Human Resources Committee on Feb. 18th, 2021

[Andrew Brown]

Indeed that's correct. Normally—

[Raquel Dancho, Conservative, Kildonan—St. Paul, MB]

I'm sorry. If I may ask, are you considering changing legislation to that seven-year balance? That's my first question.

My second one, my last one, is this: Are you considering changing the increase of only 5¢ maximum, maybe to 10¢ or 15¢? Are you modelling that seven years and the yearly maximum increase?

[Andrew Brown]

I can certainly say we're taking a look at what the impact would be in terms of the premium rate. In terms of changes to rate-setting policy, that's something the government would need to bring forward legislation to change the parameters on, because right now there is a 5¢ legislated limit in terms of the change from year to year.

[Raquel Dancho, Conservative, Kildonan—St. Paul, MB]

It is something that you're obviously looking at, considering the pressure that we're seeing this year and, as you said, next year as well.

[Andrew Brown]

Certainly whenever we take a look at a policy change, we're looking as well at what the impact would be on EI premiums.

[Raquel Dancho, Conservative, Kildonan—St. Paul, MB]

Thank you, Mr. Brown. Thank you Mr. Long.

Mr. Chair, I believe that's all the time I have.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sean Casey]

You are correct. Thank you for recognizing that.

Mr. Long, please, you have six minutes.

[Wayne Long, Liberal, Saint John—Rothesay, NB]

Thank you, Chair, and good afternoon to my colleagues.

Thank you to Mr. Long—I like that last name—for your presentation to us this afternoon.

I'll state the obvious. EI benefits are there to catch people who lose work through no fault of their own. They're there to support Canadians, and I think all of us have seen first-hand and are so thankful for the EI program. Millions of Canadians needed that program through this pandemic. I wonder where we would be as a country without that program.

Mr. Long, I do have some questions for you. In 2017-18 EI sickness benefits provided $1.7 billion in support to 412,000 claimants. The average duration of sickness benefits was 10 weeks. However, 36% of claimants exhausted EI benefits before they were able to return to work. One of the government's commitments is to increase EI sickness benefits from 15 to 26 weeks.

Can you please explain for the committee as to how many people would benefit as a result of expanding the duration of this benefit?

[Benoît Long]

Thank you, Mr. Long.

I'll pass the question over to our policy colleague as well.

[Wayne Long, Liberal, Saint John—Rothesay, NB]

Sure, no problem.

[Andrew Brown]

Thanks for the question, Mr. Long.

As you pointed out, the EI sickness benefit right now provides support, I would say, to just over 400,000 people annually, with about 35% or 36% of them making use of all 15 weeks of the benefits that are available. The relatively simple math there is that perhaps 120,000 people might benefit from that extension from 15 weeks to 26 weeks.

It's important to recognize that whenever we make adjustments to the EI sickness benefit, there are other things that are attached to that. There are some employers who provide different kinds of top-ups to sickness benefits. There are also employers who take part in what's called the premium reduction program. This is something that provides them and employees with a reduction on EI premiums in exchange for the fact that they have sickness plans that meet certain standards.

If it were extended, we might also provide some additional support to that group as well. We'd have to do some more detailed modelling to get you a more precise figure.

[Wayne Long, Liberal, Saint John—Rothesay, NB]

Thanks for that.

To anyone who wants to take this, do you have any additional improvements you recommend we could make to bridge the gap between EI sickness and long-term disability, such as the CPP disability? We are asked that a lot in the office.

[Andrew Brown]

That's another great question. It is also a challenging one, I would say, in that the two programs have.... While it's true that one seems to be more short term and one longer term, they really do have different objectives.

In the case of EI, it is providing some temporary income support for people who are expected to return to work, in fact even to their own job, versus Canada pension plan disability, which is focused on people with a severe and prolonged disability of some kind, essentially, people who are not expected to be able to work again.

I guess what I would say in the short term is that the extension of EI sickness benefits is something that would go quite some way to addressing that gap, but I think it would be important to study and understand that group in the middle, if you will, and help them to provide—

[Wayne Long, Liberal, Saint John—Rothesay, NB]

There are many in the middle, and that's one of the issues, certainly, that we face here.

I want to switch over to the caregiver benefit.

In opening comments, the EI family caregiver benefit was discussed, which our government introduced in the previous Parliament, and how it provides support to eligible workers who need to take time off work to provide care or support for an adult or child who is critically ill or injured.

Can you share with the committee what impact this benefit has had on families, including what the take-up has been?

[Andrew Brown]

I will have to look to see if I have those figures in terms of take-up of the new caregiving benefits.

I would say, first, that these were changes that were brought about at the end of 2017 to create a new family caregiver benefit for adults and for children. This was to lower the bar in terms of—how might I describe it—the condition that the person is in when someone is able to provide care to them and receive caregiving benefits. Prior to that, we had only the compassionate care benefit, and that was for someone—and is still today—at end of life. If somebody has received a medical certificate where the doctor indicates a significant risk of death within 26 weeks, that's the end-of-life care.

Critical illness has a lower bar and allows people to apply to provide care to someone, perhaps after a severe car accident, something that would leave them in a critical illness or injury situation but not necessarily about to die. More people have been taking up the caregiving benefits since then. I would have to get back to you on the specific figures.

[Wayne Long, Liberal, Saint John—Rothesay, NB]

Thank you, Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sean Casey]

Thank you, Mr. Long and Mr. Brown.

Ms. Chabot, you have the floor for six minutes.

[Louise Chabot, Bloc, Thérèse-De Blainville, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

My thanks as well to the witnesses for being with us.

First of all, I am very pleased that we are undertaking this important study on employment insurance reform.

The Bloc Québécois has long advocated for reforms to our employment insurance program. In its current state, the system is not up to the task. It has not been completely overhauled in 15 years. At best, it covers about 40% of workers.

We were able to see the cracks in the program during the pandemic crisis: almost 9 million workers became unemployed overnight. The program could not keep up with the task, so a suite of emergency measures had to be introduced, such as the Canada emergency response benefit, or CERB, and three new benefits.

It seems essential to us that the program be completely reformed in all its aspects: eligibility criteria and periods, benefit rates, and so on. All these considerations must be dealt with together.

Recently, the minister was given a mandate to review and modernize the program to adapt it to 21st-century realities. Our study will therefore be undertaken as part of that mandate. Many groups have expressed an interest in coming forward to share their views on reform.

Mr. Brown, given the minister's mandate and the questions I had the opportunity to ask her here in committee, what exactly are you working on as part of the effort to reform the program?

[Andrew Brown]

Thank you for the question, Ms. Chabot.

Obviously, we have a lot of work to do. We're looking at everything we feel is important to workers across the country.

You mentioned that only 40% of workers are eligible for EI benefits. So it's important that we review the program's accessibility policies.

In the Speech from the Throne, the government pointed out that we need to think not only about those who earn a salary, but also people with different types of jobs, such as the self-employed and gig economy workers. We want to design a program that meets the needs of all Canadians.

[Louise Chabot, Bloc, Thérèse-De Blainville, QC]

Am I to understand that work and studies are under way to look into all of these issues? Are you working more specifically on any of them?

[Andrew Brown]

We're looking at what can be done for the future. However, since the pandemic is still in full sway, we remain focused on income support programs for workers. We hope that, in the fall or next year, we will be able to move forward with further measures to reform the employment insurance program.

[Louise Chabot, Bloc, Thérèse-De Blainville, QC]

My time is almost up, so I'll end with a comment. We all know that all the temporary measures that have been put in place will end on September 26. By the end of March, some claimants will already have exhausted the 26-week benefit period.

Reforms to the program need to be addressed now so that a new program, not the current one, is in place by the end of September.

[Andrew Brown]

You are right. We know that the end of March and the end of September are very important milestones in our strategy for the future and to support the government.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sean Casey]

Thank you, Ms. Chabot.

Next is Ms. Gazan, please, for six minutes.

[Leah Gazan, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Thank you, Chair.

My question can be answered by Mr. Brown, certainly, and Mr. Long. It might be a shared answer.

We know that the pandemic has caused financial turmoil for many people. Many people, for example, are experiencing being unsheltered for the first time. We're in a crisis.

A report came out through Senator Pate's office, which indicated, “The PBO estimated that providing a [guaranteed livable income] would cost $76 billion for a typical year. In the extraordinary circumstances of increased unemployment associated with COVID-19, providing the same form of [guaranteed livable income] for six months could cost $47.5 billion.” We know—and economists have certainly demonstrated—that the actual costs would be much lower due to cost savings over time. We know there are higher front-end costs, but we know there are savings over time.

Considering the ongoing issues with EI and the confusion caused through COVID-19, is your department considering moving towards more permanent guaranteed livable income programs in light of the fact that it looks like the pandemic is going to go on and rates of unemployment are increasing?