Mr. Speaker, I rise today on Bill C-218, an Act to amend the Unemployment Insurance Act. I wish to indicate my approval of the bill introduced by the hon. member for Saint-Hubert.
The bill seeks to correct an injustice made against almost a million Canadians and Quebecers, of whom two-thirds are women.
Yes, one million Canadians, most of them women, that the government does not trust and considers as UI abusers because they are not dealing at arm's length with their employer, who is either a brother, a son, a daughter or a spouse. This is unacceptable in a country where citizens are presumed to be honest.
I remind the House that until 1989, any woman employed by her spouse could not draw unemployment insurance benefits. That in itself is shocking and appalling. Indeed, who would accept such a discriminatory clause nowadays? Yet, women had to unite in a long and vigilant fight to bring that discrimination to an end.
After a challenge under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, the section of the act excluding from entitlement to benefits any woman working for her spouse was ruled invalid and discriminatory by the Supreme Court of Canada in March 1989. This ruling finally gave fair treatment to these women who work in family businesses and granted them the well-deserved right to unemployment insurance benefits.
However, this victory was short-lived. In October 1990, the then government found a way to get around the 1989 ruling, by including, in the definition of excepted employment, employment where the employer and employee are not dealing with each other at arm's length. By excluding from benefits not only women, but everyone not dealing at arm's length with their employer, legally, the law no longer seemed discriminatory.
It is possible that some employees working for their spouses defraud unemployment insurance just as it is possible for an employer and an employee who are perfect strangers to cheat the system. The penalties in the law are explicit and severe enough to cover all fraudulent claims.
Losing a job is in itself a stressful event that can weaken one's self-esteem. We, on this side of the House, do not think that most people choose unemployment as a way of life. Nor do we believe that the unemployed in Canada are lazy people drinking beer in front of the television, as the prime minister unfortunately said. But that such a suspicion be covered in the act is unacceptable to the 1 million Canadians who are unemployed, including 650,000 women.
What is shocking here, and that I want to denounce, is the burden of proof which lies with the unemployed individuals from the very first stage of their benefits claim. These individuals must prove to Revenue Canada, Taxation that their work contract was meeting all the requirements of a position that anyone else could have held. No other category of claimants is required to produce such proof.
But what is more shocking and adds to my determination to support the deletion of section 3(2)(c) is the fact that the amendment adopted October 22, 1990, only slightly softened the blatant discrimination present in the former Unemployment Insurance Act. The existing legislation is targeting an easily identifiable group and results mainly in the systematic exclusion of women employed by their spouse.
Are these women entitled to UI? Yes, said the Tax Court of Canada in 1989. Since then, these women have been contributing to the system. But by a clever trick, the 1990 UI reform managed to include anyone not at arm's length with the employer.
When these women lose their job, it is often because their spouse's business is going down the drain. It is then that these women need UI benefits. Instead they have to prove to officials of Revenue Canada, Taxation that their job is justified, therefore insurable.
Then begins a long inquiry process that can last several months, even a year, during which the slightest doubt leads to an exclusion because the process does not tend to confirm eligibility but rather to prove abuse.
Once more, the Canadian government shows that it does not focus on the real problems and that the services most needed by people are still subject to a cumbersome bureaucracy.
I believe it would be improper to assume that a woman taking an active part in the operations of her husband's business would try to abuse the unemployment insurance system. Yet, if she worked for a competitor, she would not be subject to such misconceptions. Bill C-218 precisely aims to put an end to such an unfair situation.
This discriminatory clause of the act is detrimental to all women from a human and social point of view because it denies them the right to their fair share and a fair treatment.
Therefore I ask the government to repeal paragraph 3(2)(c) of the Unemployment Insurance Act. I urge the government to get rid of the vicious and discriminatory measure by which the previous government deprived one million Canadians and Quebecers, mostly women, of their right to unemployment insurance at a time when they need it most.