Human Resources Committee on Nov. 29th, 2018

[Kerry Diotte]

They won't be heard from then.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bryan May]

I'm afraid I have to rule it out of order.

Thank you.

[Kerry Diotte]

They won't be heard from.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bryan May]

I'm afraid I have to.

It's not an issue of choice. It's an issue of the rules of the committee.

[Kerry Diotte]

We could make an exception.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bryan May]

The rules of the committee are stated.

[Kerry Diotte]

You could make an exception if you really wanted to for these people.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bryan May]

The rules of the committee are stated.

If you wanted to do this properly, it should have been submitted 48 hours ago. You would have been able to do that. We also had a committee business meeting on Tuesday that this could have been done at.

If you wish to carry on, we've stopped your timing at five minutes and 54 seconds left.

[Kerry Diotte]

I'm disappointed obviously, but let's go on with this.

Ms. Wilcox, it's quite a long list of what seem to be accomplishments that you put forth. I know that you had talked about how people with episodic disabilities, in particular, women with episodic disabilities, were less likely to be working and more likely to have low incomes than men with episodic disabilities. That's pretty alarming.

I know that in February the government came in with a budget that is seen through a feminist lens, gender-based budgeting. Do you see anything in that gender-based budget that will address the fact that women with episodic disabilities will be more likely to have lower incomes than men with episodic disabilities?

[Krista Wilcox]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, for the opportunity to respond to this question. It's a very important question.

I would say in general with people with disabilities, certainly episodic disabilities as well, we do find that women are more impacted by unemployment, by lower incomes, across the board, across age groups, so this is an issue that's not unique to people with episodic disabilities, but it's certainly an important one across the disability community.

In the budget as part of the accessible Canada package of supports to support the legislation, we did have an investment of $18 million in the opportunities fund. As I spoke about in my remarks, that is going to help with some of the issues that this committee talked about earlier this morning around getting employers who are disability confident and are going to be able to help provide the supports that are needed for people with disabilities, in particular women with disabilities, to remain in the labour force and to get into the labour force to get the skills that they need.

That's an important piece, that ability to have accommodations, to have employers understand what people with disabilities need and to have a supportive work environment for people with disabilities to be able to gain, keep and stay employed in the long term.

[Kerry Diotte]

You do list a lot of the various programs that are available. One of the ones that sticks out is that you talk about the employment insurance sickness benefit available to eligible claimants who are unable to work due to injury or illness. The benefit provides up to 15 weeks of partial income replacement to allow workers time to restore their health, so they can return to work.

As we know, the biggest thing about episodic diseases is the fact that it's never really restored. You are back and forth. That's the thing we certainly heard from witnesses in the previous panel. What in all of this that you're talking about would help somebody who has an episodic disease?

For instance, if they have to take the odd day off a couple times a month perhaps because of, I don't know, it could be migraines, it could be their complications with MS, etc., how would they access EI?

[Krista Wilcox]

I will turn to my colleague Andrew Brown to talk about EI. Then perhaps Gertrude could talk a little bit about what we're doing in the federal labour code as well.

[Andrew Brown, Director General, Employment Insurance Policy, Skills and Employment, Department of Employment and Social Development]

Thanks, Krista.

With respect to the EI program and a person with an episodic condition who is in the workforce, the benefit is not tailored specifically to those people. It is of general availability to workers who are dealing with an illness or an inability to work temporarily. There are those 15 weeks of benefits they're able to access.

There were changes announced this year in the budget and implemented in August of this year to allow workers receiving sickness benefits to access what we call the working while on claim provisions. These deal with how we treat the earnings of a worker if they're receiving EI benefits.

We heard in our conversations with stakeholders that some people who are dealing with an illness would like to make a progressive return to work, but with the old provisions—when they were not able to access “working while on claim”—if they attempted to do so and earned perhaps $250 in a week, just to give an example, we were reducing their EI benefits by that same $250. With the changed provisions, we now reduce their EI benefits by only 50 cents on the dollar. They would have $250 in employment income, and we would reduce the benefit by $125. In a sense, it's trying to reduce the disincentive for those who are able to make a progressive return to work.

I'd say that is a concrete step that has been made to try to assist people who are dealing with any kind of illness or injury, and it might also be helpful for people with an episodic illness.

[Kerry Diotte]

Of course, with an episodic illness, they would almost have to be constantly on claim, and I'm sure that would run out in short order.

[Andrew Brown]

The way it could work in that particular situation is that when somebody opens an EI claim, typically it would be open for a 52-week period. If the only thing they're claiming during that time is the sickness benefit—it gets very complicated if there are multiple types of claims—they can claim those 15 weeks over that 52-week or one-year period. They have flexibility in terms of the weeks during which they may claim those benefits, but they must take them in units of one week.

In order to open a new employment insurance claim after that, they would have to have worked a total of 600 hours.

[Kerry Diotte]

Then although there's some flexibility, with episodic individuals it certainly has to be much more flexible.

Is there any way we can improve it very quickly? Obviously, we have many people who are in this situation. We heard from this panel earlier that many people are very employable and are working, but from time to time they can't come into work and they're being punished unfairly for it. Is there anything that any one of you could suggest today that would accommodate their conditions more?

[The Chair, Liberal, Bryan May]

Make it a very brief answer, please.

[Gertrude Zagler, Director, Workplace Equity, Labour Program, Department of Employment and Social Development]

Certainly, under the Employment Equity Act and our working with our federally regulated private sector, we do a lot of work around positive policies and practices, and encourage employers to look at the breadth of issues within their workplace and how to deal with those. I know my colleagues who are working on the Canada Labour Code also are bringing in more flexibility within the workplace. There will be increased awareness building around all of those different pieces as we move forward into the next year.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bryan May]

Thank you.

MP Morrissey, please.

[Bobby Morrissey, Liberal, Egmont, PE]

Thank you, Chair.

I want to follow up on MP Vaughan's earlier questions in relation to the EI system. My question is to Mr. Brown.

The changes that our government made related to illness and working on claim are a significant improvement. Am I correct that in the past, for every dollar earned, a dollar was taken from the EI benefits?

[Andrew Brown]

That's correct. That's how it worked previously.

[Bobby Morrissey, Liberal, Egmont, PE]

What were the budget implications of that change? You must have had an assessment on what that change would have cost to fund.

[Andrew Brown]

I don't have that figure available immediately. I can tell you what the scope would be, in terms of the number of people who were affected. I'd have to get back to you on the dollar figure.

It's about 60,000 Canadians annually who were doing some work while receiving EI benefits. If you look at that 60,000, that's compared to the 379,000 sickness claims that we are receiving annually at the moment.

[Bobby Morrissey, Liberal, Egmont, PE]

You don't have the dollar impact on the EI fund.

[Andrew Brown]

I don't have that one available right now.