Human Resources Committee on March 9th, 2021

[The Chair, Liberal, Sean Casey]

I call this meeting to order. Welcome to meeting number 20 of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities.

Today's meeting is taking place in a hybrid format pursuant to the House order of January 25, 2021. The proceedings will be made available via the House of Commons website. The webcast will always show the person speaking rather than the entirety of the committee.

Pursuant to Standing Order 108(2) and the motion adopted by the committee on Wednesday, October 28, 2020, the committee will resume its study of the review of the employment insurance program.

I would like to welcome our witnesses to begin our discussion, with five minutes of opening remarks followed by questions. From the Associated Designers of Canada, we have Kenneth MacKenzie, president, and from the Canadian Labour Congress, we have Hassan Yussuff, president, and Chris Roberts, director, social and economic policy.

For the benefit of our witnesses, I would like to make a few additional comments. Interpretation in this video conference will work very much like it does in a regular committee meeting. You have the choice at the bottom of your screen of “floor”, “English” or “French”.

When speaking, please speak slowly and clearly. When you are not speaking, your mike should be on mute.

We're going to start with Mr. MacKenzie.

Welcome to the committee. You have the floor for five minutes.

[Kenneth MacKenzie, President, Associated Designers of Canada]

Hello. Thank you so much for having me here today. Thank you also for the ongoing commitment from all of the parties in providing support for so many individuals through the course of this challenging past year.

My name is Ken MacKenzie. I’m the president of the Associated Designers of Canada and of IATSE local ADC659.

We represent live performance designers in the field of set, costume, lighting, sound and video design across Canada outside of Quebec. We've also been a part of the Creative Industries Coalition alongside our colleagues at Canadian Actors' Equity Association, the Canadian Federation of Musicians and IATSE, the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees. This coalition represents upwards of 50,000 arts workers from coast to coast. We've worked shoulder to shoulder with members of this Parliament to mitigate some of the short-term financial devastation of the COVID-19 pandemic on arts sector workers.

As we look to the future and consider how we rebuild into a more resilient sector and how, as gig workers and self-employed artists, we might be able to make ourselves less vulnerable in situations of economic and social disruption, one of the suggestions we offer is a re-examination of the employment insurance program in Canada. As it stands, the overwhelming majority of live performance designers are self-employed contractors and currently employment insurance offers self-employed workers the ability to opt in only to a partial system. Participants can contribute to EI special benefits, maternity, parental, sickness, compassionate care, but are unable to contribute to and therefore are ineligible for EI regular benefits.

Not allowing self-employed workers to participate fully in the EI program puts gig workers at a disadvantage. As gig and self-employed workers become a larger part of the workforce, the EI program must evolve to accommodate them so that they can contribute to and receive the full benefits available to traditional employees through EI regular benefits.

Live performance designers, like many other gig workers, are contracted in unique ways that may not align with the existing EI structure, but which will have to be accommodated for. The existing fisher benefits provide a useful model that could be adapted and expanded to suit the sector. Many gig workers are not contracted on an hourly or weekly basis, but are paid a flat fee per contract, regardless of the length of the contract. These contracts include defined residency periods when the worker is obligated to the employer, so the calculation of EI eligibility should be established based on contract residency duration. The rate of EI benefits should be established based on eligible earnings within a prescribed period or cumulative contract periods.

Designers, like many contract workers, are often contracted months or even years in advance. This does not mean that they begin work immediately and may still encounter significant gaps in employment between contracts. A revised EI system must allow for workers to be eligible for benefits during these gaps in employment, even if they have future work. Equally, workers should not be penalized for small gaps in between contract residencies but which are not sufficient to be unemployment. Arts workers, like fishers, should be eligible to receive up to 26 weeks of EI benefits per period of unemployment.

All self-employed workers are currently responsible to pay both employee and employer CPP contributions and if a revised EI program requires workers to make both the full employee and employer EI contributions, it will be financially debilitating, especially for arts workers who already live so close to the bone and are centred in the more expensive major urban areas across the country. EI premiums must be equitable and affordable. EI reforms should consider contributions from the contractor and the contractee that run parallel to the employee and employer contributions that are standard.

More than ever, the pandemic has underscored the importance of the arts in people's lives. Movies, television series, music are where people have turned to for comfort and laughter and escape. Canadians need the arts and we've been there for Canadians.

I thank all of you for responding so quickly to keep our sector and others alive through the support of the wage subsidy, the CERB and now the CRB. I urge the Canadian government to continue to support arts workers now and to help us to create the resilience that our all-too-vulnerable self-employed arts sector needs in the future.

Merci. Thank you very much for your time.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sean Casey]

Thank you very much, Mr. MacKenzie.

Next we're going to hear from—

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

Mr. Chair, I have a point of order.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sean Casey]

Yes.

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

Are we able to discuss the committee business following the first panel, as you and I discussed earlier today?

[The Chair, Liberal, Sean Casey]

It's in the hands of the committee. I guess we can deal with this now.

Colleagues, we have a request basically to alter the agenda to deal with committee business up front as opposed to at the end of the witness testimony. If people want to use the “raise hand” function, we can deal with this now.

I recognize Madam Chabot.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I will be brief.

I object to this change to our work. We have invited four panels of witnesses for the study. Out of respect for those panels, I feel we need to maintain what was established and continue our committee work at the scheduled time of 5:30 p.m.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sean Casey]

Thank you, Ms. Chabot.

Ms. Gazan, please.

[Leah Gazan, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Chair, I as well oppose the change in schedule. It certainly doesn't respect people who are appearing today as witnesses. I have other things to do at the end. I have a colleague coming in for the third hour today, which I've arranged with the clerk, for the committee business.

That doesn't work for me at all. I do not support that.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sean Casey]

Mr. Vaughan.

[Adam Vaughan, Liberal, Spadina—Fort York, ON]

I agree with my two colleagues. I think we have a schedule, and we have guests here who have made time in their day. They didn't appear here to watch us debate committee timetables. They've come here to ask us to act on some critical issues affecting the people they represent. Out of respect to the witnesses and out of respect to Ms. Chabot, who has been waiting patiently to get this study going, I think we have a responsibility to follow the process we have already agreed to.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sean Casey]

Thank you, Mr. Vaughan.

Ms. Dancho.

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

Mr. Chair, after our subcommittee meeting, I reflected on Ms. Gazan's comments that she was worried about three-hour meetings taking a toll on the staff and that having a three-hour meeting today and Thursday may go against what she, Mr. Vaughan and the Bloc member agreed to at the subcommittee meeting. I will point out as well that the subcommittee report does not, in fact, reflect the schedule that we've been presented with.

To conclude, the Conservative members are supportive of this schedule. My aim in this is to say we're on board with this schedule. Let's not spend an entire hour after committee. That was the aim.

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

Point of order.

[Han Dong, Liberal, Don Valley North, ON]

Point of order.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sean Casey]

Mr. Long.

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

I want to be clear. Aren't in camera meetings confidential? I think the member is talking about what happened at an in camera meeting. I don't think that's allowed, is it?

[The Chair, Liberal, Sean Casey]

You're right. The subcommittee was in camera, and it isn't appropriate to discuss that in public. When we get to that stage of the agenda, the report will be made public, but at this point, it's still in camera. That's a fair point.

Mr. Dong.

[Han Dong, Liberal, Don Valley North, ON]

I had the same point of order.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sean Casey]

Okay.

Ms. Dancho.

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

If committee members want two three-hour meetings this week, if that's the will of the committee, it seems to stand in stark contrast to what we discussed, but I guess I can't talk about that.

All right. We'll continue.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sean Casey]

Very well.

Thank you for your patience, Mr. Yussuff.

Welcome to the committee. It's good to see you again. You have the floor for five minutes.

[Hassan Yussuff, President, Canadian Labour Congress]

Thank you, Mr. Chair and committee members, for the opportunity to present on behalf of the Canadian Labour Congress.

First, I want to start by thanking the government for providing emergency income support to workers in need during the pandemic. Nearly three million jobs were lost in March and April 2020.

The unprecedented scale of job loss has simply overwhelmed the EI system, but it wasn't just in its administrative capacity. The EI program has been so eroded that a great number of low-paid, female, racialized and non-standard workers would have been left behind. These are the workers hardest hit by the economic shock of the pandemic.

These workers will also benefit from Bill C-24 and the extension of EI and recovery benefits proposed by the government. The CLC fully supports rapid passage of this legislation that is before the House.

Going forward, we must address the long-standing weakness in the EI system.

The most important task is to expand access and increase benefit levels. In the late 1980s, 85% of the unemployed qualified for unemployment insurance benefits. After regressive policy change in the 1990s, about 40% of unemployed workers are eligible for EI. Eligibility restrictions especially hurt workers in part-time and non-standard work arrangements, such as women, youth and racialized workers.

In such places as Vancouver and the GTA, just one in five unemployed receives benefits at any given time. Going forward, we must construct an EI program that includes rather than excludes the unemployed workers. This is why the CLC is calling for a single, national entrance requirement, equal to the lesser of 360 hours or 12 weeks.

EI's low benefit rates and low ceiling on insurable earnings also excludes workers. For workers earning above the average, the effective replacement rate is far lower than 55%. Applying for EI benefits may seem hardly worth the trouble. For low-paid workers, the EI replacement rate is simply too low. Fifty-five per cent of very low earnings is just not enough to live on.

The CLC is calling for a livable maximum individual benefit and an increase in the benefit rate and ceiling on insurable earnings.

The government can make other immediate changes to improve EI.

First, the government should extend the maximum duration of EI sickness benefits, and the government is committed to doing this.

Second, it should also end the allocation of separation money. Suspending this practice during the pandemic has led to administrative efficiency and fewer appeals and was the right thing to do. The government should also make this change permanent.

Third, it should also address the unfairness of having migrant workers pay EI contributions without a realistic chance of receiving benefits. This could take the form of restoring the ability of migrant workers to access parental benefits, for example. This would not be too costly a reform.

Fourth, the government should reinstate regional EI liaison agents, as this committee recommended in 2016. During the pandemic, auto plants and meat-packing facilities have temporarily shut down in response to the outbreak. EI liaison officers would have made establishing new claims far more efficient.

Fifth, the skills boost initiative, which lets unemployed workers use their EI benefit while getting training, should be opened up and expanded. In an unemployment crisis such as the present one, more jobless workers should be able to enrol full time in an educational program without losing their benefits.

Sixth, the government should allow fully for a commitment to bring back the tripartite appeal system and make it accountable to the EI commissioner, as it once was.

I want to conclude with some final comments.

The current government has committed to combatting precariousness and improving job quality. An important step towards reducing inequality and job market precarity is to expand access to EI benefits and make them more adequate.

Extending the maximum duration of benefits will improve the quality of job matches. Improving access to EI and increasing benefit levels will also encourage employers to improve job quality.

Starting in 1993, jobless workers who voluntarily left employment without just cause or who were dismissed for misconduct were totally disqualified from EI benefits. This penalty is unfair, counterproductive and unnecessarily harsh. It should be reversed.

I want to thank the committee for the opportunity to present. I'll take any questions from the committee members.

Thank you so much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sean Casey]

Thank you, Mr. Yussuff.

We're going to begin now with rounds of questions, starting with the Conservatives.

We'll start with Ms. Dancho, please, for six minutes.