and it extends coverage to self-employed workers in a different and inferior way. Under the Quebec plan, all self-employed workers must pay into the program. Coverage is mandatory, as it is for employees, and the premiums paid by the self-employed in Quebec are set in such a way as to cover the full cost of the benefits provided to the self-employed. By contrast, Bill C-56 will allow self-employed workers to choose if they wish to be covered by opting out or in and paying premiums for one year before claiming a benefit. Further, the premium, set to equal the employee premium, will not, and is not, designed to cover the cost of benefits.
Our major concern is that providing special benefits to the self-employed in this way will prove costly, and could well result in a significant increase in premiums for employees and employers to cross-subsidize benefits paid to the self-employed. This could in turn undermine broad support for EI special benefits, especially given that EI premiums are likely to rise very rapidly after 2010.
Having said all this, we recommend that Bill C-56 be passed, but that the government immediately appoint the panel of experts promised in the 2009 budget. The panel should be mandated to design a program of maternity/parental benefits for self-employed workers based on social insurance principles, with close reference to the successful example of the Quebec plan. With reference to the broad issue of providing special benefits to the self-employed, we have noted on many occasions that many supposedly self-employed workers are, in legal reality, employees who deserve the protections of employee status, including EI coverage. As noted, the Quebec plan not only extended coverage to the self-employed, it also improved maternity/parental benefits for employees. The CLC supports lowering the entrance requirement from 600 to—guess what—360 hours, and benefits should be paid out on the basis of 60% of insured earnings over the best previous 12 weeks.
Changes also need to be made to the program to ensure that the receipt of maternity and parental benefits does not reduce or eliminate regular El benefit entitlements, as happens now if a layoff occurs after a return from parental leave, and vice versa, when a worker is laid off prior to parental leave.
Thank you, and I look forward to your questions.