Human Resources Committee on Nov. 26th, 2024

[Kyle Seeback, Conservative, Dufferin—Caledon, ON]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Laliberté, I heard your opening statement and your talking about the different zones that exist with respect to EI. I had the opportunity to be out in Newfoundland and Labrador in the early fall. While I was there, I had some time to meet with FFAW and its president, Dwan Street. One of the issues that came up with the fishers out there is exactly these zones that exist.

You could have two people working on a fishing boat. One person is only going to require a certain number of hours in order to be eligible for EI, and someone on the same boat who lives in a different part of Newfoundland and Labrador will have a different hourly requirement. For that industry, there's an inherent unfairness in two people working on the same fishing vessel having different requirements for eligibility for EI.

I'm wondering if you understand the rationale for that and if you've questioned the government about the impact this has had on fishers, particularly on the east coast.

[Pierre Laliberté]

This dates back to the seventies, when the program was redesigned with the notion that this being a big country, of course the situation is not the same all over and, in a sense, the generosity of the benefits should mirror the state of local labour markets. This is an eminently imprecise science when you try to draw boundaries. We use census data and census divisions to do that, but it's always extremely awkward and unsatisfactory.

There are two issues here. One is access, and the other is the quality of the benefit once you have access to it. I think the case for making access the same all across Canada is just overwhelming. It shouldn't matter whether you're in Calgary, Toronto or Yellowknife: If you lose your job and you have 420 hours, say, you should qualify for EI.

Perhaps the benefit can depend on the local labour market conditions, but at least when it comes to access, it should be the same. That would take care of at least half of the problem that FFAW members were referring to.

We can have a philosophical discussion about whether we should have the same old duration for the entire country or not. I think there are good arguments on both sides, but again, on access, it would simplify the life of everyone—including the administration of the program, incidentally—to have someone start with the same yard stick.

I don't know if that answers your question, but...

[Kyle Seeback, Conservative, Dufferin—Caledon, ON]

It helps. Thank you.

Are you aware of the particular circumstance in Newfoundland and Labrador right now with the fact that the snow crab market's down almost 70%? Fish harvesters are in real jeopardy of not getting the required income to get benefits.

If you are aware of it.... I know I am, because I've been out talking to these folks. I'm not sure if the government's aware of it, because it doesn't seem like there's much action on this. Have you raised this issue at all in your capacity with the government to suggest that something might need to be done to help our fish harvesters on the east coast?

[Pierre Laliberté]

Well, on the issue of access, absolutely. In fact, you can be sure that I was one of the first people who was made aware of the problem when it took place. It's our task, it's our duty to relay this to the government as diligently as we can.

The nature of the problem that hit the industry, being the way it is.... I mean, EI is just a poor kind of policy—an incomplete policy response; let's put it that way. It should be part of the response. What we got out of this was the pilot project in 2022. That did not really do the job, certainly, when it came to addressing this.

[Kyle Seeback, Conservative, Dufferin—Caledon, ON]

I hate to do this. I'm going to interrupt, because I'm going to run out of time here shortly.

You say you were aware of this and you made the government aware of it. Can you provide to the committee a document or memo showing how you made the government aware of this? Could you provide the committee a copy of that memo so that we could have it as part of our committee report on this?

[Pierre Laliberté]

I'll be pleased to do that. I need to check, because sometimes I do convey stuff verbally. You'll—

[Kyle Seeback, Conservative, Dufferin—Caledon, ON]

But if you did put it in writing, you'll send it in to us.

[Pierre Laliberté]

Indeed. If that happened, I will make sure I send it to you.

[Kyle Seeback, Conservative, Dufferin—Caledon, ON]

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

Thank you, Mr. Seeback.

Mr. Cormier, you have the floor for six minutes.

[Serge Cormier, Liberal, Acadie—Bathurst, NB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

My questions are for you, Mr. Laliberté.

As you know, we have to review the boundaries of the so-called employment insurance economic regions every five years.

As commissioner, do you take part in this review by making recommendations?

[Pierre Laliberté]

Thank you for your question.

The answer is yes, because the Employment Insurance Commission is in charge of conducting the review every five years. The act clearly prescribes that.

Since 2000, however, our recommendations have not been taken up by the government. You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink.

We were closely involved in the analysis done by the department, which does the professional and technical work. The good news is that the configuration of most of the regions still makes sense. The bad—

[Serge Cormier, Liberal, Acadie—Bathurst, NB]

That was my next question. I don't mean to cut you off, but I have limited time. We could talk about this all day together.

The members of some of the groups you met live in my region, the riding of Acadie—Bathurst, and others live in eastern Quebec.

The changes proposed by some groups would consist in dividing these regions into several smaller ones. For example, in my region, some groups want to create a small region that would represent only the Acadian peninsula.

What do you think of proposals like that? Could it be realistic to change the employment insurance eligibility criteria that people living in such small regions have to meet? Could that put some regions at a disadvantage?

If we divide a region into several small regions, what are the neighbours on each side going to think? How do we ensure fair and equitable access for the other regions of Canada?

Do you think it's feasible to create such small regions and get representative data on the unemployment rate in those regions?

[Pierre Laliberté]

It's certainly not an easy exercise. For the Restigouche-Albert region, the one you're referring to, we did propose a few amendments.

As we know, the Moncton region has grown since 2000. Basically, the people who live in that part of the Restigouche-Albert region are connected to the job market in the Moncton region. The reality there is different from that of northern New Brunswick.

There would be a way to adjust that. Obviously, you're right in that having too many small regions is a bad idea. The previous government started that by creating one region for Charlottetown and another for the rest of Prince Edward Island. That created a precedent that could be used to delineate small regions.

[Serge Cormier, Liberal, Acadie—Bathurst, NB]

The fact remains that we would have to verify the population of the Prince Edward Island regions, but that will be for another day.

We often focus a lot on the boundaries of the regions, but, as you said earlier, we also have to take into account the much-vaunted calculation method used to establish the unemployment rate. I think it's dividing the number of unemployed by the number of employed, and then multiplying it by 100.

Let's take the example of the labour force in my region. I can tell you that it has changed a lot in the last 10 to 15 years. It includes many more seniors and retirees, which necessarily skews the unemployment rate in that region, as it may in other regions of Canada.

I agree that the boundaries of the regions should be reviewed. However, do you think we should also review the method for calculating the unemployment rate, which may no longer reflect reality in some economic regions of Canada? Have you ever thought about reviewing the method?

[Pierre Laliberté]

We certainly raised the issue in our discussions with the department, because you rightly point out that the unemployment rate is not a reliable indicator of the reality. As you say, it could be due to regional devitalization.

Also, you're absolutely right about the data. If a region's labour force has declined, that also contributes to lowering the unemployment rate.

It's good to raise the issue of other indicators, but they still need to be tested. I'm thinking, for example, of modified unemployment rates that would take into account the number of people who are no longer in the labour force. I won't go into the details, but we really need to test the indicators and see to what extent Statistics Canada could provide reliable data.

[Serge Cormier, Liberal, Acadie—Bathurst, NB]

Since I have only 30 seconds left, I'll ask you my last question quickly.

In Canada, 13 economic regions have been identified where seasonal industries and jobs are heavily dominant. Do you think other regions should be added to that number?

[Pierre Laliberté]

In my opinion, some should be added rather than removed. The northern regions are the best example of regions that should be added. There are a lot of isolated communities there. Even if the unemployment rate is 5%, it is impossible to travel from one village to another. That's just the reality.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

Thank you, Mr. Cormier.

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

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'd like to thank the witnesses for being here, including you, Mr. Laliberté.

I think that, as the commissioner for workers and the commissioner for employment insurance, you've been able to clearly identify the problems raised by seasonal workers for a long time now.

As you said, the labour market situation has changed, and our employment insurance system isn't meeting the needs of seasonal workers.

In the motion I moved, I made sure to specify that our study was on seasonal workers. Some permanent industries hire seasonal workers—that's another reality—but seasonal workers usually work for industries that don't operate year-round, but that need these workers, who contribute to the economy.

How can we support workers who don't work year-round by allowing them, through the employment insurance system, to avoid long periods called the EI black hole?

In Nova Scotia, lobster traps were put in the water this morning. Two weeks ago, we heard another fine testimony from Mandy Symonds, who works at the lobster-processing plant. She was explaining to us that this sector accounts for 90% of the economy in southern Nova Scotia.

Among the solutions being considered is a standard requirement of 420 hours of employment to qualify for EI. There is also frequent talk of increasing the number of weeks used to determine the benefit level to 35, and using the best 12 weeks for calculation purposes.

Can you provide us with more details on these solutions and tell us whether they seem to be winning solutions, if we want to keep these kinds of jobs?

[Pierre Laliberté]

Thank you for your question, Ms. Chabot.

The main issue right now, quite simply, is access.

People are having trouble qualifying. This morning, some groups told me that we're creating a situation where workers in these sectors are getting increasingly older, and young people, who find themselves without income during the off-season, are moving to other regions and moving on to something else. This phenomenon devitalizes the regions, as well as seasonal industries, which have to fall back on certain solutions, such as the use of temporary foreign workers. So we've created a vicious circle, which is very harmful. If everyone could have access to EI after 420 hours of work, that would be a good start.

Seasonal workers generally work about 16 weeks. For that reason, the 35 weeks of benefits have often been mentioned by the groups concerned by these issues, to enable people to get through this period. Many regions of Canada don't have a lot of alternate jobs in the off-season. That's the situation.

Is changing the schedule for all claimants the way to go, or do we need a targeted approach for workers in seasonal industries in regions where the problem is more severe?

In fact, it depends on the approach we want to adopt, meaning a universal approach or a targeted approach. The fact remains that the 35 weeks of benefits are important in these cases. Unfortunately, the current pilot project provides only five weeks of benefits, and that's problematic. If the pilot project allowed for additional weeks of benefits up to a maximum of 35 weeks, that would already be a very targeted solution that would help people. In other words, if someone is entitled to 26 weeks of benefits, for example, we could add nine additional weeks of benefits, but no more, given our 35-week cap.

There's also the issue of the best weeks. Seasonal workers, who work for 14 or 15 weeks, now have 22-week divisors imposed on them. As a result, they see their total gain divided by 22, and then multiplied by 0.55. We can see that the weeks not worked represent zero hours. This means that their benefits are easily reduced by a quarter, if not a third. Obviously, this doesn't help them. It would therefore be a good idea to set the number of best weeks at 14 for everyone.

I'll add one last thing. We tried—

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

Thank you, Mr. Laliberté and Ms. Chabot.

Madame Zarrillo, you have six minutes.

[Bonita Zarrillo, NDP, Port Moody—Coquitlam, BC]

Thank you, Chair.

I thank the witnesses for being here today.

My first question is for Witness Melvin, and it has to do with the acute seasonal need. You raised the acute seasonal need.

I'm interested in your knowledge and thoughts on the EI divisor as it relates to acute seasonal workers, how that workforce has changed demographically over time, how technology has changed and what the unique training needs are for this specific class of acute seasonal workers. Furthermore, how has climate change affected the acute seasonal worker, and even the timing of the season?

[Allan Melvin]

Sure. Thank you for the question.

I may bring in Mr. Berrigan for some of this.

Approximately half of our workforce in Canadian agriculture is seasonally employed. Approximately 70,000 of those are temporary foreign workers, that is, from overseas or other countries. We do have an ongoing shortage. We fill some of that with the temporary foreign worker program and the seasonal agricultural worker program, but there continues to remain a gap. We have organizations like the Canadian Agricultural Human Resource Council that are researching this and trying to come up with solutions on to fill that gap. Some of that is training, broadening the scope of what's allowed to be provided as training under what I think is called the part II EI program. Mr. Berrigan can speak to that, but it's basically broadening the scope of those opportunities to allow folks to remain in the industry and upscale themselves while they're outside the regular work season.

I'll turn it over to Mr. Berrigan quickly.

[Brodie Berrigan, Senior Director, Government Relations and Farm Policy, Canadian Federation of Agriculture]

Thanks, Allan, and thank you for the question.

There were a number of parts to that question, so I'll try to touch on each one quickly.

I would echo the point that Allan made about our reliance on the temporary foreign worker program within the agriculture sector. The reality is that in agriculture we are faced with ongoing and structural shortages year over year. It's just not going away. We really rely on that program to fill a critical gap. We've seen that really supported, I would say—