Human Resources Committee on Nov. 19th, 2024

[Chad Collins, Liberal, Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON]

I agree.

Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

Thank you for being on time.

Thank you, Mr. Minister.

We're a little over the hour. We'll suspend while we transition to the last hour.

Thank you, Minister, for appearing before HUMA today on this issue.

We will suspend for three minutes.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

Committee members, welcome back to the second hour of this particular meeting.

As you are aware, pursuant to Standing Order 108(2) and the motion adopted by the committee on October 8, 2024, the committee is resuming its study of workers in the seasonal industry and the employment insurance program.

I would like to welcome Ms. Mandy Symonds back.

Ms. Symonds, thank you for being available again. We had issues with sound last time, but I'm told we're okay this time.

I also welcome Mrs. Tulk-Lane, who was unable to attend the last meeting.

Each of you will have five minutes for your opening statements. I will start with you, Mrs. Tulk-Lane, for five minutes. Then we'll go to you, Ms. Symonds.

Mrs. Tulk-Lane, you have the floor.

[Rhonda Tulk-Lane, Chief Executive Officer, Atlantic Chamber of Commerce]

Thank you so much.

Am I coming through loud and clear?

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

Yes.

[Rhonda Tulk-Lane]

Excellent.

This is my first time appearing before a committee, so I thank you. It's been interesting to watch the last hour.

I'm the CEO of the Atlantic Chamber of Commerce. For those of you who aren't familiar with provincial chambers, I represent Newfoundland and Labrador, Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. My job differs from grassroots chambers. I serve 90 chambers and boards of trade. It's interesting getting to work with all them. We have a reach of over 16,000 businesses within our membership across Atlantic Canada.

I'm not an expert on the employment insurance system. It's a complex system that's been around for a long time. What I do believe I'm an expert in or what I do know is that after working with small to medium-sized businesses over many, many years, they really can't take on any more financial increases. We know that one of our top three policy areas is securing good talent and labour. The employment insurance system is of great importance to the chamber network, the membership and the small businesses they serve.

We are not recommending that any blanket changes be made to the employment insurance system as it pertains to seasonal workers. We really believe that seasonal workers are a special case. They're so, so important to Atlantic Canada and many of our rural and remote areas. I think we really need to look at how we're supporting them, change the narrative and the story on seasonal workers, and find solutions that really help them.

I want to share with you a few other things we've been hearing from employers as it pertains to the EI system and what changes would be made for seasonal workers. As I stated, they're critically important. However, employers would not want to see any increases to premiums, especially the smaller businesses right now that are struggling to even stay alive. As I mentioned, finding that labour is critical. For us, seasonal employees are so important to these small businesses. We're talking fishing, farming and tourism in the Atlantic region. We really need to find a way to continue to link the employees with the employer and come up with some creative solutions on how we can do that.

Again, we need to make sure we're not making blanket changes to the system. We're looking at a small group of people here who are repeat users. We have to figure out what that looks like for seasonal workers and how we talk about their importance and what they mean to the economy.

I have also shared a number of different solutions and ideas that I hope the committee can take a look at as we, again, talk differently about this. I'd also like to offer our network of 90 chambers to be there as a support, as you continue this conversation, in terms of how we can help change this conversation and feed into it in whatever way possible.

Thank you so much. I'll open the floor for questions.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

Thank you, Ms. Tulk-Lane.

Before we go to questions, we'll hear from Ms. Symonds.

Ms. Symonds, you have the floor for up to five minutes.

[Mandy Symonds, President, Southern Nova Scotia Seasonal Workers Alliance]

Hi. My name is Mandy Symonds. I am president of the Southern Nova Scotia Seasonal Workers Alliance and I am a seasonal worker.

I am a single person and I try to run my home on my income as a seasonal worker. The life of a seasonal worker is very difficult. You're worrying about paying bills: Will you get enough hours and make enough money for when you are off work so that you will have decent employment insurance? How much work will there be this season?

Weather and other factors, such as the price at the wharf and the catches, help determine how much work there will be. I live in an area with high seasonal work. There is not much else for jobs. It is almost impossible to buy a home or a new car when the bank looks at your income and you're a seasonal worker.

The problem with employment insurance is that the divisor, or the best weeks, is way too high for someone making $15,000 a year. With 20 as the divisor into 50% of $15,000, that equals around $412.50. Then you have to take out income tax. You get a little over $300 a week. For 630 hours you get employment insurance for 17 weeks. If you qualify, you get an extra five, for a total of 22 weeks.

There is no guarantee when it comes how much work you will have during a season. There may be lots of work at one plant. Then again, you may have to work at two or more plants in order to get enough insurable hours for employment insurance.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

Did you conclude, Madame Symonds?

[Mandy Symonds]

Yes.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

Thank you.

We will begin the first round.

Before I do that, I want to welcome MP Van Popta to the committee.

We will begin with Ms. Gray for six minutes.

[Tracy Gray, Conservative, Kelowna—Lake Country, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to the witnesses for being here today.

My first questions are for the Atlantic Chamber of Commerce.

In March 2024, your organization called for the end of the Liberal carbon tax. Your organization reported that “Two-thirds of Atlantic Canadian businesses report experiencing negative consequences, with a majority indicating the impact of the carbon tax is extremely negative.”

How has the carbon tax impacted some of your seasonal employers, particularly those in sectors that are reliant on heavy fuel use?

[Rhonda Tulk-Lane]

Thank you, Ms. Gray.

I actually didn't prepare to speak to the carbon tax today. I was really focused on the seasonal workers, so if I can share information at a later date, I'd be pleased to do that.

[Tracy Gray, Conservative, Kelowna—Lake Country, BC]

Great. Thank you very much.

As part of that, in speaking with the members of your organization, those cost impacts really do impede their hiring ability. The reason this is relevant is that any time that a business has increased costs, it makes it more difficult for them to invest and, in particular, to hire more or to give more hours to workers.

Can you speak to that?

[Rhonda Tulk-Lane]

Definitely.

As I said, I'd want to reach out to the members to specifically ask and try to get evidence on this, as it's not something....

You're right. As I mentioned, really, any cost right now, even if it were a slight increase, as we talked about, as it affects premiums, anything that can be done for savings for small businesses is something right now. That's so important versus anything that is going to add a burden.

Again, when we talk about these small employers, and when we talk about an employee and the costs, some of them have 10 employees; it's not just that one employee. We're going to times that by 10, so it makes it that much more difficult at the end of the day when they're looking what they're bringing in, especially in tourism, I would say, or in restaurants.

These businesses that we're hearing from are struggling a little more than some others right now, when we talk about seasonal and tourism areas. I will definitely be able to dig into that again to compare it and to find out how they're doing when it comes to the carbon tax that we spoke out against.

[Tracy Gray, Conservative, Kelowna—Lake Country, BC]

Thank you very much for that.

We're talking about workers today. We're talking about seasonal workers. Any time that a business—in particular, a small business—has fewer resources, it makes it more difficult for them to expand or to hire more people. How businesses are doing is really relevant to this conversation.

We've seen reports from other organizations on how many small businesses are carrying more debt than they did before the pandemic, and they haven't been able to pay off debt. In fact, many businesses, especially those in the tourism industry, are not back at the same level of sales and revenue that they had prepandemic. In addition to having more debt, they're not able to pay off the debt, which means that they also can't spend any money on marketing or on hiring more people.

Can you speak to that?

[Rhonda Tulk-Lane]

Yes, I can, and I'd like to share on some of the comments you just made.

It also speaks to the bigger problem that we've been talking about with all the chambers across Canada, and it speaks to productivity. When a small business is worried about who's going to open the doors this morning, if a staff member didn't come in, or a labourer, then they can't focus on being more productive and implementing innovative solutions.

The other thing they're not able to even get to or able to talk about—which is something we're trying to educate them about—is how to scale up to export. If they can't even take care of keeping the doors open or if they're struggling with labour, then having these other conversations about becoming more productive and putting more investments into digitalization and innovation, and thinking about exporting are completely off the table.

You're right. These discussions around having employment insurance, finding good labour and making sure we don't disincentivize work for people are going to be critical in order to grow our small businesses and to help the ones that we have be able to scale up and to become more productive. It really is truly all tied together. Every penny counts when we're talking about these SMEs.

[Tracy Gray, Conservative, Kelowna—Lake Country, BC]

Thank you for that.

In talking about the tourism aspect with many of your members, we've seen how many people, many Canadians, are not able to travel as much and have summer vacations. Also, it maybe not even be from a tourism perspective. They may not be going to restaurants as often and may not have as much disposable income. Of course, we see record numbers going to food banks. We see how people are having a tough time affording basic necessities. Of course, when you're having a tough time with that, you're not able to go out with disposable income.

Can you speak to that, to how many of your members are seeing how the cost of living crisis is continuing to affect families, their businesses and their revenue?

[Rhonda Tulk-Lane]

For many, many years—and I will go back to the prepandemic period—we were talking a lot in the Atlantic region about extending the season and creating a shoulder season. Now, all you have to do is take a look at many of your restaurants and tourism operators. They're not even open—I don't know if you've noticed—on Mondays and Tuesdays. They're really just focused on Thursday, Friday and Saturday.

Again, this all comes back to being able to stay open, the cost of doing business and having the labour that you need. I think it's as simple as that. We're not seeing people with that extra little bit of money in their pocket. They're not even able to travel at home.

We talk about staycations. We're not even seeing that anymore. People aren't able to even do staycations, stay within Atlantic Canada or even travel within my own province of Newfoundland and Labrador. It's just too hard with the price of gas.

The businesses are suffering from people not being able to have any disposable income. They're definitely feeling it, and they're trying to be more innovative, but it's definitely a challenge.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

Thank you, Ms. Gray.

[Tracy Gray, Conservative, Kelowna—Lake Country, BC]

It's back to the carbon tax like we were talking about at the beginning.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

Thank you, Ms. Gray.

We'll go to Mr. Kusmierczyk for six minutes.

[Irek Kusmierczyk, Liberal, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I want to say thank you, Ms. Symonds, for coming here today to testify in front of committee and to bring forward your lived experience as a seasonal worker and the concerns of the Southern Nova Scotia Seasonal Workers Alliance. I think it's important that we focus today on hearing from workers, talk about seasonal workers and talk about employment insurance. It's important that we focus on that and that this remains the focus of our discussions here today.

I also want to take a second to thank my colleague Madame Chabot for bringing this important study forward, for spearheading it and bringing us here together. This is an important issue, so I want to say thank you to my colleague for bringing this important conversation to light.

Ms. Symonds, there are 350,000 seasonal workers across Canada. Many of them are concentrated in Quebec and the Atlantic provinces. I want to ask you a general question. What are the most pressing challenges that seasonal workers face regarding employment insurance?

[Mandy Symonds]

The most pressing challenge is the hours and the divisor. Our hours are 630. They don't go below that, and they will go to 700 off and on. It depends on the EI rate, which is posted every month. It's reviewed.

We don't make $25,000. I don't make $25,000 juggling working at two lobster plants. You don't work eight to five. I go in at 2:00 in the morning to one. At 8:00 I might drive a half an hour to another, trying so hard to make sure that I get enough hours to make my EI last.

To get max EI, I need to make around $26,000 dollars. Max EI is a dream; it's not reality. People who make $26,000 and above get more money. The person who really needs the money will get less. It's no fault of their own. Because of the weather or different things, you don't get work every day. It's frustrating. It's hard to explain, but it's just difficult.

On the hours, the divisor, they call it the “best weeks”. Ours is 20, and we're getting 55% of our earnings divided by 20. That's a high divisor. The people who get less money like me really need it to run my their homes. I'm not ever going to get max no matter how hard I try.

I'm a volunteer advocate for seasonal workers, and I'm in with groups from New Brunswick, Quebec and across Canada. We do Zoom meetings and stuff and compare notes about what's going on, and we just keep fighting and keep hoping that someday this reform that was promised years ago, which I was in on the consultations for, isn't a pipe dream and becomes a reality.

Thank you.

[Irek Kusmierczyk, Liberal, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

Ms. Symonds, I so appreciate your testimony. I think you're doing a fantastic job of giving us an insight into what seasonal workers experience. Would you mind just talking a little bit about what an average day for you looks like as a seasonal worker, what industry you work in, and maybe just give us a sense of what a week could look like in your world?