Debates of Dec. 6th, 1994

Canadian Environmental Assessment Act

[Don Boudria, Liberal, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I think you would find consent to apply the vote taken on report stage Motion No. 1 of Bill C-51 in reverse to the motion now before the House.

[The Deputy Speaker]

Is there unanimous consent?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

(The House divided on the motion, which was agreed to on the following division:)

[The Deputy Speaker]

I declare the motion carried.

It being 6.30 p.m. the House will now proceed to the consideration of Private Members' Business.

The House proceeded to the consideration of Bill C-216, an act to amend the Unemployment Insurance Act (jury service), as reported (without amendment) from the committee.

Unemployment Insurance Act

[Alfonso Gagliano, Liberal, Secretary of State (Parliamentary Affairs) and Deputy Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. Hon. members will note on the Order Paper that the recommendation from His Excellency the Governor General has been provided for this bill in order to permit the House to consider its final passage without conflicting with either Standing Order 79(1) or section 54 of the Constitution.

The government is pleased to have this opportunity to take the unusual step of obtaining a recommendation for a private member's initiative, which is entirely within the spirit and the letter of our program of parliamentary reform.

I must caution the House however that this individual case has been examined by the government carefully and it is only because Bill C-216 fits with the existing fiscal framework that the government has been able to take this opportunity.

The House should not consider this case as a precedent. It is highly unlikely that there will be many cases that lend themselves to this kind of accommodation. In order to maintain strict control over expenditure the government will insist on the strict enforcement of this order and in the other place of the constitutional principle that no expenditure may be voted by a parliamentary motion or bill without the explicit recommendation to this House by His Excellency.

[Guy Arseneault, Liberal, Restigouche—Chaleur, NB]

moved that the bill be concurred in.

Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[Some hon. members]

No.

[The Deputy Speaker]

All those in favour of the motion will please say yea.

[Some hon. members]

Yea.

[The Deputy Speaker]

All those opposed will please say nay.

[Some hon. members]

Nay.

Editor's Note: See list under Division No. 130.]

[Guy Arseneault, Liberal, Restigouche—Chaleur, NB]

moved that the bill be read the third time and passed.

Mr. Speaker it gives me pleasure to rise tonight to speak on third reading of this private member's bill.

I would like to commence by thanking all my colleagues from all parties who have supported me. It has been a four-year battle. It started four years ago in December and we are in December again looking at third reading.

I thank my hon. colleagues on this historic occasion. I am looking for their support at third reading. We hope to conclude third reading this evening.

I have the honour and the pleasure to rise in this House to speak on a private member's bill which I sponsored to amend the Unemployment Insurance Act.

As you know, section 14 of this act prevents unemployed people who have to do jury duty from collecting UI benefits.

I have spoken on this issue for the last four years. I could go on. Other members have spoken on the issue. I think we should put it to rest this evening. I will now rest my case to my colleagues and would ask for their unanimous consent to pass the bill at third reading.

[The Deputy Speaker]

Is there unanimous consent to pass this bill on third reading?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[Michel Bellehumeur, Bloc, Berthier—Montcalm, QC]

Is this a continuation of the debate, Mr. Speaker?

[The Deputy Speaker]

I thought we were ready to adopt this bill. Is there some misunderstanding with the member who wishes to rise on a point of order?

[Michel Bellehumeur, Bloc, Berthier—Montcalm, QC]

There was an amendment by the Reform Party, but it is not up to me to raise this point of order.

[The Deputy Speaker]

It seems the hon. member for Berthier-Montcalm has the right to make his speech.

[Michel Bellehumeur, Bloc, Berthier—Montcalm, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I prepared a few notes because in any case, I was going to support the hon. member on this bill as the Bloc Quebecois did when the hon. member for Mercier spoke to this bill. At the time, we agreed with the hon. member's initiative regarding this legislation. I think there was an oversight. Earlier we had comments from the government.

I think these comments are in line with our own support for the hon. member's bill, in other words, I believe that at the present time, we are penalizing people who would be able to perform a duty that is extremely important in our judicial system, and I am referring to jury duty. A person on unemployment insurance was either penalized, in other words, did his jury duty but was not entitled to receive unemployment insurance benefits, or the judges, considering this particular situation, rejected such people for jury duty.

However, thanks to the hon. member's amendment, and he is to be commended for making this proposal, the situation will be rectified.

I believe that in previous debates, we stressed the usefulness of jury members in our judicial system, and I should add that the jury system is a provincial matter, in other words, the province has jurisdiction over the administration of justice at this level.

I believe that as legislators, in the House, we have helped accelerate and simplify procedures and assist those responsible for the administration of justice. I think that Bill C-216 is entirely in line with this attempt at simplification and helping people fulfil their jury duties.

Finally, Mr. Speaker, I would like to mention something that happened in the judicial district of Joliette, in connection with the selection of jury members. In a murder case, after seeing about 300 to 400 potential jurors, the lawyers had rejected practically everyone, so that the sheriff finally rented a bus and had the bus stop in various streets in the municipality of Joliette, pick up anyone who looked like they were of age and take them by bus to the court house to be selected as jurors.

My point is that people do not exactly go out of their way to do jury duty, and I think that if we can simplify things and help people, if there are people on unemployment insurance who could do jury duty, I think we should let them, and Bill C-216 is a step in the right direction.

[Some hon. members]

Hear, hear.

[Michel Bellehumeur, Bloc, Berthier—Montcalm, QC]

That being said, I will be delighted to support Bill C-216.

[Hugh Hanrahan, Reform, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I stand before my hon. colleagues and my constituents today to discuss Bill C-216, a private member's bill that changes the rules of the unemployment insurance program to allow unemployment insurance claimants to collect unemployment insurance benefits while they are serving on a jury.

Essentially, Bill C-216 if passed would change only six words in the Unemployment Insurance Act. These changes include the removal of the word "or" in section 14 and include the words "or engaged in jury service" in the same section.

The question that needs to be addressed is why are we spending all this time discussing these six words. The answer to this question is simple. If these six words were changed, the initial intention of the Unemployment Insurance Act would have been pushed even farther from its original purpose.

Section 14 of the Unemployment Insurance Act states clearly: "A claimant is not entitled to receive benefits for any working day for which he or she is unable to prove capability to work and availability for work or is unable to prove incapability because of prescribed illness, injury, or quarantine. A claimant engaged in jury duty is considered unavailable under section 14 of the act and is therefore disentitled from benefits".

This statement makes it indisputably clear that the framers of the original unemployment act saw that the UI system was not to include those individuals who were called to do their civic duty and perform jury duty.

The Reform Party unequivocally supports the return of the Unemployment Insurance Act to its original function, an employer/employee funded and administered program to provide temporary income in the event of unexpected job loss.

This has been our policy since the late 1980s. Canadians are tired of supporting habitual and seasonal abusers of unemployment insurance. Many people would say that Bill C-216 would become another case of abuse of the great Canadian social security system as it could lead to employers laying off employees who must serve jury duty so that these individuals would be able to collect otherwise uncollectable unemployment insurance.

The potential for abuse is alarmingly clear. When the unemployment insurance system is not used as it was initially designed, Canadians suffer because the present inequities in the UI system which have developed permanently lower disposable income of those who hold full time jobs in regions of some economic strength.

It permanently depresses the rate of job creation among all the firms whose costs are increased by the UI payroll tax. It subsidizes the immobility of labour in ways that seriously hurt the younger generations as parents do not face the incentives they should to move to regions where private sector job opportunities are much more numerous and diverse.

According to the figures provided by my hon. colleague for Restigouche-Chaleur, the implementation of this amendment to the Unemployment Insurance Act, the changing of only six words, would add in the neighbourhood of $2 million to $3 million to the unemployment insurance claims. A $2 million to $3 million tab would be absorbed by employers and employees

across the country. They are already losing nearly 40 per cent of their pay cheques through one type of taxation or another.

I truly question the willingness of Canadians to absorb this sum of money, especially when considering our fiscal situation where we as a nation are nearly $535 billion in debt and are paying nearly $40 billion in interest payments annually to service this astronomical debt.

It is for this reason that if employers and employees who pay for the UI program had a say in how their money was being spent, I do not think they would agree to provide benefits to claimants while they are serving on a jury.

The law is simple, clear and concise. If a UI claimant is serving on a jury they are not available for work and therefore not entitled to unemployment insurance benefits. For too long now the fundamental insurance principles have been compromised so that unemployment insurance is seen more like a form of welfare than a form of insurance.

In the words of Tommy Douglas: "We are not interested in paying able bodied people merely because they were not able to find work. We proposed social aid for those who are unable to work because they were crippled, aged or mentally ill. Those who are able to work would participate in public work projects".

Welfare and unemployment insurance are not a right in Canada and furthermore unemployment insurance is exactly what the name indicates. It is an insurance program and not a seasonal employment or special compensation package.

Workers should only be entitled to unemployment insurance provided they qualify and meet certain obligations. One of these obligations is that they are ready, able and willing to work; work immediately, not tomorrow or the next day or the next week, but immediately.

As I mentioned earlier the unemployment insurance program must be returned to a true insurance program. We should look at other insurance programs to see how they operate and perhaps we as a government could learn a lesson or two from the private sector. Perhaps our national unemployment insurance program should indeed be based on a user pay system such as household or automobile insurance where the more we use our insurance the more our premiums increase and, conversely, the less we use our insurance the less our premiums become.

This type of user pay based system is not solely for employees. It would also relate back to employers as those employers who regularly lay off workers would also have to pay higher premiums as well.

It is clear that this bill is taking us down the wrong direction. We should be looking at ways to make the unemployment insurance as well as government programs sustainable and self-sufficient. Bill C-216 is not even close to achieving this goal or even starting us down the right path.

I want to state clearly that while there may be a problem of fair compensation to individuals who serve on a jury regardless of their employment status, we do not believe that minor changes to the Unemployment Insurance Act is the way to accomplish or change this inequity.

We are not the only ones with this view. In fact a few of our supporters include the policy experts at the department of unemployment insurance and research branch of the Library of Parliament. The department of unemployment insurance comments that the problem is not with the UI rules but rather the poor compensation provided for jurors. The Library of Parliament wrote: "The primary issue in this matter seems to be adequate remuneration for jury duty and that is the responsibility of the provinces rather than the employers and employees who contribute to the unemployment insurance program".

Ultimately then, rather than adjusting the Unemployment Insurance Act the Reform Party proposes that judges should use their discretion to excuse UI claimants from jury duty as has been done in the past. Again, I think it is crucial to state the obvious which is those who serve on jury are perhaps not fairly compensated. On this point I am sure all of us in this House can agree.

As my hon. colleague from Yorkton-Melville stated in the House it is inexcusable that jurors are asked to work for days, weeks, and in some cases even months for $15 or $20 a day. I believe, as does the Reform Party, in equality and fairness and above all common sense. For that reason it is clear that this issue of appropriate compensation for jurors must be addressed.

However, we also believe in decreasing overlap and duplication between governments. Essentially we believe in staying out of the provincial arena and the issue of juror compensation falls 100 per cent under provincial jurisdiction. For these reasons we will be unable to support this bill.

Finally, I would like to move:

That the motion be amended by striking out all the words after the word "That" and substituting the following:

"Bill C-216, an act to amend the Unemployment Insurance Act (jury service), be not now read a third time and that the order be discharged, the bill withdrawn, and the subject matter thereof referred to the Standing Committee on Human Resources Development.

[The Deputy Speaker]

The Chair should indicate that the motion is receivable.