Status of Women Committee on Feb. 26th, 2009

[Anita Neville, Liberal, Winnipeg South Centre, MB]

I'll pass.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Thank you.

Just one quick thing. Could we break for two minutes to get your meal and come back and work while you're eating? How about that?

[Candice Bergen, Conservative, Portage—Lisgar, MB]

Chair, I'm wondering how the rest of the committee feels if we only begin our future business at 12:30. I'm a little concerned we might not get it all done by one o'clock. Was that the plan we were going to begin then?

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Yes.

[Candice Bergen, Conservative, Portage—Lisgar, MB]

How do we feel? Do we think we can get it done in half an hour?

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

It will be up to you, because what you will then do is not be able to get your full number of people questioned in the second round.

[Candice Bergen, Conservative, Portage—Lisgar, MB]

That's if we don't go the full time.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Yes, that's the trade-off. We just have to be focused and do our private members business in half an hour. We should be able to do that.

Let's get the food.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

We will resume.

We will allow you to chew while you speak, as long your soup doesn't get cold.

We are resuming questions.

Madam Boucher.

[Sylvie Boucher, Conservative, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

Good morning, Mr. Shillington. It is very interesting to have you here. I was a little frustrated earlier. I have a lot of compassion for women, but because I am useless at mathematics I have a little difficulty understanding when we are talking about ratios and all that. Because figures don't do the job for me, I am going to stick to something I understand.

We want to help Canadians as much as possible. Everyone knows that we are in an economic recession, and no one really knows what is going to happen. Everyday we have good news and bad news; in fact, it is generally bad. I am a fairly positive woman, I am a single mother of two teenagers. When I was a child, I didn't need much, because my parents were well off, but as an adult I hit rock bottom. I was one of those women living below the poverty line. I had $7,000 a year to live on. I know where I have been and I know where I want to go.

We have implemented the Canada Skills and Transition Strategy, which increases the funding available to the provinces for training. It is up to them to decide how they will spend those funds, however. Can you talk to us about self-employed workers? In my riding, there are a lot of self-employed people who work at home. They are a varied group, like the needs and the areas they work in. We want self-employed workers to have access to employment insurance. I think it's a good measure because they have not had access up to now. It is better to take small steps than to sit and twiddle our thumbs.

Our government is going to establish a group of experts who will consult Canadians about the best way to give self-employed workers access to maternity and parental leave benefits.

You are very familiar with the figures and you have worked a lot in this field. Can you tell us how the government should consult this group of experts so that we can help women in particular?

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Mr. Shillington, you have two minutes to respond.

[Richard Shillington]

From what I've read of that proposal, the way I read the proposal is that the contributions to a separate EI fund for the self-employed would be only for maternity and parental benefits. I think providing regular unemployment benefits to the self-employed would be fraught with problems.

I understand that the contributions were going to be voluntary, and I can't see how that would work. Economists have the term “moral hazard”--you know, you could see older men saying no. With Quebec's plan, everybody pays in, as I emphasized.

Within the limits of the Constitution, I think you can do very much what Quebec has done. Because you're going to include the self-employed, your contributions can't come through payroll deductions because the self-employed tend not to participate in that. The contributions come through the income tax system, very much like the way we fund CPP.

I would basically look to Quebec, and to the extent that you can, copy what they've done.

Does that help at all?

[Sylvie Boucher, Conservative, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

It's a good idea.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Madam Boucher, you have 15 seconds.

[Sylvie Boucher, Conservative, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

More specifically, I would like to know how the committee could help our government to help women in particular. If we meet with the groups of experts, are there provinces other than Quebec where there is a similar contribution paid?

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

I'm sorry. I would like to remind members that your time of five minutes includes questions and answers.

Madame Boucher, actually there is no opportunity for Mr. Shillington to answer the question you just asked him, which was well put. You have gone over your five minutes.

[Sylvie Boucher, Conservative, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

Okay. I'm sorry.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Perhaps Mr. Shillington can get creative and use the opportunity in another question to answer it.

Madame Deschamps.

[Johanne Deschamps, Bloc, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

I am going to speak in French. I have only five minutes, so I will try to be fairly brief.

The fat was trimmed from employment insurance in the 1990s. Do you think this scheme is out of date, outmoded, and not suited to the reality of the kinds of jobs we have now? Ten or 15 years ago, when you had a job, you had job security. Now, the face of work is changing and it is also changing from region to region. We are increasingly seeing people with seasonal jobs, part-time jobs, casual jobs, contract work and self-employment. Unfortunately, it is often women who are stuck in those kinds of jobs, particularly because they are single-parent heads of household. They don't really have a choice. And the scheme is not really suited to those circumstances.

Can the reduction in employer and employee contributions help to stimulate the economy? Is it enough to extend the benefit period by five weeks? Actually, that measure will not increase the number of people who can receive benefits. Yesterday, an economist made much of the need to extend access to the scheme to stimulate the economy, in the current crisis. In concrete terms, what could be done quickly to help people get access to employment insurance benefits?

[Richard Shillington]

The first answer is that certainly self-employment is an increasing share of the economy, so the exclusion of the self-employed is a problem. Then again, I'm not sure how we could cover the self-employed for regular benefits. For maternity and parental caregiving, yes, but for regular benefits, I think that would be a problem.

More and more people are having two or three jobs. Imagine someone who has one job that's paid employment--they're an employee--and another job that's self-employment. They're mixing the two. Then they get laid off from the paid employment job. Well, I would assume that they're not eligible for the EI benefits because of their self-employment; they could be available, but they'd be clawed back.

So we have people living complex lives. I think the system is out of joint with that.

I've said what I would do to change it. I think I'm being realistic about the chance of this happening soon. I would revisit the two big changes, the big change of going from weeks to hours, which had exactly the opposite effect of what we were told in 1996 the effect would be, and the total, complete exclusion of voluntary quits from the system, rather than simply a small penalty as existed previously.

I would do both of those things. However, I'm not fooling myself that it would happen quickly.

[Johanne Deschamps, Bloc, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

In my opinion, because of the way the fund is managed at present, it is a disguised tax levied from workers and employers. The government does not contribute a penny to it. As well, eligibility for employment insurance benefits is being further restricted and funds reserved for training or the Consolidated Revenue Fund are being diverted. I find it somewhat improper for the employment insurance fund to be used in that way. Risk coverage is proposed so that people have access to insurance if they lose their jobs. But the scheme has been so distorted that at present people are not able to use it. We are paying what I call a disguised tax, which is used for other things.

[Richard Shillington]

I agree totally. The most unfair example that comes to mind is university students and high school students who pay into this fund for their summer employment, who have virtually no chance of collecting EI benefits.

They may pay more into EI than they pay income tax. It's one of the first lessons in life; you are forced by law to pay into a fund knowing you have virtually no chance of receiving the benefit from it because you're going back to school. What's the purpose of this? I don't understand it at all.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Ms. Mathyssen.

[Irene Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

Madam Chair, the 2009 federal budget proposes to freeze EI employee premiums at $1.73 per $100 of insurable earnings for 2009 and 2010. Have you given any thought to the impact of this measure? Would there be a differential with regard to the impact between men and women?

[Richard Shillington]

No, I haven't given it any thought. I don't think there would be a differential impact between men and women. I assume men are more likely to be over the maximum insurable earnings.

It is surprising they're freezing the premiums at this time. I guess that means they're planning on going into a deficit in the fund, since the cumulative surplus is gone. Or they think the fund won't need more money in the next couple of years. I'm not sure why you would freeze it. What's the point of freezing it at this point?

I agree with the earlier comment, that basically the fund has drifted so far from unemployment insurance for people who are unemployed to maternity, parental, caregiving, all these other benefits and then training on top of that. In a better world, I think training would be funded out of a progressive tax system rather than out of a regressive payroll tax. I've already said that.