Human Resources Committee on Feb. 1st, 2012

[Dick Harris, Conservative, Cariboo—Prince George, BC]

Well, I'm not going to try to explain the rationale from back in 1959 when this provision was put into the bill. It certainly doesn't coincide with my thinking and the thinking of most Canadians I've talked to about this bill. I think it's an unfairness in the system and I want to fix it.

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Komarnicki]

All right. We'll move now to Mr. Cuzner, for five minutes.

[Rodger Cuzner, Liberal, Cape Breton—Canso, NS]

Thanks very much, and thanks, Dick, for being here today and making your presentation.

I'd just like to make a clarification for Mr. Butt, though. They're not collecting a benefit. The whole purpose of the bill is to address just that departure from the program. So, yes, you have to be available for work. They're not filling out those cards saying they're available for work while they're incarcerated. The bill pushes at going after the exemption for being out of the program for two years. It's somewhat different.

When I read the bill I was surprised, too, with the way that provision was in the EI. I never had to go through it with a constituent, but I share the opinion of Ms. Crowder on this that it is a right. We know that incarceration is about recourse and retribution, but also most Canadians believe it's about reform and rehabilitation. And we're not really looking at hard-core criminals for this period of time. Yes, some made a mistake. For some, it's a crime of passion, some people are being stupid, or whatever it might be...and some people have mental illnesses. We know that the prison system is loaded with people with mental illnesses and what have you.

I don't disagree with you. It's frustrating when you're sitting down with a constituent who has been denied a benefit, and you say, “It doesn't make any sense that this person, who is just trying to get by, is denied this benefit.” But I think the responsibility then becomes: let's work to try to fix that aspect of the EI system, as opposed to just throwing in something else. Now if this doesn't work, if this doesn't yield what it is supposed to yield, then we can look at changing this. But just because you think one aspect isn't fair, I don't know if it's right to look at changing another aspect.

I'm a little disappointed that we don't know the scope of how many people this impacts and the costs, and I'm just wondering if the researchers might be able to provide us with that or....

[André Léonard, Committee Researcher]

We don't have the data.

[Rodger Cuzner, Liberal, Cape Breton—Canso, NS]

You don't have it, either? Okay. I think we should try to identify that.

Getting back to Jean's question as well, we've seen C-10 and—although, Mr. Harris, you don't agree with it—we've seen the provinces of Ontario, Quebec, and Nova Scotia, for sure, say quite clearly that they're concerned about the capital costs and the ongoing costs of additional incarceration with C-10. This will have an impact, no doubt, on persons coming out of prison, because these people are coming out and they have no job to go to. More often than not, I would think, these people are going to end up on a provincial social service.

Are you aware of any information out there? If you haven't pursued it, are you aware of any information like that out there? And I'm surprised the John Howard Society and Elizabeth Fry haven't contacted you, as a matter of fact. I'm surprised at that.

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Komarnicki]

For the information of the committee, they will be appearing as witnesses in the next session.

[Dick Harris, Conservative, Cariboo—Prince George, BC]

Well, I think rehabilitation starts for someone when they first go into prison. They have the opportunity to upgrade their skills, their learning. That's all available to them. Like I said, there's some $400 million in support services that are provided across the country for people who come out of prison. You want to hope that they're all taking advantage of it.

In talking about the program itself and asking why we aren't fixing something else, I believe the minister and her department are always scrutinizing the act. That's what the department's officials do. They scrutinize the act to try to make it work even better and more efficiently for Canadians who may need to take advantage of it because of circumstances beyond their control. That's what insurance is all about.

And yes, they are entitled to it within the regulations and the way the act is written. I mean, we could talk about all the sides of the act, but that's not the issue.

The issue is very concise. Again, it's about someone who's convicted of a crime and goes to jail for a short period of time. Just because of that, they're receiving, under a provision in the act, the right to apply for an extension to the qualifying or benefit periods, a right that is not available to someone who has lived a law-abiding life, who doesn't commit a crime, who doesn't go to jail, who works hard, and who for some reason finds themselves in a position where they need to apply for EI. Because they haven't qualified for whatever circumstance of voluntary...they can't apply for the extension.

What I'm saying is that it isn't that side of the regulations that's at fault. It's the unfairness to law-abiding Canadians because of a preferential treatment to a convicted felon. That's what I'm saying.

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Komarnicki]

Thank you, Mr. Harris.

Thank you, Mr. Cuzner. You're certainly out of time.

Mr. McColeman, did you have some questions?

[Phil McColeman, Conservative, Brant, ON]

I do.

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Komarnicki]

Go ahead.

[Phil McColeman, Conservative, Brant, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

First of all, Mr. Harris, I really want to commend you on the work it takes to get here, to this point, in terms of your private member's bill, in seeing what you perceived I believe to be somewhat of an injustice, exposing it, getting the feedback from people in your riding and across the country, and then bringing it here to this point. Congratulations on that.

Your last words were the words that I had written down to use, and to ask you about, sir, and they are the words “preferential treatment”. I think you've just used them, so I don't really need your verification of them. But what we're talking about here is preferential treatment for certain categories of individuals within the context of the current legislation. Is that accurate?

[Dick Harris, Conservative, Cariboo—Prince George, BC]

Yes.

[Phil McColeman, Conservative, Brant, ON]

My esteemed colleague across the way was just talking about rehabilitation and trying to make the link between the rehabilitation and the rehabilitative effects of this provision of preferential treatment. Do you, in your mind, see any connection there, or does rehabilitation have something to do with having a longer time to be eligible for EI?

[Dick Harris, Conservative, Cariboo—Prince George, BC]

Well, there's no evidence that can be brought forward to suggest that for someone who comes out of jail and is able to still collect EI it's going to have a huge impact on their life. A multitude of other support services are available when they come out. There are support services that are available while they're incarcerated whereby they can upgrade their education skills. They can take a number of different types of skills upgrading. That prepares them far better to find a job when they come out than when they went in, perhaps, and to keep that job.

We go back to the phrase “preferential treatment”. It is a preferred position that's available to prisoners, and that is not available to regular folk who obey the law.

[Phil McColeman, Conservative, Brant, ON]

I think that's really clear, and I think it's clear to everyone around the table, or at least it should be. Call it what it is: it's preferential treatment because of the category that has been defined, the category of incarcerated individuals, within the current legislation.

Now, the linkage I'd like to ask you about is to victims. I'm dealing in my riding with some situations where victims are coming into my office and mentioning how the courts have treated the criminals with light sentences, or much lighter than they think they should be, and in some cases no sentences.

Would you agree that most people who make that conscious decision, as you have said, to commit a crime in most cases leave some victim along the way? It might not even be individuals; it might just be society that's the victim. Would you say that most of the criminal activity that goes on does leave victims in the wake of that activity?

[Dick Harris, Conservative, Cariboo—Prince George, BC]

That's an extension of what we're talking about. I guess it's not directly about the bill, but certainly you're right that there is a victim left behind every time there's a crime committed.

[Phil McColeman, Conservative, Brant, ON]

Here's the connection I want to make. I'm putting myself in the position of being the criminal, perhaps, and also looking on the side of being the victim. In this case, the victim all of a sudden might be an individual who has been law-abiding but has been victimized and doesn't have the preferential treatment and can't get EI. How do you feel as the victim, whilst the criminal, the person who perpetrated this, is incarcerated and gets this extension? I'm outraged by that thought.

[Dick Harris, Conservative, Cariboo—Prince George, BC]

Yes. You can draw lots of comparisons on this side to the treatment that a convicted felon gets and say, “How can you deny this person when you extend it to a felon?” There's probably a whole litany of examples you can use. To every single one of them your only response is that it's not fair.

I mean, how can you have the category that makes you eligible for an extension, “incapable of work because of a prescribed illness, injury, quarantine or pregnancy”—which no one would disagree on—right next to “confined in a jail, penitentiary or other similar institution”? It just doesn't mix. It doesn't mix in sane thinking.

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Komarnicki]

Thank you, Mr. Harris, and thank you, Mr. McColeman.

I think Ms. Crowder has a short question.

Go ahead. We'll conclude with that.

[Jean Crowder, NDP, Nanaimo—Cowichan, BC]

When Monsieur Patry raised the issue around the fact that it could actually include people who are in prison or jail for unpaid fines, you indicated that wouldn't be the case. Actually, there are a number of cases in Regina. In one of them, a woman was jailed for unpaid parking tickets. This was a 31-year-old mother of four. When she was jailed for the parking ticket, she was employed. At that time her husband had to give up his job to help care for the children while she was in jail.

Apparently there have been other instances in Regina where people were jailed for unpaid parking fines. I would hardly think.... And she was a student when she accumulated those parking fines. Sometimes students are in situations where parking fines may not be their highest priority when they're attempting to pay their tuition and living expenses.

I guess the reason I'm raising that, Mr. Harris, is that I think there needs to be some caution around branding everybody who ends up in this kind of a position as somehow being a complete criminal. This young woman acknowledges that she owed those parking fines and that she was remiss in not paying them. She had been attempting to pay them down, but they were still outstanding and she was thrown in jail.

I just wonder if you'd like to comment on those kinds of situations.

[Dick Harris, Conservative, Cariboo—Prince George, BC]

First of all, I would never refer to someone who maybe was spending some jail time because they didn't pay parking tickets, or did a little speeding that they shouldn't have, as a hardened criminal. I mean, it's ridiculous to say something like that.

I'm surprised, given our justice system, that people are thrown in jail for not paying parking tickets or fines. It can't be a common occurrence. Even if they were, I can't see a sentence being any more than a couple of weeks, or a month, or two months at the most. I mean, there would be an outrage in the country if someone were thrown in jail for six months for not paying tickets.

But if they were in jail even for two months, they would still have ten months of qualifying period. I'm sure within that time, if they were working steadily, they would have more than qualified to get their EI benefits when they came out of prison.

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Komarnicki]

Thank you, Mr. Harris.

We've come to the end of this portion of our panel.

We will suspend for ten minutes.

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Komarnicki]

We can have our members take their seats. We'll start the second panel.

We have two witnesses before us: Gregory Thomas, federal and Ontario director of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, and Sharon Rosenfeldt, president of Victims of Violence. They will be sharing some of their thoughts and comments with us in their opening statements. Following that, we'll have some questions from each of the members of the various parties represented here.

Who is going first? You're pointing to each other.

Ms. Rosenfeldt, go ahead.

[Sharon Rosenfeldt, President, Victims of Violence]

Good afternoon.

I wish to thank the committee for the opportunity to give my views, as a Canadian and on behalf of the organization Victims of Violence, pertaining to Bill C-316, An Act to amend the Employment Insurance Act, referring to incarceration.

We believe this bill is clearly adopting measures to ensure that the employment insurance program is delivered effectively and fairly in a way that is most beneficial to Canadians. Bill C-316 addresses something that is fundamentally unfair; namely, that convicted criminals currently have preferential access to employment insurance benefits over law-abiding citizens.

Currently when individuals apply for employment insurance, they are evaluated as to whether they have worked enough hours in the qualifying period to receive benefits. The standard qualifying period is 52 weeks. The qualifying period can only be extended under four circumstances under the act and can only be extended to a maximum of 104 weeks.

The first extension for being incapable of work is because of “prescribed illness, injury, quarantine or pregnancy”. The second extension applies if one receives some assistance under employment benefits, such as a plan from one's previous employer. The third extension relates to receiving payments under a provincial law on the basis of having ceased to work because continuing to work could result in danger to an unborn child or a child whom a woman might be breastfeeding. The fourth extension is that of being “confined in a jail, penitentiary or...similar institution”.

It is the fourth provision of extension that the government is seeking to amend, because it relates to circumstances under the control of the individual. Sections 8 and 10 of the Employment Insurance Act currently allow for prisoners to receive the same level of opportunity as hard-working Canadians who are in need of employment insurance.

I am sure there are many cases and examples of how a hard-working individual could benefit from an extension of 104 weeks. In my line of work, working with victims of crime, we see it on a regular basis. As you know, victimization happens suddenly and without warning. A victim is thrust into a situation of great despair and most often has the criminal justice system to deal with, such as police, statements, prosecutors, courts, etc. It is an area that has not received the attention it deserves when it comes to employment insurance.

We do understand that the government cannot be the answer to everyone's needs and that there must be limitations. However, we also understand that the Ministry of Human Resources and Skills Development is currently looking at providing some help for victims of crime in the future in relation to employment insurance.

My question to the members of Parliament who oppose this bill is this: which is more fair, an innocent family who had their loved one murdered and cannot work because of the trauma, the innocent victim of rape who cannot return to work because of fear and trauma—which is no fault of their own—or a person who knowingly commits a crime and then is not only protected but rewarded with an extension to receive the same level of opportunity as the individuals I described in the previous three circumstances? We think not.

In these fragile economic times, governments should be working hard to make sure they are investing in the priorities of Canadians and ensuring their hard-earned tax dollars are put to good use. This government must reassure Canadians about the integrity of the Ministry of Human Resources and Skills Development. The integrity of the ministry is important to all Canadians. This government should take the steps necessary to ensure it is protected.

In closing, we feel that Canada has one of the most successful systems of employment insurance. However, in these exceptional cases that this private member's bill points out, the ministry should act swiftly to take corrective measures. Thus, we are appearing here today in support of Bill C-316.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Komarnicki]

Thank you very much for that presentation. We'll have questions a little later on.

At this time, we'll ask Mr. Thomas to make his presentation.

Go ahead.